@LB,
My trough period intervals were taken from M* $10k growth (= reinvestments) of FXAIX.
Something seems off with your chart, as $10k in Jan of 1973 into SP500 reinvested was back to $10k by early December '76, meaning breakeven a little less than 4y later.
The US market was sideways the next two years after that, though, yes --- until the nonstop bull started mid-'78 and rolled and rolled till the late summer of 2k.
So I dunno where their 7.5 comes from.
1929 will never repeat for a whole host of reasons behind now being way different.

Thanks all for this discussion! I hold IVIQX in this space and it has been even more disappointing than TBGVX. After reading the commentary, I am going to give them a little more time but I also am thinking about adding some more foreign, going from 5% to 10%. My preliminary look points me toward adding a Fidelity fund or an iShares ETF from the LB category.
FYI - this topic was also discussed, more generally, back in August : https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/130072/#Comment_130072</
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It's funny how most studies on market performance ignore the Great Depression as if it never happened, yet the first article does reference it:

The author does mention that this price performance ignores dividends so the recovery rate would've been sooner than 25 years with that, but I wonder how many people during the Great Depression would have had the stomach or the financial wherewithal with 25% unemployment to hold on and reinvest their dividends as the market went into free-fall.

For SP500 w full reinvestment:
This is even true for the peak starting 9/2k --- it took ~6y, though, following the ensuing dip --- and for the peak starting 11/07 --- and that one took, following the ensuing dip, just under ~5y. To break even.
Sobering, but if one stays optimistic ....
Worse, as everyone knows, if you 'ignore' (somehow) the second peak (and had gone all in Labor Day 2k), it was not until xmas 2010, over a decade later, that you were breakeven on paper --- and that while suffering ~27% inflation.
Such a scenario certainly seems more likely now going forward than anything else, with the market 'foaming at the mouth':
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/business/investors-bull-market-pandemic.html

@fred495: I agree with you regarding CTFAX. Another factor to consider regarding that fund is that it is a fund-of-funds, and all the funds it owns are Columbia. TRP does the same thing with some of its allocation funds, so I guess the charge of incest should be left unspoken.

This is why Warren Buffet recommends S&P 500 index fund for many investors. The compounding return year after year helps to build wealth.
My kid's 529 college funds invested in Total Market Index, Total Int'l Market Index, Total bond index and Total int'l bond index fund. Eighteen years later the 529 plan accumulated enough to pay for their 4-years college tuition plus room and board. The cost basis is about 40% of the total sum after 18 years of compounding. Through monthly investment the college grew and grew. We also added our year-end bonus to the 529 fund. Asset allocation were adjusted to pay the college bills.

I completely agree with the idea that many people should pay more attention to living and less to making a living. And if you're one of the fortunate minority at risk of dying with a surfeit of cash, there are many worthwhile things you can do with that money to solve this "problem".
But I do take issue with how the figures are presented.
" the average inheritance in the U.S. being $177,000(the median is closer to $69,000)"
The two numbers come from different sources. Which is curious, because the writer had available figures from the same source (Survey of Consumer Finances) on the page he cited:
$707,291 (average) and $69,000 (median).
By mixing numbers from different sources, he makes it appear as though average and mean are not all that far apart. So don't worry when he then gives only average figures:
"The average retired adult who dies in their 60s leaves behind $296k in net wealth, $313k in their 70s, $315k in their 80s, and $238k in their 90s."
However, from the source of that quote also comes this:

The median respondent that died in their 60s had about $3,000 in liquid investments within two years of their passing, which increased to $10,000 for respondents that died in their 70s and $15,000 for those that died in their 80s.

Without liquidating or otherwise monetizing their homes (if any) many people have virtually no assets to live on.

Indeed, about 46 percent of senior citizens in the United States have less than $10,000 in financial assets when they die. Most of these people rely almost totally on Social Security payments as their only formal means of support

https://news.mit.edu/2012/end-of-life-financial-study-0803
The shift from inheritance (used in the original piece) to liquid asset data in the quotes I gave is deliberate. If we're talking about trading money for time, we're talking about the money that you have to spend, not how much your heirs will inherit.
If one has the resources, or projected future earnings, to take more time for oneself, definitely go for it. But for far more people than his figures suggest, being able to do so is only a dream.

Thanks for sharing, Rick.
Currently, ARBIX, TMSRX, PIMIX and TSIIX make up 65% of my portfolio that I feel fairly comfortable with going into 2021. It's the other 35% that I am struggling with. With high equity valuations I might hide out in funds like FIKFX and VASIX, or do I keep using allocation funds like JBALX and VLAIX, for example, with significantly higher equity exposure, in the hopes that the new vaccines we will soon establish herd immunity and the economy will come roaring back and stabilize the markets?
CTFAX looked like an excellent low volatility fund until its mandate was recently changed requiring it to hold a minimum of 50% in equities. I also looked at GAVAX but it's loss of 12.8% in 2018 makes me uneasy. Do you know by any chance what happened?
GIBLX, an excellent intermediate core-plus bond fund with a good record, used to be in my portfolio until very recently. But with a SEC yield of only 1.84% and a longish duration of 7.3, I don't see it repeating its past total return performance in the current low interest rate environment.
Anyway, just some random thoughts.
Wish you the best of luck and happy holidays.
Fred

I had rather large positions in ARBIX and MERFX. I never lost much money but never made much either. Over last 15 years MERFX has paid out about 10% in income and the share price is up 25% Over a fifteen year period that's not much
There is no magic cure in this low interest rate environment. With a duration of 8 years, VWINX may really hit the wall if rates go up. If there is a substantial equity pull back, you could lose 10 to 15% in a week or so.
I think at these valuations you are better off DCA into a target position over months if not a couple of years, unless you understand options well enough to buy puts ( which reportedly are very cheap now)

It is confusing and very messy when dealing with portfolios of all different maturities, coupons and ratings (different yield curves). That's why it's easier thinking about these questions with a single bond or a homogeneous portfolio of bonds all the same.
If you own a bond and sell it before maturity, even assuming that rates remain the same, you'll get a bit more than YTM. This is because longer term bonds pay higher rates. Since SEC yield reflects YTM, I don't believe this return is reflected in that yield.
Think of a two year bond paying interest annually. Let's say that market rate for a two year bond is 2% and market rate on a one year bond is 1%. (This time I'll ignore pennies for simplicity). If the two year bond pays 2% each year, it will cost you $100 (par).
A year after buying, you get a 2% interest payment. You're now holding a 1 year bond with a 2% coupon (that's above the 1% market rate for a one year bond). So you're able to sell that bond for $101 (1% premium). Your net return: 2% market rate interest plus 1% in capital gain.
[A buyer of your bond, if holding to maturity would net 1% on that bond (2% coupon less 1% loss in value). There's your 4% total return over two years.]
There's no difference between you doing this with your own bonds and a fund manager doing this with the fund's portfolio. You get more total return by turning over bonds because you're taking on more risk.
When holding a two year bond to maturity the average maturity over that time is one year. If instead you sell a two year bond after a year (and replace it with another two year bond), your average maturity over time is 1.5 years. You're always holding a bond that matures between one and two years from now.
We didn't assume rates were changing here - just that we didn't have an inverted yield curve where shorter bonds pay higher yields than longer bonds.
Rates changing complicates this. If you swap one bond for another of the same maturity, nothing's going to change. It's as if you sold your bond and then simply repurchased it. Your sale price and your purchase price will be equally affected by the rate change.
But if you're selling shorter maturity bonds and replacing them with longer maturity ones, then a change in the yield curve is going to affect how much you get for extending that average maturity. In ways I honestly don't want to work through right now :-)

Hi Fred,
Over the past 3 months, I’ve been slowly evolving my low volatility equity and interest sensitive bond funds and cash, to more defensive funds. I followed with interest Lynn Bolin’s many articles in MFO and SA, and just became a MFO premium member to access the screening power there. I’ve swapped into SWAN, TMSRX, GAVAX, CTFAX and GIBLX. Lynn/MFO has covered these funds, along with others. My overall asset allocation remains the same, 50/50, but my risk profile feels much better. So far, so good.
Best of luck and happy holidays,
Rick

It might help to get back to basics and look at individual bonds.
Simplest case: a one year bond sold at par (face value), maturing in a year, and paying a 1% coupon at maturity. So you can buy the bond for $100, and at the end of a year it returns your $100 principal and pays you $1 in interest. I think we can agree that the annualized yield on the bond is 1%.
Now take a one year zero coupon bond. You purchase it for $99.01 and at the end of a year it pays you its face value of $100. You get 1% more than you paid for the bond. What's its yield? Its yield to maturity (YTM) is 1%. That's what in a mutual fund would be called SEC yield. What's its distribution yield? 0% since it is not making any coupon (interest) payments.
Next, consider a one year bond, maturing in a year and paying 2% of face value at maturity. If the current market rate is 1%, then you'll have to pay $100.99 to buy it. At the end of the year, you'll receive $100 from the face value and $2 in interest. From your perspective you'll get back $1.01 more than you paid, i.e. you'll have gotten the 1% market rate on a one year bond. Your YTM (SEC yield) will still be 1%. Your distribution yield will have been 2%, even as you were losing 1% in principal.
So what does yield mean to you? All three bonds give you the same return of 1%. You can get a higher distribution yield but you'll have to pay up for it and you won't wind up with more in the end. That's what you're seeing in NTFIX.
You're paying an average of $116.46 (per M*) for every $100 worth of bonds in NTFIX. Even as it makes above market rate interest payments, those bonds are losing value as they get closer and closer to maturity. Your net annual return (assuming market rates don't change) will be around 0.59%.

Just to be clear, the ARKW return I quoted above is a annualized (conceptual) number, but here are the actual calendar year returns:
 YTD - 136.0% (thru Nov)
2019 - 35.8%
2018 - 16.8%
2017 - 90.4%
2016 - 8.7%
2015 - 15.3%
That is one impressive run! Bet it scores well with Ferguson Metrics.

Is there any way to get a better determination of future bond fund yields and what would end up in your pocket, besides the 30 day SEC yield which is the recommended method to compare fund yields. I find that many funds have a "Distribution Yield" which is far greater than the SEC yield. Not all funds publish their distribution yields but this can be easily determined . Also some funds distribute dividends quarterly which would cause differences as SEC yield is based only on the last 30 days and the fund may not have distributed dividends in the past 30 days.Also yields can deviate sometimes quite a bit month to month. Example. NTFIX has an SEC yield of 0.59% but a 30 day distribution yield of 2.05%. Google NTFIX and click on the Dupree funds page to get this information. If they are so different why is the 30 day SEC yield supposedly the recommended yield to compare to other fund yields when they are so drastically different compared to distribution yields? TTM yields are of course useless if yields have not been stable in the past 12 months. If anyone knows of any other better way to better predict your future bond fund yield please share. Comments?

PTIAX has 3.81% yield. YTD is +5.59 and last 10 years: +5.99, maybe call it 6% (?) The monthly dividends are always bigger than the 3 cents plus a fraction I typically get from my others: RPSIX and PRSNX.
RPSIX +5.6% YTD and PRSNX +8.00% YTD.
YIELD: RPSIX 2.98% and PRSNX 3.2%.

In my opinion, the real risk to KGIRX isn't its emerging markets exposure, but its exposure to gold/precious metals and energy stocks, which depending on how you look at it account for 40% to 50% of its portfolio. The manager has always been a big fan of these sectors and when they do well, the fund does well and when they don't, it doesn't.

My point with those funds (which do make an interesting list) is that value simply hasn't performed as well as blend, let alone growth. Lewis made this point as well in asking whether you were disappointed with the fund or with value in general.
KGIRX was not a fund I was familiar with. Something to note about it is that unlike most of the other better performing foreign LCV funds is that it has a large measure of EM. Really large. 43%.
I ran a few searches, and the closer one hews to low risk, foreign LCV, the more similar the performance becomes. For example, one screen was:
Category = foreign large value or foreign large blend
Large Cap Value >= 25%
Large Cap Growth < 10%
Bear market percentile < 50%
YTD return > 0
For me rapid spikes down or up don't matter. Unless one is planning on selling within a small window of time, ISTM that recovery time is more important than how deep a plunge is. Since the 2020 spike (decline) was between January 17 (when the market hadn't risen much YTD) to March 23, it seemed reasonable to look for funds to "break even" over the current year, hence YTD return > 0. (Between 1/17 and 3/23, many funds seemed to have drawdowns of 34% - 35%.)
Not too many funds pass this screen. (Variants include increasing the percentages of both LCG and LCV while keeping a significant difference between the two.) One of the few that did was PRCNX, which led me to believe you were looking for very similar funds.
Another fund that came out of that initial screen (LCV >= 25, LCG < 10) was GSAKX. This sits on the border of value and blend. It wanders along the dividing line; M* called it value in 2019-2020, but blend in the prior three years. It's highly concentrated (34 stocks), and very Eurocentric @ 79% including UK. Its 1/17-3/23 drawdown was 34.5%, just slightly less than VEA's 35.1%.
Changing the screen slightly (LCV >= 35, LCG < 25) gives a few different funds. One is LZIOX. This is a more wide ranging fund from what is generally a value shop. It's generally been blend, though it had a year as a LCG fund and is now LCV. It has a more conventional 70 equities. It has performed respectably, though it too fell 34.6% between 1/17 and 3/23. Over the past three years it has done significantly better than TBGVX.
BRXAX is another fund from this screen. It's been LCV for the past four years, but this year its portfolio is blend and M* has placed in in the blend category. 149 stocks, including a bit more than 20% EM. Likewise, it fell 34.5% between 1/17 and 3/23.
None of these funds is going to set the world on fire. They're lower risk, reasonably performing, relative value funds. In contrast, TBGVX is a "deep-ish value" fund.

Yes, it's all sunshine, sea shells and balloons...until it all comes crashing down as reality sets in..
Absolutely frightening as to how it all mirrors almost exactly all the BS that was going around in the late 90's...new paradigm, you don't understand, new guru's, TAM, total addressable market size, 20 year olds driving Porsche 911's, excuse me now Tesla's, smoking cigars riding around in Limo's, excuse me, Uber Black, blah blah blah.
What do I know though...I spend a lot of time in Silicon Valley back in the mid to late 90;'s...went out to dinner after making sales calls all day to biotech and semi companies...drove around and saw companies with overflowing parking lots...if you called on Applied Materials you had to park 3 blocks down the street to find parking, some engineers had their desks in old closets as that is the only place they had room...all kind of jobs, folks making things, designing things....now?
Oh, what's that, the fund is down 83% in 5 months, you don't say? Get your popcorn ready, the show is going to be epic!
Merry Christmas, Good health and Good luck to all,
Baseball_Fan

Waiting to "buy the dips" (the strategy to wait for a 10% peak-to-trough loss before buying, then holding for at least 12 months or until the drawdown threshold is exceeded before returning to cash) doesn't work verses Just "Buy and Hold":

Linked Article:
reasons-why-you-shouldnt-wait-for-the-stock-market-to-crash

@msf. agreed- Several great ideas ! ( thanks ) and I think it has gotten a bit confusing because....
1. I asked to consider a "global blend manager" in the hopes that might put the decision making between Value & growth in the hands of the manager. Perhaps that is not the smartest way to gain the exposure that I think I need. As I stated in the opening post - it has been a long wait for the value proposition to kick in. I welcome your comments on the issue of Value vs. Growth at this time
Here are my priorities
2. I am willing to give up on the upside for protection on the downside - so I have been looking at the Sharpe and Martin Ratio, and Max DD in the MFO screener. Is there better process for evaluating the risk ?
3. EM was only referred to because I stated that I was moving on to researching small/mid and EM next/separately - I am not screening it as an alt to TBGVX.
TBGVX is 68% Western Europe 13% U.S (that slug of US probably helped the performance vs. a strict Foreign only fund - ARTKX has outperformed in 1/3/5 years, but as you point out has had steeper MAXDD in 2011 and 2018.
I am already holding MINIX, TBGVX (in a 401k that I did not sell), DFALX that I can't sell due to cap gains in it.
does that add clarity ? Your advice is welcome.