The selloff is from lofty levels. The “dippers” seem to be off-line again today. A few months ago I (teasingly) wagered one the Dow would dip to under 34,000 by end of 2021. I’d have lost that wager. But goes to show how high the markets remain.
About a 1.5% dip today across most markets mid morning. Oil is very hot due to tensions in the Middle East and over Ukraine. Gold’s flat, but silver shot up. SLV was more than 2% higher last look. Bonds are getting the blame. 10 year was up to 1.85% last night. Suspect it will drop back by day’s end.
I’m watching ARKK to see if its steep dive will level off before it crashes and burns. But it’s down more than the average market loss today. To some extent I think money has been rushing to perceived “safer” investments (ie from aggressive growth and tech to value and preferred stocks). Might be the right move. But it might also be akin to seeking safety on a sinking ship by climbing to the upper levels. :)
For the literary minded, one of my favorite Hemingway passages:
“Once in camp I put a log on a fire and it was full of ants. As it commenced to burn, the ants swarmed out and went first toward the center where the fire was; then turned back and ran toward the end. When there were enough on the end they fell off into the fire. Some got out, their bodies burnt and flattened, and went off not knowing where they were going. But most of them went toward the fire and then back toward the end and swarmed on the cool end and finally fell off into the fire. I remember thinking at the time that it was the end of the world and a splendid chance to be a messiah and lift the log off the fire and throw it out where the ants could get off onto the ground. But I did not do anything but throw a tin cup of water on the log, so that I would have the cup empty to put whiskey in before I added water to it. I think the cup of water on the burning log only steamed the ants.”

Will 5G be the next drag on the markets & to what extent. Pilots vow not to fly with 5G turned on within 2 miles of airport.
check out the news, Derf

There is quite a range YTD among the moderate-allocation funds (50-70% equity) with DODBX at the top, JABAX at the bottom, multi-asset FMSDX in the middle.
https://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=DODBX&compare=BALFX,FBALX,JABAX,FMSDX&id=p76434655482

Thank you for confirming the data. Both financial and energy sectors are ahead of S&P 500 by several % so far this year. The short stock is labeled as hedged equities in D&C recent Shareholder Letter.

the Fund holds a short S&P 500 futures position with a notional value of approximately 4.1% of the Fund’s total net assets.

https://dodgeandcox.com/pdf/shareholder_reports/dc_balanced_letter.pdf
D&C Stock fund is also ahead of the VG value index by several %.

Look, I wasn't trying to make any point other than I already hold a real estate fund. Period. RQI isn't for everyone anymore than CPREX is. Also I don't expect any one particular fund to repeat one year's performance anymore than I expect it to bounce around like a yoyo. Last year it worked, who knows what it will do this year. All I do usually is devote 5-10% of my portfolio to the real estate sector.

I have checked the data from several sources and DODBX seems to have some good luck positioning YTD. See chart, https://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=DODBX&compare=BALFX,VBINX&id=p52082935307

I too notice that DODBX is up while the balanced index is down, +3.2% vs -2.3%. Will see next week if that is a typo reported.

It’s nuts. DODBX is heavy into banks which are benefitting from the spike in interest rates. Throw in an overweight in refiners (reported about 2 years ago) and add a 5% short on the S&P (reported within the last 12 months) and you get a 3+% start to the new year. There’s some kind of sorting-out process taking place in the markets. We’ll see where it all leads …
Marty Zweig - “I’m nervous Lou. Very nervous.”

Too late for me. I moved into a real estate fund (RQI) over a year ago. Oh well.

And RQI may do well this year as well, but certainly not at a 56% clip...sometimes leverage works in your favor.
Here's a asset allocation heat map from Ben Carlson showing real estate at the top of the heap for 2021.
https://awealthofcommonsense.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Screenshot-2022-01-07-131143-1.png

I think it’s just a strange period. A lot of things don’t make sense. My equity / balanced funds have been outperforming my multi-asset alternatives while the major stock indexes have been falling - a complete reversal of the norm. Alternatives generally loose less in falling markets.
Alternatives:
TMSRX -2% YTD
ABRZX -1.86% YTD
QED -1.84% YTD
Equity & Bal.
DODBX +3.16% YT
FLJP +.50% YTD
RPGAX -1.60% YTD
Just an aberration I think. As the others may have noted, High Yield, Leveraged Loan, Floating Rate & Preferred are all more sensitive to credit risk and less sensitive to interest rate risk than are investment grade bonds. I own DODIX and am not worried about it. Sharp cookies there. Should be able to do better than cash over 3 year stints even in a mildly higher rate environment.

"Be aware that 60 day IRA transfers are restricted to one within a 365 day period, not within a calendar year. One could not, e.g. do a transfer 2/2/22 and then another on 1/12/23."
Yes, it's a 365 (or 366) day wait. "One year period" more specifically. Many sites (even some IRS ones) get this wrong, and say 12 month period, which is different! Or even say "per year", which is ambiguous. The Bobrow v. Commissioner 2014 ruling says "1 year period" and the IRS says subsequent IRS publications will "reflect the Bobrow interpretation of § 408(d)(3)(B)." Publication 590 specifically states:
"The 1-year period begins on the date you receive the IRA distribution, not on the date you roll it over into an IRA."
Worse yet, different parts of USC and other state and local laws definine "1-year period" differently. But as far as the IRS is concerned, it's from MM-DD-YYYY to MM-DD-YYYY+1 plus a day just to make sure ;-)

And notable Ahlsten / Parnassus quote: “ Value has done well out of the gate, but growth stocks could come back strongly in the second half as the yield curve flattens. People will rediscover that they want to own innovative companies, not slow-growth, narrow-moat, old-economy companies. Areas like semiconductors could do really well. Semis are 60 basis points of the global economy but bring intrinsic value to the table. Hyperscaled software providers, and innovative companies in healthcare, life sciences, and life-science tools all could do well as the economy slows. The second half could be almost the mirror image of the first half. The S&P 500 could end the year up by mid- to high-single digits.”
Black: “ I follow small- and mid-caps, as well. The small-cap Russell 2000 trades for 17 times forward earnings, but 39% of the companies in the index have no earnings. Thus, the Russell’s true P/E is about 28 times, as is the Nasdaq’s”

I do my one 60-day transfer a year
Be aware that 60 day IRA transfers are restricted to one within a 365 day period, not within a calendar year. One could not, e.g. do a transfer 2/2/22 and then another on 1/12/23.
https://www.irahelp.com/slottreport/what-year-means-when-it-comes-your-ira-rollover

Not a strategy. But I’ve uncovered a link to a trove of old Wall Street Week - With Louis Rukeyser shows which, of course, aired on PBS from some time in the 70s until the 90s. We all learn in different ways. For me this was the best “primer” I ever had in finance. What’s fascinating is that many of the programs seem as relevant to investors today as they were 30, 40, 50 years ago. I guess that’s because the basic principals underlying financial markets and good investing practices really don’t change much with time. Your grandson could do worse than to sit back and enjoy a few of these shows.
Best wishes to you and grandson
https://americanarchive.org/catalog?f[special_collections][]=wall-street-week&sort=asset_date+asc&f[access_types][]=online

Junk bonds are somewhat like hybrids - they rise and fall with stocks as well as with bonds. Here's Portfolio Visualizer's correlation matrix of USHY vs. AGG vs. SPY vs SPDO (IG corporate). USHY correlates much more closely with the S&P 500 than with the aggregate IG bond market.
USHY vs. AGG: 0.21
USHY vs. SPY: 0.48
SPDO vs. AGG: 0.80
SPDO vs. SPY: 0.48
When a fund correlates closely with a benchmark, then its beta tells you the volatility relative to the benchmark. With an R² of 0.64 relative to AGG, the beta of SPDO relative to AGG is reasonably meaningful. But with an R² of just 0.04, the beta of USHY relative to AGG is meaningless.
One can turn to standard deviation to get a sense of volatility independent of benchmark. Portfolio Visualizer says that the standard deviation of USHY is 8.26%, falling between that of SPY (16.71%) and SPDO (5.91%). Which is as one would expect - the lower the quality of a bond, the less it behaves like a high grade bond.
IG corporates, while relatively high grade, still carry issuer risk, unlike the AAA bonds which make up a large part of AGG. Thus they are more volatile than AGG, which has a standard deviation of 3.42. (All figures from PV over the maximum time frame it provides.)

One guy NOT on this year's roundtable is FELIX ZULAUF. However, for anyone interested, his recent thoughts/prognostications are on a recent YT video. He expects a major drawdown in equity markets in H1-2022. If I recall, something like a 33% decline from the 4800 peak on the SPX. Maybe less in EAFE, as its not so expensive. He then expects the Fed & other CBs to again come to the rescue, resulting in new highs off the drawdown lows. He seemed to think that after any sell-off EM equities might be work a look too.

Felix Zulauf hasn't participated in Barron's Roundtable since 2017.
Approximately a month ago, Mr. Zulauf shared his 2022 outlook with Barron's:
"He sees a major decline of 30% in the U.S. market, with perhaps losses of five percentage points less in Europe, because the excesses there are more moderate. 'After that decline, it will shake authorities.
Instead of a taper and rate hikes, they will move back to stimulate to stop the selling panic,' he predicts."
Link
We'll see what happens...

Thanks for the chart. You can see that even for a dip below the 200 MA it's only about a 2.5% dip in the NAV, and with the dividend yield above 4% even at today's elevated price, risk seems reasonable. I do have "trial" initial limit order in at slightly below the current 200 MA.
Ditching the corporate funds is a little more involved since they are in Roth IRAs and it's a PITA to do direct transfers. (They always seem to find a way to reject the transfer. Once it was because my middle initial didn't have a period after it, so I needed a notarized change of name document.) I do my one 60-day transfer a year, just to flush out the stragglers, this years it's probably going to be USAIX since it's my smallest holding and I'm not overwhelmed with the move to Victory.

I don't know what the "floor" will be, but many Nasdaq stocks were recently down 50% or more from their 52-week highs.
"Four out of every 10 stocks in the Nasdaq are currently down 50% or more from their 52-week highs.
One out of every 5 stocks in the S&P 500 are down 20% or more from their highs of the last year.
And this is at a time when the S&P 500 itself is less than 2% from all-time highs."
Link

@yogibearbull - Thanks for the links. Please know I welcome your more comprehensive Barron’s’ summaries, which received a number of positive responses last week. My occasional Barron’s posts are “hit & miss”, focusing on single articles.
Re crypto, I can’t say any of the participants was very enthralled by it. One point of view expressed was if the central banks issue their own crypto currencies backed by sovereigns it might put the current ones out of business.
There was a nice swipe at Musk’s SNL appearance … to the effect that if a single “off-the-cuff” comment by a celebrity on television can cause one of these currencies to soar or plunge in value, it ought to be avoided.
PS - I’ve been trying to guess which miscalculation or failure will bring down the equity markets. Generally it’s an unanticipated “bolt out of the blue”. Crypto could be one ignition source. But there are plenty of others. I will concede there’s already been some correction. Can’t see the ARKK type stuff going much lower. Some of the holdings are off 70% over 1 year. My guess: Maybe another 10-15% for many of the names on Wood’s little tug that couldn’t.

There are several classes of CPREX. In Barron's/Lipper database, interval-funds are shown under CEFs as "Continuously Offered" but info is very limited, mostly N/A. The Franklin Templeton site link is https://www.franklintempleton.com/investments/options/mutual-funds/products/92083/I/clarion-partners-real-estate-income-fund-inc/CPREX
BTW, I own ANOTHER direct real estate fund, TIAA Real Estate Account VA through my 403b. https://www.tiaa.org/public/investment-performance/investment/profile?ticker=41091375
Real estate has done well but it has a long cycle. Other options are real estate equity (VNQ, FRESX, etc) or hybrid (FRIFX, not many similar funds).

Bobpa, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I too hold MIOPX and BGAFX, both representing LG global, together around 15% of portfolio. I’m holding, for reasons Observant asked about above. Both are funds are highly rated, respected managers, and fill a role in the portfolio. Given the conservative overall AA of my total portfolio, equities less than 50%, I’m okay with the volatility. Actually, I’m prepared to add when I next rebalance. As mentioned on another thread about the research on tinkering with one’s portfolio, I try and remember “less is more”. I’m not sure I agree that rebalancing is the same as tinkering.
Best of luck,
Rick