@racqueteer
MSSMX UP another 5.31% today. Time to look a little deeper under the hood of this freight train.
And...at what level do "finder's fees" apply? ;^)

Have I traveled in time back to the 1980s? Where's the DeLorean?
American Century introduced its A shares mostly in the late 90s, and at least one, ALPAX, after 1999, but I get your point.
What a surprise...three of the better Royce funds. Legg Mason, a true fiduciary
Franklin Templeton. LM is just a subsidiary now, albeit semi-autonomous.
I thought it was strange that Royce would start to offer "A" share class
See above. Franklin Templeton is coordinating breakpoints across multiple brands of its funds: "Certain financial intermediaries may allow you to combine multiple purchases of shares of certain Royce, Franklin Templeton, and Legg Mason funds to take advantage of the breakpoints in the sales charge schedule for A Class shares."
Yeah I'm going to run right out and buy a 5.25% loaded fund in 2021. LOL
Actually, if you want any of these funds, you may very well run out and buy the A shares, though load-waived. "Shareholders purchasing A Class shares through certain financial intermediaries or in certain types of accounts may be eligible for a waiver of the sales charge"
That's what's key here. Often what happens (see Lewis' 1980s funds) is that the retail class is restricted (closed, or made into an institutional class, or ...), and one winds up purchasing A shares, load waived, with their added 12b-1 fee.
Even now, if one wants to buy PENNX at Fidelity or at Schwab, one will pay a transaction fee. You can buy RYPFX (service class shares) with its 12b-1 fee, same ER as the new A shares, NTF.

Nice piece. Some things I might state a little differently, but a good presentation.
I would point out that all projections use models. Bengen used a model (past is prologue; assume that the future will repeat one of the past patterns). With some models, it's easy to calculate outcomes directly. For example, with a linear model (x% return per year, $N withdrawn/year), one can calculate exactly how much an investor will have at the end of each year. Other models are harder to "solve", so numeric methods are used to get approximate values.
One numeric method used to solve models is Monte Carlo. It just "runs" the model many times to see what outcomes occur at what frequencies. For example, suppose I model a coin flip as a 50/50 proposition. What is the distribution of outcomes if I flip the coin four times?
I could simply compute the combinations:
4 Heads (1/16) HHHH
3 Heads (4/16) HHHT, HHTH, HTHH, THHH
2 Heads (6/16) HHTT, HTHT, THHT, HTTH, THTH, TTHH
1 Head (4/16) HTTT, THTT, TTHT, TTTH
0 Heads (1/16) TTTT
Or I could run a Monte Carlo simulation, flipping a virtual coin 4 times over and over, and counting the number of times I got 4 heads, 3 heads, etc. Same model, two completely different approaches to "solving" it. Running a Monte Carlo simulation is merely a mechanism to solve the model.
What's key is the model itself. If I'm flipping a biased coin (the stock market wins more than it loses over the long term), then the model above (50/50) is garbage in, garbage out.
The model above was probabilistic, yet I could solve it without using a Monte Carlo simulation. So I try to take care in differentiating the model (hard to get right) from the use of the model to predict outcomes (easy).
This aside, the points made in the article are well stated. It's not just that tweaking parameters of a model can result in major changes in the predicted outcome, but also that the model itself may not be good. When you use a free "Monte Carlo tool", you're getting is a built-in model.
"the client only gets one shot at retirement. ... And if your plan can succeed in the worst-case scenario that should provide some degree of comfort."
This gets us to interpreting the forecasts. Even if they are accurate (i.e. good model, good choice of parameter values), what use does one make of the outputs? On the one hand, a possibility of failure, no matter how slim, can be viewed as unacceptable. OTOH, if one plans for the perfect storm, the once in a century possibility (like, say, a pandemic), then one is almost surely going to underspend/oversave by a lot.
So "all plans, even those with a 95% probability of success, require spending adjustments along the way."

little5bee said: "I wonder if the outperformance is from buying distressed funds..."
I don't have a clue what the manager's secret sauce is, but SVARX's "outperformance" since its inception in 2013 seems to indicate that he knows what he is doing. Besides, he has over $1 million of his own money in the fund.
M* ranks the fund #1 in the "non-traditional" bond category for 1, 3 and 5 years, and MFO gave it a "Golden Owl" and put it on its Honor Roll.
During the past 5 years, its largest monthly loss was 1.28% in May of 2019, and during last year's market crash, SVARX actually gained 0.97% in February and lost only 0.92% in March. With a pleasing standard deviation of 5.36% and an excellent Sortino ratio of 4.94, what's not to like?
The fund has certainly made me good money and I will, of course, keep a close eye on it. If the manager should loose his Midas touch at some point, I will not hesitate to press the sell button.
Good luck,
Fred

Yeah I'm going to run right out and buy a 5.25% loaded fund in 2021. LOL

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/709364/000094937721000020/g75042_485a.htm
Royce Premier Fund
Royce Pennsylvania Mutual Fund
Royce Special Equity Fund

Ya, I guess with Dr Hussman the old saying, I'd rather be rich than right comes to mind. Have to state, if you read his commentary, directionally it makes a lot of rational sense...kind of the opposite of GME, Gamestop, ARK moonshot investing, etc.
Candidly, I always found it interesting that those who did NOT sell in 08'-09' and just held were considered "smart investors". As I recall at the time, the market could have easily lost another 50% at the lows, no one knew that the Bernake and the Fed were going to implement QE. Back then saw many "wise" investors come back to work after they retired as they "buy and hold'ed" and got sawed in half, 401k to 201k, home values plummeted, dangerous, frightening times...remember talk one weekend of the entire financial system locking up...thank goodness Paulsen saved us (sarc or did he really?)
I'm more interested in HSAFX than the older growth fund HSGFX...the former being more of an allocation fund. That being said I can't seem to purchase HSAFX thru Schwab. I think it's going to take combo of technical, trend and valuation investing skill sets and sure, pure luck to make sustainable money in the markets this year.
Best,
Baseball Fan

@davidmoran @stillers - Your criticism is also less than actionable and lowers rather elevates. Shut up and Move on.

Har. Touchy and proprietary, are we?
So ... can you do an executive summary of this silly thing? What are its takeaways, since you find my snark 'less than actionable'?
His cherrypicking aside, not to mention the comedy bronze of his admission 'This was on the price level only' and his duh observation that cash outperforms bears, I wonder about some of the assertions.
>> 4. From 1969-1981, the stock market underperformed the rate of inflation by more than 56%. The total return for the S&P 500 from 1969-1981 was 105%. Not bad, right?
>> Well, that depends on how you think about returns. Prices rose more than 160% in that same time, meaning the stock market lost roughly 2% annually on a real basis.
Well, unless I am missing something,
http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/fund/chart.action?t=ffidx
shows that SP500 from summer '69 to summer '81 (I don't know what his exact endpoints are) rose from $10k to >$25k. Meanwhile,
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
shows, for the same timespan or close, that $10k inflated to <$25k.
So wtf? Maybe some editor shoulda asked him for his cites and sites.
And what's with the Japan wackiness? And what's with the risk tautology hindsight at the end?
In other areas this is called portfolio churning or tirespinning. Or having a column due. And the guy manages portfolios at Ritholtz. 'Wealth of common sense' indeed.

I had a financial adviser tell me once that holding gold bars in one's house made no sense as what's to stop someone from coming to the goldbug's house and beating that person to death with their own bars? Banks exist so one doesn't have to deal with those security issues. I guess rubies are easier to conceal. But there is a technological problem in 2021: https://scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3043892/will-cartier-and-other-luxury-brands-start-using-more-lab Would someone just accept rubies, even fake ones, without being an expert in 2021? Maybe the thing to do is buy fake rubies and pass them off as real when trying to escape.
Still, if you know the history of fascism--which the riot on capitol hill was all about--seeking to overturn a democratic election via pure violence--as opposed to democratic socialism--nowhere even close to that in the U.S.--diamonds and gold sometimes helped people escape and sometimes they didn't. Biden is no socialist. Taxes will go up almost certainly, but given the debt trajectory Trump had the country on previously, taxes were bound to go up anyway. But having any taxation, contrary to popular belief, is not socialism.
As for Hussman, he's a smart guy who's been wrong. He's bound to be right eventually as davfor points out. But in investing if a manager's timing is way off on a macro prediction, he is wrong. One thing I never quite understood regarding HSGFX is it was supposed to use both valuation and technical momentum driven signals to go long or hedge the market exposure. Despite the high valuations we've seen, I would've expected some of the fund to be long--or 50% long-- given the momentum we've also seen. Perhaps the reason it was often fully hedged--and I may be answering my own question here--is that while the market was always rallying, it was a narrow rally of a few giant stocks driving the market's returns. So perhaps Hussman felt that there wasn't enough breadth in the rallies to go partially long.

T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth ETF
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1795351/000174177321000034/c497.htm
497 1 c497.htm
T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth ETF
Supplement to Prospectus Dated June 23, 2020
In section 1, the portfolio manager table under “Management” is supplemented as follows:
Effective October 1, 2021, Larry J. Puglia will step down as a portfolio manager and Chair of the fund’s Investment Advisory Committee. Paul D. Greene II will succeed Mr. Puglia to become portfolio manager of the fund and Chair of the fund’s Investment Advisory Committee. Mr. Greene joined T. Rowe Price in 2006.
In section 2, the disclosure under “Portfolio Management” is supplemented as follows:
Effective October 1, 2021, Larry J. Puglia will step down as a portfolio manager and Chair of the fund’s Investment Advisory Committee. Paul D. Greene II will succeed Mr. Puglia to become portfolio manager of the fund and Chair of the fund’s Investment Advisory Committee.
During the past five years, Mr. Greene has served as a portfolio manager for other
T. Rowe Price Funds and has assisted the portfolio manager in managing the fund since inception as an associate portfolio manager. He joined the Firm in 2006 and his investment experience dates from that time.
The date of this supplement is January 26, 2021.
ETF785-041 1/26/21

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/902259/000174177321000031/c497.htm
497 1 c497.htm
T. Rowe Price Funds
Supplement to the following Prospectuses, each as dated below (as supplemented):
May 1, 2020
T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth Portfolio
December 15, 2020
T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth Fund
In section 1, the portfolio manager table under “Management” is supplemented as follows:
Effective October 1, 2021, Larry J. Puglia will step down as a portfolio manager and Chair of the fund’s Investment Advisory Committee. Paul D. Greene II will succeed Mr. Puglia to become portfolio manager of the fund and Chair of the fund’s Investment Advisory Committee. Mr. Greene joined T. Rowe Price in 2006.
In section 2, the disclosure under “Portfolio Management” is supplemented as follows:
Effective October 1, 2021, Larry J. Puglia will step down as a portfolio manager and Chair of the fund’s Investment Advisory Committee. Paul D. Greene II will succeed Mr. Puglia to become portfolio manager of the fund and Chair of the fund’s Investment Advisory Committee.
During the past five years, Mr. Greene has served as a portfolio manager for other
T. Rowe Price Funds and has assisted the portfolio manager in managing the fund since January 1, 2020 as an associate portfolio manager. He joined the Firm in 2006 and his investment experience dates from that time.
The date of this supplement is January 26, 2021.
G24-041 1/26/21

...the fate of the most ambitious climate agenda ever proposed by an American president rests in his hands...Sen. Joe Manchin III

Deal Making Required

@Observant1 Same here. +0.07% on the day, Monday, 25 January, 2021.

...But look instead at the "snapshot" view of the fund, and you'll see that the actual daily performance was +1.75%.
(The lovely geniuses in charge stopped offering hard-currency amounts in that space, long ago. Percentage is offered, only.) .....MARKETWATCH shows the per share rise in actual dollars and cents to be +$1.61. And that info is available FOR FREE.

There is a way to coax the rise or fall of a fund in dollars and cents out of M* FOR FREE. Type the ticker into the search box in the upper left corner of the page. If you're lucky and you wait a little while, a dropdown will appear with the fund name, closing price, and change in price. No percentage change, though.

"The stock market is near record highs, and optimism abounds. Coronavirus vaccines are finally getting jabbed into arms. Interest rates are at historic lows. And the Democrats who control Washington are expected to pour another trillion dollars or so into the still-struggling economy.
But it’s getting increasingly difficult to overlook signs that investors are taking things too far, too fast.
The latest signal is from the somewhat obscure market for stock options, where traders can place bets with brokers that a stock will rise or fall. Speculation has reached a frenzied level not seen since the tail end of the dot-com boom two decades ago. That enthusiasm is having a growing influence over the regular stock market itself.
“If you’re betting on sports, the amount of people on one side of the bet or another can only influence the odds, not the outcome,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers in Greenwich, Conn., a major options brokerage. “In the case of options, it can actually change the outcome.”"
NY Times Article by Matt Phillips

It doesn't appear that the market is getting "crushed".
MarketWatch percentage change info for today:
Nasdaq +0.41%
S&P 500 +0.13%
DJIA -0.28%

Taking a look at inflation prospects:
The Economic Outlook: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

From a January 16 discussion at MFO.

@msf makes good points and my take-away is that we as shareholders learn late in the game what a manager’s strategy might be (or was at a point in the past). Most MF prospecti give latitude to permit an active manager to shift back and forth between growth and value, or cash and fully invested, etc. It’s nice when a fund stays true to its advertised mandate, but I suspect purity suffers in the face of markets that refuse to follow some wonk’s thinking. Once I find a fund I like, I’m inclined to let management pick the stocks.
There are stocks and countries in EM indices that do defy pigeon-holing. When I lived in Seoul in 1980-1 the excavations for the subway line revealed that underground sewer pipes were nothing more than 55-gallon drums welded together. Korea really was emerging then. Today a visitor would be struck by the modernity of the city whereas the former resident might be trying to mentally resurrect the missing odor of sewage gas that once assaulted the nostrils in the capital. One steps off the plane in New Delhi, OTOH, and one smells an acrid smoke, a combination of industrial pollutants and the open fires burning in the streets to warm people and to cook their meals. Maybe Korea should not be in EM funds, but Taiwan is pretty modern, also.