Taxes due on a Roth conversion initiated in 2018 will come due in April of 2019.
As far as RMDs, here's one of Fidelity FAQ (Fidelity FAQ Link):

Your first RMD calculation is based on your total IRA balances on December 31st of the year prior to you turning 70.5. I will assume that date is December 31, 2017. Here's the Fidelity RMD calculator to help you with this:
https://gpi.fidelity.com/ftgw/interfaces/rmd/#/rmdform
If your first RMD will be based on your 2017 IRA balances then your proposed 2018 Roth conversion will not impact your IRA end of year balance for December 31, 2017, but it will be subtracted from your December 31, 2018 balance.
Your second RMD will be calculated by using your 2018 IRA end of year balances (which will have been lowered by completing a 2018 Roth conversion).
Realize that you will have two different tax payments here, one for the Roth conversions and one RMDs. Also, Roth conversions after 2017 can not be re-characterized going forward.
Finally, nothing stopping you from doing Roth conversions after 70.5, but once RMDs start they have to be calculated and distributed first before considering future Roth conversions.
Ed Slott's Discussion Board does a nice job of answering these types of scenarios and I believe I have stated things correctly, but verify my take on your situation. Hopefully others well chime in here at MFO or I would suggest asking your question to (discussion Board found under resource link):
https://irahelp.com/phpBB

Reminds me of Motif investing; build your own, eh?
https://www.motifinvesting.com/motifs#catalog=overview

From the article: A low-vol fund gives you more of sleepy Microsoft (MSFT)
>>> Things change, times change, managers change. Microsoft is not currently a sleepy company.
Sample: growth to value and value to growth:
---Durant-Dort Carriage Company was a manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles in Flint, Michigan. Founded in 1886, in 1900 it was US's largest carriage manufacturer.
This very successful business made the partners rich men and it became the core on which William C Durant and J Dallas Dort began to build General Motors.
Durant sold out of this business in 1914 and it finished carriage manufacture in 1917.
>>>With the assumption of being able to purchase stock in the above, one may suspect those who poo-poo'd the demise of carriages and those who poo-poo'd rise of the motor car. Who and when someone may have bought or sold shares in either organization would have allowed them a more complete understanding of growth becoming value and value becoming growth scenarios, yes?
Below chart is factor investing, too. Large cap value vs large cap growth, from 2 different vendors. Simple etf models, although I don't know about internal holdings changes over the years. In particular, since early 2016 value can not find as many friends.
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?JKE,JKF,IVW,IVE&p=6&O=011000
I will guess that active individual investors are/were 50% inclined to be "factor or smart beta" investors before the terms became fashionable, eh? One makes personal investment choices for whatever reasons. One makes choices based upon many "factors" in their own world of risk and knowledge.
A few possible factors might include:
---age
---financial status, being employed and young with a good wage and prudent personal financial habits; being near retirement or being retired with a comfortable financial position
--- How hungry are you? = I'm young and hungry, I'm almost retired and don't want to lose what I've worked so hard to attain or I'm retired, and don't want to lose what I've attained, but still need to be invested in something reasonable. Among all of this at any age level is the aptitude/attitude involvement which may lead one to a more hands off approach of a plain joe/jane balanced fund style of investment or the Robo advisors.
One sorts and searches for whatever investment style floats their boat of comfort.
Factor or smart-beta investments offer more choices and hopefully not more confusion.
In closing, I'll offer the below partial lyric as the "theme song" for the ever evolving world of etf choices. Build it and they may come, eh?
Kinda like the simple lyric of this Dave Clark Five song (I Like It Like That) from the mid-60's:
Come on (come on let me show you where it's at)
Ah, come on (come on let me show you where it's at)
Whoa!, come on (come on let me show you where it's at)
I said the name of the place is I like it like that
The music is all around us, all we have to do.....is listen.
Take care,
Catch

If you are a retiree and think it is prudent to have 1-5 year piece of your investments in a rather safe place for annual or emergency needs, how are you positioning this money? Suggestions or opinions appreciated.

I think a CD ladder is a good choice now. I've got a bunch sitting in MM but might switch it over to CDs. I'm still about three years from actual retirement.

@hank."I’ve never heard a single poster at MFO (or Fund Alarm for that matter) report that they have all their retirement assets in one of these target date funds."
Agree, all your eggs in one basket doesn't work for me.
Derf

“Interesting. I thought the whole point of target date funds was that they were a one stop shop...”

That was the original concept. In theory. And it seems as if many target date funds came into existence around 2006 when (some) employers began (legally) automatically enrolling employees in 401Ks. They do make a convenient default option. But it’s my understanding that most investors who own target date funds also invest in other non-target date funds. So these funds are not really living up to their name.
I’ve never heard a single poster at MFO (or Fund Alarm for that matter) report that they have all their retirement assets in one of these target date funds. That may be because folks who go for target funds just aren’t as active in following their investments as the type who post here. But it still seems odd that no one, to my knowledge, has ever reported being 100% in one of these things.
I like @bee’s detailed plan. But, I prefer to let it all ride in a mixed conservatively positioned portfolio while drawing off a few percent a year. I understand many have issues with such an approach. For the time being it works for me.

@JoJo26,

Interesting. I thought the whole point of target date funds was that they were a one stop shop...

Tweaking a little growth (staying ahead of inflation) was my thought here as well as simplicity.
I kinda think a single target date retirement fund works well for new investors (a 30 year old owning a 2060 fund...cool), but I like the idea of re-casting this single target fund 5 years before retirement into (6) target date funds to serve as "5 year spending buckets". I also would fund a 1-3 year safe spending bucket (separate from these other buckets). Finally any additional savings would be place into long term growth investments.
Inflation has a funny way of kicking a retirees bony butt. That 5 cent candy bar is now a buck...that 25 cent draught beer is now $5 bucks.
Seems to make sense to me.

My unconventional Bucket #1 in retirement would utilize target date funds.
Bucket #1 would arrive in 5 year increments using target date funds that are spread out over retirement. If I were retiring in 2020...Bucket #1 would be (Bucket 2020) and would be funded with 5 years of retirement spending (any growth could be looked at as additonal discretionary spending) to be spent between 2020 -2025.
A second Bucket #1 (Bucket 2025) would be funded with a 2025 target date fund and would have 7 years (2018-2025) to "grow". It would be funded to anticipate expenses during those 5 years (2025-2030). The third bucket #1 (Bucket 2030) target date fund would have 12 years to grow...and so on.
This approach glides a portion of your portfolio from growth to income...from stocks to bonds...in a professionally diversified and professionally managed way. I might add it's affordable and easy to understand. Anyone from you to your wife can stay the course.
Six target dated funds would cover your retirement for 30 -35 years of retirement "bucket #1" needs.
The rest of your available portfolio can be dedicated to long term growth and the occasional re-balancing with your buckets.
I also see Bucket #1 being paired with an additional 1-3 years of spending in the event markets fall into an extended bear. The would very very liquid and very safe.
Not sure how one would deal with the possibility of a "lost decade" (extended under performance of the market), especially during the spend down of assets in retirement.
Any thoughts?

Interesting. I thought the whole point of target date funds was that they were a one stop shop...

My unconventional Bucket #1 in retirement would utilize target date funds.
Bucket #1 would arrive in 5 year increments using target date funds that are spread out over retirement. If I were retiring in 2020...Bucket #1 would be renamed (Bucket 2020 using a 2020 target date fund)) and would be funded with 5 years of retirement spending (any growth could be looked at as additional discretionary spending) to be spent between (2020 -2025).
A second Bucket #1 (Bucket 2025) would be funded with a 2025 target date fund and would have 7 years (2018-2025) to "grow". It would be funded to anticipate expenses during those 5 years (2025-2030). The third bucket #1 (Bucket 2030) target date fund would have 12 years to grow...and so on.
This approach glides a portion of your portfolio from growth to income...from stocks to bonds...in a professionally diversified and professionally managed way. I might add it's affordable and easy to understand. Anyone from you to your wife can stay the course.
Six target dated funds would cover your retirement for 30 -35 years of retirement "bucket #1" needs.
The rest of your available portfolio can be dedicated to long term growth and the occasional re-balancing with your buckets.
I also see Bucket #1 being paired with an additional 1-3 years of spending in the event markets fall into an extended bear. The would very very liquid and very safe.
Not sure how one would deal with the possibility of a "lost decade" (extended under performance of the market), especially during the spend down of assets in retirement.
Any thoughts?

Here’s my earlier link & excerpt. Hope this avoids having 2 different threads on essentially the same subject.
Question for those in the know - What’s the easiest way to dig up a list of mutual funds with investments in American Outdoor Brands (alias Smith & Wesson). I’d sure like to see it.
One more note: I’m not against guns. Heck, some of my happiest memories as a teen go back to tromping through northern Michigan’s woods in October with my high school buddy after school, usually on Fridays, trying to bag a bird or rabbit with the single-shot 16 gage shotgun my pop gave me on my 16th birthday. Good healthy sport. But the nonsense going on in this country has to stop. Whatever it takes!
“Florida teachers reacted viscerally to news that they've been paying into a retirement fund that invests in gun companies, including the maker of an assault rifle used to kill 17 Parkland high school students and educators last week. They demanded Wednesday night that the state agency that manages the fund divest of those stocks immediately. The state pension plan for Florida teachers held 41,129 shares in American Outdoor Brands Co., formerly known as Smith & Wesson ...” http://snewsi.com/id/18169948123

If someone is looking to build an income stream for retirement, REITs are a really good option...and they're on sale.

If one is going to the CD ladder route it sometimes is worth your while to see what your brokerage firm might be offering.

@Mark , good point Mark, and I did that. My adviser at Schwab suggested they (Schwab) could not compete with the on-line banks for money market and CDs and said he endorsed me moving some of my IRA to get better "cash" interest rates. In fact he told me he had an account outside of Schwab with Synchroney Bank to handle his families cash. Hence my decision to open an IRA at Synchroney and create a 4-year withdrawal bucket for retirement. My Schwab robo will feed that cash account when needed using an on-line transfer, IRA to IRA, I'm told with no transfer charge.

MIkeM It sounds like you are saying short-term bonds do not make sense in this present investment environment.

Yes, that is what I'm saying.
Look at the performance of BBMX, 1.7% return over the last 3 years, 1.3% over the last 5. With rising interest rates short term bond funds will be challenged to make even that return going forward. In comparison, CDs are now paying 2% for 1 year and up to 3% for 5 years. And the point here, I think, is if you create a CD ladder where you are converting CDs periodically as they mature into a CD market of risings interest rates it's a win-win investment as compared the short term bonds that will be affected negatively with rising rates.
This maybe wasn't true a year ago, but I think the time has come. Eliminate volatility and a guess on return completely and CD ladder into a rising return. That of course is just my opinion.
By the way, this is what I'm going to do with the money I'm bucketing for retirement withdrawals. I happen to choose Synchroney Bank to set up my money market/CD IRA, but there are many good on-line options available.

Good article. Maybe I think that because this approach is what I do. 1/2 my tax deffered retirement money is in a stable index investing robo-portfolio and the other 1/2 I self manage.
Definition I found for smart beta:

Smart beta strategies attempt to deliver a better risk and return trade-off than conventional market cap weighted indices by using alternative weighting schemes based on measures such as volatility or dividends.

are long-term in nature and by no means tactical.

This appears to be your opinion. I don't see any definitions using this caveat in my short check of Google.
And the author says:

A core-satellite approach is a great way to focus on long-term capital growth, while still allowing for the opportunity to juice returns through active portfolio management.

I don't know, seems like a similar approach to me.

FYI: The general principle behind the core-satellite approach is that a portfolio gets split into two parts.
One segment of the portfolio is committed to the core strategy of investing in cheap, diversified index funds. This is the portion of the portfolio that generally shouldn’t be traded, and should be regularly added to via investing in a workplace retirement plan, IRA or some other systematic investing program.
The other segment is the satellite strategy, where investors can overweight in specific sectors, regions or styles in an attempt to take advantage of current economic and market conditions to produce outsized returns. This is the actively managed part of the overall portfolio. The advantage of this strategy is that the majority of the portfolio is focused on long-term wealth creation, but still allows for tilting the portfolio to try to outperform the market without taking on too much risk.
Regards,
Ted
http://mutualfunds.com/education/understanding-core-satellite-approach-portfolio-construction/

Hi @willmat72,
Now in retirement, I consider myself a low moderate risk taker. I use to be a more aggressive investor and carry a higher allocation to stocks (60% to 70%) now 40% to 55%. My emerging market holdings account for about 25% of my foreign equity holdings. For me, the emerging market allocation (overall portfolio) for an aggressive investor would be 10% to 15% ... a moderate investor would range from 5% to 10% and a conserative investor would be from 0% to 5%. With this, I fall in the moderate range.
Old_Skeet

What are your suggestions for short-term bond funds and high-quality intermediate bond funds?

As always, age, risk tolerance, sources of income, needs and other factors need to be taken into consideration. I’ll assume poster in near or in retirement. Umm ... I’ve probably got bonds coming out of my ears when considering all the balanced, hybrid and multi-income funds like RPSIX I own.
Right now I’m looking for safe shelter from a possible avalanche in equities. Not a prediction. Just a concern. So, contrary to all the advice out there from people smarter than me, I’ve been adding to PRGMX (ginnie mae) in dabs and dribbles - including today. While I fully expect to lose some $$ on this position going forward, I consider it one form of insurance against a recession and / or rout in the equity side. What I’m buying here is high grade govt. backed debt from a top money manager (albeit at inflated prices). And were equities to tumble and bonds rise, I’d exit that position rapidly. Not exactly “short term”. Effective duration in the 4-5 year range. More like intermediate I guess.
I generally don’t like to post trades. But am trying to address the question as fully as I can.

If we stick to @Crash's original question and not try and give our reasons for why or how it's different than other EM funds (it of course is - it's suppose to be), there is no splitting hairs.
I believe SFGIX gives good risk adjusted return. That's Foster's mandate. How the management team achieves that has been well described by Foster (see the MFO profile below). So back to crash's question,

Did SFGIX do its job of reducing losses in a downward-stretch?

Heck yeah - so far.
David writes some great fund profiles. The description he wrote in 2013 and updated in 2015 on SFGIX tells exactly how this fund gives great risk adjusted return. And it seems to work as evidence from the last week of market turmoil.
For an older guy like myself heading into retirement who is some what risk adverse, it is a perfect way to "back-end" EM exposure.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/?s=sfgix

Has anyone here ever sold a fund and taken a loss in a non retirement account, temporarily parked it in a different fund to harvest a loss for tax purposes and then moved it back into the original fund? How many days did you wait to repurchase the original fund to avoid the wash sale rules? I have read about it being 30 days in some places such as the link below and 60 days for stocks. I am considering doing this in a transfer from DBLNX to DODIX. I read this https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Wash_sale Does anyone think the IRS could rule DBLNX and DODIX are substantially identical funds (both intermediate bond funds) and thus tax harvesting cannot be done with them? Thx

I'll speculate than if there continues to be about "10,000" baby boomers per day retiring; and a wild guess that if only 1/3 of them had a 401k/403b/457 plans; and that the majority of them perform an IRA rollover, then I will also speculate that they choose not to or don't have access to some of the funds available to them prior......some rotation of types of investments post-retirement will take place, by chance, by choice, by force or by advisor.
An example of an excellent active managed fund, which is closed; is FDGRX . However, this fund remains open to new money within many Fidelity operated company retirement accounts. The question remains going forward is if there will be more "outbound" money, versus "inbound" money in company retirement accounts going forward until the last of the boomers retire in 2029.
Note: other share classes of such a fund may vary among retirement plans.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2010/12/29/baby-boomers-retire/
Take care,
Catch

FYI: I am jealous.
Any time you can protect your money from the tax man, I want in.
George Papadopoulos is 50 years old and has a tax-free stash to cover health care expenses that is close to $100,000 and growing. It will continue to grow for the rest of his life just like an Individual Retirement Account.
“It’s a nice bucket of totally tax-free money,” the wealth manager from Novi, Mich., said.
The account is known as a Health Savings account, a financial device that is growing in popularity as the Baby Boomer generation chews through its golden years and their attendant health issues.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2018/02/01/here-is-another-totally-legitimate-way-to-shield-money-from-taxes/?utm_term=.080c24bc89a3