PRPFX prospectus describes risks of holding gold/silver bullion and coins. https://www.permanentportfoliofunds.com/pdf/Prospectus.pdf
"The gold and silver bullion and bullion-type coins held by the Portfolio’s subcustodian on behalf of the Portfolio could be lost, damaged, stolen or destroyed. Access to the Portfolio’s gold and silver holdings could also be restricted by natural events (such as an earthquake) or human actions (such as a terrorist attack). The gold and silver custody operations of the subcustodian are not subject to specific governmental regulatory supervision. The subcustodian’s procedures may not prevent the deposit of gold or silver on behalf of the Portfolio that fails to meet the purity standards agreed to at the time of purchase. The Portfolio does not insure its gold and silver holdings and the responsibility of the Portfolio’s custodian and any subcustodian for loss, damage or destruction of the Portfolio’s gold and silver holdings is very limited under the agreements governing the custody and subcustody arrangements. In addition, if the Portfolio’s gold and silver bullion and bullion-type coins are lost, damaged, stolen or destroyed under circumstances rendering the custodian, any subcustodian or any other third party liable to the Portfolio (or the custodian or any subcustodian), the responsible party may not have the financial resources (including liability insurance coverage) sufficient to satisfy such claim. Consequently, the value of the Portfolio’s shares may be adversely affected by loss, damage or destruction to the bullion and bullion- type coins for which the Portfolio may not be reimbursed. When holding bullion, the Portfolio may encounter higher custody and other costs than those normally associated with ownership of securities. Gains realized upon the sale of bullion or bullion-type coins will not count towards the requirement in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (“Code”), that at least 90% of the Portfolio’s gross income in each taxable year be derived from gains on the sale of securities and certain other permitted sources, except to the extent that the Portfolio has invested in bullion as a hedge with respect to investment in the securities of companies engaged in mining gold or silver."

At LewisBraham. His 15 year streak ended in 2006. A remarkable achievement. Think that record will ever be broken? Seems unlikely. Who was Bill Miller?

Topics this Month:
Hitting Your Retirement Savings Goal
5 Things to know about the New RMD Rules & Secure 2.0
20 Years of Target Date Funds
Non Financial Aspects of Retirement
Investor Insight Magazine

Use the incessant annual/interim articles to help you identify which PMs/funds are the ones that consistently outperform their benchmarks.

That is the problem in a nutshell, though. There are virtually no funds--perhaps none at all--that consistently outperform their benchmarks, especially in the large-cap U.S. stock space. Even the best funds often have lumpy performance, and many investors, including investors on this board, can't psychologically handle that lumpy performance when the fund is having a bout of significant underperformance. In fact, the lack of consistency is one reason the stats of underperformance versus the S&P 500 long-term are so high. The fund that outperforms the S&P 500 this year will very rarely be the same as the fund that outperforms it in the next. Meanwhile the fee drag of active management is consistent year after year and is utterly predictable. It is the most predictable thing about active management. Over time the outperformance of big up years can't overcome the cumulative effect of that fee drag for almost every large-cap fund. And even when the fund can overcome the fee drag many of its investors don't enjoy it because psychologically they buy and sell the fund at the wrong times, chasing its hot performance and bailing out of it at the bottom.
I would add that the referenced PRWAX has also not consistently beaten its benchmark even in calendar years, let alone rolling ones. Morningstar benchmarks it against a Large Growth index and T. Rowe benchmarks it against the Russell 3000. In both cases, there are lagging years:
https://troweprice.com/financial-intermediary/us/en/investments/mutual-funds/us-products/all-cap-opportunities-fund.html In fact, the fund has lagged its T. Rowe-chosen Russell 3000 benchmark in both 2022 and 2021 as well as 2016 and 2014--lumpy but strong overall performance.
Fun Trivia question: What fund manager holds the record for beating the S&P 500 the most consecutive calendar years in a row? The old-timers here should know. The answer in a way explains why you can't really put much faith in most active managers long-term.
Finally, I would note that the best use of a consistent alpha metric--as opposed to an intermittent alpha one--might be for identifying fraud. There is probably something fishy going on with a fund that beats its benchmark every single year. I bet Madoff had some really high alpha.

This post is NOT in direct response to ANY particular prior post.
So we're near the end of two pages of discussion on this topic and not ONE time has the term "alpha" been stated and no attempts have been made to assert its relevance/importance in this discussion. (Another reason why I generally find worthless the annual/interim discussions of the performance of all stock funds vs indexes.)
So then...
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/alpha.asp
Excerpt:
What Is Alpha?
Alpha (α) is a term used in investing to describe an investment strategy's ability to beat the market, or its "edge." Alpha is thus also often referred to as “excess return” or “abnormal rate of return,” which refers to the idea that markets are efficient, and so there is no way to systematically earn returns that exceed the broad market as a whole. Alpha is often used in conjunction with beta (the Greek letter β), which measures the broad market's overall volatility or risk, known as systematic market risk.
Alpha is used in finance as a measure of performance, indicating when a strategy, trader, or portfolio manager has managed to beat the market return over some period. Alpha, often considered the active return on an investment, gauges the performance of an investment against a market index or benchmark that is considered to represent the market’s movement as a whole.
The excess return of an investment relative to the return of a benchmark index is the investment’s alpha. Alpha may be positive or negative and is the result of active investing. Beta, on the other hand, can be earned through passive index investing.
Please temporarily couch your bias for/against Zack's. Just using a page of theirs below to illustrate the relevance/importance of it in this discussion, and in the scoping of funds that consistently outperform benchmarks.
https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/2079438/is-t-rowe-price-all-cap-opportunities-fund-prwax-a-strong-mutual-fund-pick-right-now?cid=CS-YAHOO-FT-mutual_fund_equity_report-2079438
Excerpt:
Risk Factors
With a 5-year beta of 1, the fund is likely to be as volatile as the market average. Another factor to consider is alpha, as it reflects a portfolio's performance on a risk-adjusted basis relative to a benchmark-in this case, the S&P 500. Over the past 5 years, the fund has a positive alpha of 2.72. This means that managers in this portfolio are skilled in picking securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/fund-screener/results/compare/overview/averageAnnualReturnsYear3/desc/1?order=&tickers=PRWAX,FXAIX
FWIW, PRWAX beats the S&P for ALL SIX YTD-to-Life interim periods. We are current and LT holders of PRWAX (drumroll) because of its alpha and those results.
Bottom Line: Use the incessant annual/interim articles to help you identify which PMs/funds are the ones that consistently outperform their benchmarks. Avoid concentrating on the headline news that, um, duh, most of them don't.

Nicholas Fund. Third ave value. Sogen international. Mutual shares. Of course Fidelity Magellan. Those are just the ones I can remember. But they come and they go.

CNN/Money, THE BEST MUTUAL FUNDS Here Are the Pros' Choices for the Next Decade, October 12, 1987.
The text is presented in a single, unbroken, stream of sentences, so I don't recommend reading. A few highlights:
"Although the managers we interviewed were divided on when a market downturn would come, almost all agreed that one is long overdue. When it does happen, many fear stock prices could sink 20% to 40%".
The dateline of the piece is Oct 12, 1987. Black Monday was exactly one week later, when the Dow dropped 22.6% in a single day. That was after selloffs Oct 14-16 that resulted in the Dow declining 4.6%.
https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/stock-market-crash-of-1987
Results:
1. VWNDX, then managed for 23 years by John Neff (age 56). Had a wide lead over #2 winner.
2. MUTHX, then managed by Max Heine and Michael Price (age 36). Money says that Price had been managing with Heine for 13 years, which would date back to his joining Heine Securities in 1975. Money also describes Price as the principal manager. But the 1995 prospectus for the fund says that Price had been managing the day-to-day operations for five years (i.e. starting around 1990).
" In contrast to our top two funds, both of which employ a primarily conservative (and contrarian) approach, eight of the top 10 ... are either aggressive growth or long-term growth funds."
3. NICSX - managed by founder
3. (tie) ACRNX - managed by founder, Ralph Wanger
5. SEQUX - managed by founder
6. PENNX
7. Evergreen Fund - managed by founder
This fund is hard to trace. Evergreen funds were owned by First Union Corp. (banking company), which merged into Wachovia in 2001, which was acquired by Wells Fargo in 2008. Somewhere along that line the Evergreen fund may have gotten renamed or merged into another Evergreen or Keystone fund.
Evergreen was so scandal-ridden (e.g. 2001-2003 trading abuses, 2008 ultra short bond mispricings), not to mention merely being owned by Wells Fargo, that it's no surprise one cannot find a trace of it now. I especially like the lead in the CBS piece on the ultrashort bond fund: "There's really only one word that can be used to describe people who engaged in the sorts of activities Evergreen is accused of: crooks."
8. FMAGX. "(up 1,795% to July 1 [for past 10 years], compared with 590% for Windsor). ... . One of the reasons for Magellan's downgrading is that the fund, like many growth seekers that remain fully invested in stocks at all times, is likely to stumble in declining markets."
VPMCX, only 3 years old at the time, came in at #12.
Perhaps a good summary of attitudes at the time is this part of the text:

low in our experts' esteem were index funds -- the increasingly popular vehicles that aim to match the returns of a major market barometer such as the S&P 500. Ralph Wanger, manager of the third-place Acorn Fund, was the one maverick in our survey, awarding a vote to Vanguard's $900 million no- load Index Trust, up 27.3% for the six months to July 1, compared with 27.4% for the S&P 500 that it attempts to duplicate. Says Wanger: ''At least you're assured of approximating the market averages with an index fund. The S& P 500 is one tough bogey."

”Our brains are wired to send us immediate signals of fear and reward when we witness stock market volatility. Adrenaline and dopamine rushes cloud our judgment as we weigh the risks and benefits of our options. Ignoring fear or delaying instant gratification is incredibly difficult because it demands that we go against our instinctual behaviors.”
From - Retraining Your Brain
Article quotes Buffet as saying you shouldn’t buy anything you wouldn’t be willing to own for 10 years. I think that gage is a good starting point. I don’t like following more than 20 different holdings, so that’s enough to motivate me to dampen down the trading.

Speaking of the devil: https://morningstar.com/articles/1147033/why-investment-complexity-is-not-your-friend

CFG Bank out of Baltimore. 12 and 18 months available: $500 minimum. Must fund it by ACH. Must be able to upload DL. Deal-breaker for me. Rate: 5.08% and yield = 5.2%.
https://originate.cfg.bank/TeaOGDZRznczU20/getting-started/landing-page
https://www.cfg.bank/personal-banking/personal-deposit-rates/
EDIT: DL upload not essential. I tried it. The process did allow me to go forward, though I did not finish. Not ready.

@larryB, I am familiar with those names you mentioned. Many changes but the most notable are:
1. Sogen International is still around but with a different name, First Eagle. This family of fund is excellent. Jean-Marie Eveillard retired and replaced by a team led by Matthew McLennan.
2. Mutual Series funds was sold to Franklin Templeton. Micheal Price passed away in 2022. They still do okay but nowhere as good as those days back in the 90's.

Thanks everyone. Your inputs are most valuable since I am still new with precious metals. Since COVID I hold about 5-10% gold stock, IAU, just to reduce the portfolio volatility. Sold some when it reached over $2000 an ounce and bought more when it down at $1,800. If @sma3 is right, the fight over debt ceiling is coming. Hope both sides can resolve this. So far, it serves as a good diversifier to stocks and bonds with little correlation.

Friend bought one mill $$ pure gold bars last wk from Texas precious metals

Hope @johnN's friend has some place safe to store them.

I’ll be honest. I don’t think anyone who posts on this active board could handle the boredom of owning an indexed asset allocation or target date fund for the entirety of their portfolio, even if it might be good for our investment health in the long-term. It would be like eating broccoli at every meal, and that’s despite the fact that I rather like broccoli.

+1
Or stuck with warm Bavarian wheat beer day after day.
Maybe in education parlance - Accept the class for what it is, not what you would like it to be. :)

@yogibearbull
Hi sir - two separate accts
Tsp: all tsp fund divided evenly- s i c and tsp L2040 L2045 L2050, 10% G fund
Sep Ira: @ Vanguard have Vang 2040 2050 and also Iwm vo voo etc other vehicles mentioned (tsla snow lcid Pltr etc)
Thank you for the clarification
Did not pay attention if LFunds in tsp are more conservative than target date fund in Vang or fidelity etc... Thank you for pointing it out

@LewisAbraham... Sir try a little cover call iron condors or csp
Definitely spite it up
Do tqqq Tna Tsla soxl soxs
Keep you at the chart bench from markwt open until end weekday if you have free time lol
1-3% of mine swing trades csp or cc (mostly csp)
Csp cc Delta 10 15 definitely worth a look

@Sven - Picking up on what Mike said, ETFs that invest in the physical metal are less risky (or, at least less volatile) than funds that invest in gold mining companies. So the metal itself experiences less volatility than a group of mining companies inside a fund might. But, longer term there’s more potential profit in the mining companies. I’ve seen anywhere from 3-8% recommended by various observers as the “right” portfolio exposure. And some won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.
The Permanent Portfolio fund, PRPFX, keeps 25% in gold and silver bullion. And, honestly, I don’t know how they manage to do that and still keep the fund’s volatility as low as they do. That’s one option for those seeking modest exposure to the precious metals. And, a lot of natural resource funds also hold some - usually only in small proportion.
The biggest problem with gold is its utter unpredictability. 50%+ multi-year gains followed by 30% or greater multi-year declines are not unheard of.
2000 + 50% = 3,000
3,000 - 30% = 2,100
:)

@MikeM, you're right that FMIJX has been less volatile long term than either ARTYX or ARTKX, but keep in mind that all Artisan funds aren't alike. Some basic stats, ARTYX vs. ARTKX:
ARTYX: SD 27.7, Avg/Hi return:risk in category, negative alpha.
ARTKX: SD 18.6, Hi/Avg return:risk in category, alpha of +8.

:) That’s mean @MikeM.
Yes, I pulled out the limited amount I’d had in PRWCX sometime in 2022. Reasons were complex. (1) I had many more opportunities at Fido than when constrained to TRP’s in-house funds in the past. (2) I revamped my portfolio early in ‘22 to encompass several alternative type funds as a risk mitigation measure. So, basically I consolidated the remaining PRWCX money into another similar fund. Rest assured the move had nothing to do with not wanting a “rock-star” manager.

”If I own a volatile fund, I expect it to go down more than the market. But I also look for it to more than make up that underperformance on the upswing. And I'll wait that out, unless there are specific reasons for me to doubt the fund or the management going forward.”
We’ve discussed in the past that this approach works if one has socked away an amount of cash sufficient to outlast a multi-year bear market so they don’t need to pull money out of a deeply depressed equity portfolio. Folks have mentioned holding anywhere from 3 years worth all the way out to 5 or more years worth of cash. If I remember correctly, @msf is one who does that . Different strokes. I don’t hold a cash reserve (but do have a pension), so my inclination is more to limit big swings in investment portfolio. The “upside” would be that I’m 100% invested all the time.
BTW - The folks that hold a lot of reserve cash have done very well the last couple years. I never could have envisioned 2 or 3 years ago the kind of returns cash / cash-like investments have delivered the past couple years. To have anticipated that requires one with more intelligence and foresight than I possess. Wasn’t it only 2 years ago that Powell was describing inflation as “transient.”?

...It had net outflows of about $1.6 billion...

@hank, I saw that this morning and immediately thought of you. I thought maybe a pretty good chunk of that was from you pulling out :)
edit: for the record, I've actually increased my stake in PRWCX to just under 30% of my self-managed portfolio. For better or worst do we part.

Hi @Sven. Well, the 7% might be misleading. It's 7% of my self-managed portfolio. I've mentioned before, 1/2 my money is in a robo, 1/2 I manage. I've held gold in the 3-6% range since covid. I started this year at about 3%. I do think it has legs, so my plan has been to push the percentage to 10%.
Honestly, I don't see gold ETFs as a major risk, any more so than stocks are now. If you said PM/miner funds, I'd totally agree. That volatility isn't for me - anymore.