@carew388 "Two ntf alternatives to GABCX are MERFX ARBFX."
I looked at all three, having owned MERFX for a long time. GABCX is not avaliable for new accounts at either Fido, Schwab or Vanguard ( I can't stand Mario anyway so I would have to hold my nose) The other two are similar but ARBFX has a smaller asset base and has done a little better long term. Don't expect rocketships but it has produced a relatively modest return without a lot of downside. They do better in years when there is a lot of merger activity
I have to be put into the bearish camp, near retirement and more worried about "the return of my capital than the return on my capital". I have left my long term funds alone but have ratcheted down equity exposure over the year to about 30% to 35% and emphasizing short duration bonds

Just watching paint dry and reading over the many comments. Thought I’d attempt to gain a better market perspective by grouping a few of the responses. Apologies in advance for the likely inaccuracies and/or omissions. Not scientific. Feel welcome to fill-in the blanks. Thanks to the Pudd for the thread.
Bullish Sentiment
“I have been DCA into PRGTX - TRP Global Technology since it was a new fund and the price has doubled since then. Hopefully the fund continues to run wild” ...Jafink63
“Ah, yes....new funds. They are great. Big up side potential as you get the P.M.'s. Best picks with all the money coming in. Yep, been there done that. Looks like you hit a homer, big guy! If I were you, I'd ride on. Tech is only going to get bigger as time rolls on.” Puddnhead
“On the equity front: May add a tad to certain REITS (VTR). Possibly also small positions in GE & GIS (TBD). Just re-entered small position in AMZN and a position in UTG on the price-weakness surrounding the rights-offering. Bought a small, starter position GBTC (the bitcoin trust) --as a pure speculation.” Edmond
-
Bearish Sentiment
“In a bit of good fortune, the nice little run-up has bumped two of my funds in the IRA to hit the dollar threshold for a haircut... I'm happy to take some profits off the table before that decision is announced”. PressumUP
“I remain in the cash build mode within my mutual fund portfolio due to a richly priced market.
... More pondering to do while I await the next pullback.” Old Skeet
“I remain invested, but at the high end of my allowable cash position.” hank
“With the bull ongoing, am thinking of selling a little even in roth accounts and letting it sit as cash, or in, like, GABCX”. davidrmoran
“I'm looking to sell some equities & take some risk off the table too”. expatsp
”... lowering equity exposure while allowing room to run still”. jlev
“The stock market is historically overpriced, and becoming more so by the day.”
David Snowball - October 1, 2017 Commentary https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2017/10/
“I have to be put into the bearish camp, near retirement and more worried about "the return of my capital than the return on my capital". I have left my long term funds alone but have ratcheted down equity exposure over the year to about 30% to 35% and emphasizing short duration bonds.” sma3
Undetermined
“Opened a small position in TUHYX ...” carew388

Disagree --- one should invest in whatever type of accounts they have the opportunity to invest in - 401, 403, IRA/Roth IRA, deferred, taxable. While it's probably ok for someone to just throw their 40X into a TD fund and be done with it, I believe that anyone who says primarily invest in your retirement account -- which implies ignore taxable accounts -- is crazy since there are caps on a) contributions and b) what you might have access to in terms of funds and expense ratios.

I understand your argument with (b), but (a)? If your income is large enough to be able to max out contributions to your 401(k) and IRA ($24k next year), you really shouldn't be too worried about money.

Disagree --- one should invest in whatever type of accounts they have the opportunity to invest in - 401, 403, IRA/Roth IRA, deferred, taxable. While it's probably ok for someone to just throw their 40X into a TD fund and be done with it, I believe that anyone who says primarily invest in your retirement account -- which implies ignore taxable accounts -- is crazy since there are caps on a) contributions and b) what you might have access to in terms of funds and expense ratios.

FYI: Q: I'm just starting my career and my 401(k) is invested in a diversified portfolio of stocks that tracks the overall stock market. I'm trying to decide whether to simply increase my contribution to my company plan or start investing outside my 401(k) so I can earn a higher return by focusing on specific sectors of the market, such as technology or health care. Which do you recommend?
A: Generally, I think you're better off doing your retirement savings within your 401(k). You get lucrative tax benefits and employer matching funds in most cases, plus the automatic payroll deductions ensure that you actually end up saving for retirement rather than planning to but not getting around to it.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.fidelity.com/insights/retirement/investing-beyond-401k?print=true

To put this in perspective, the new DOL regs for fiduciaries allow different levels of compensation for selling different categories of products, up to a certain level.
BICE allows higher compensation for selling complex products that require more work to explain to the customers. (DOL FAQ: "variation [in commission] is permitted ... based on neutral factors, such as the time and complexity associated with recommending investments".) This arises from the reasonable compensation rule.
At the same time, BICE forbids the additional compensation to be so high as to create an incentive to push these products. More generally (again from DOL FAQ) "financial institutions cannot 'use or rely upon quotas, appraisals, performance or personnel actions, bonuses, contests, special awards, differential compensation or other actions or incentives that are intended or would reasonably be expected to cause Advisers to make recommendations that are not in the Best Interest of the Retirement Investor.'"
If it takes someone twice as much time and effort to sell product A as product B, and compensation is equal, that person has a disincentive to sell (or "push", as Ms. Morgenson wrote) product A. That is true regardless of how much more or less profitable one product or the other is for the company. Unequal compensation for different products can be reasonable. Whether the differences merely equalize the sales incentives for different products or bias them (presumably toward the more profitable product) is a matter of the magnitude of the differences in compensation.
According to the DOL, the mere existence of compensation differences does not automatically create an incentive to sell one over the other, Ms. Morgenson aside. Yet she leaps immediately to the conclusion that it must, with no numbers, no explanation.
The TIAA Form ADV Part 2A that she cited mirrors the DOL regs: "TIAA’s compensation philosophy aims to reward Advisors with appropriate compensation, recognizing the degree of effort generally required of the Advisor in gathering and retaining client assets in appropriate TIAA accounts, products and services offered by TIAA affiliates."
Ms. Morgenson also leaps from writing about "advisers" in the first paragraph (who are bound by fiduciary duty, BICE, etc. not to be incentivized to "push" higher profit products) to "sales representatives" in the second paragraph, who are under no such constraints. Which one is it? Is the undisclosed complaint talking about sales reps or advisers?
That matters because, as I stated before, while this doesn't help TIAA's reputation, it doesn't paint them as an exceptionally bad actor. I've written before about Fidelity's reps having similar compensation schedules. Here's Fidelity's 2017 Introduction to Representatives’ Compensation.
"Certain representatives also receive differing compensation for different product types, for example, managed account and insurance product sales, which require more in-depth engagement with clients, provide more compensation than products such as money market funds." For example, Fidelity reps get quarterly compensation of 1 basis point for investments in MMFs, while10 basis points for investments in Fidelity's Portfolio Advisory Services and/or insurance products.
For anyone who's suggested going to a brokerage to discuss ideas "for free", tell me again how great a bargain that is.

@bee, The '3 degrees of bad' illustrated and explained exactly my thoughts. Especially this paragraph:
Research by Wade Pfau[4] shows that purchasing fixed annuities can actually lead to larger final estates for this reason. "Though SPIAs [single-premium immediate annuities] do not offer liquidity, they provide mortality credits and generate bond-like income without any maturity date, and they support a higher stock allocation for remaining financial assets. Altogether, this allows a client to better meet both retirement financial objectives [spending and a legacy]".
My self-made Excel spreadsheet shows the same.
Thank you very much bee.

@MikeM,
Good read on creating a retirement "floor":
three-degrees-of-bad
And this,
Challenging the 4% Rule

@MikeM, In the article the author mentioned that the "newness" of TRLAX will rely upon the rolling average of TRRBX to determine its 5% payout. At least that is how I read it.
Quote:

Since the fund is new, it initially will base payouts on the five-year NAV history of T. Rowe Price Retirement 2020 Fund, a 15-year-old target-date fund that uses the same underlying strategy.

@bee, I haven't read the article yet - plan to tonight, but you are showing the target date retirement fund, not the income fund. The income fund is TRLAX and it is very new. Not a lot of data. In fact M* doesn't even have a portfolio breakdown. I don't expect it to look like TRRBX.

FYI: Target-date retirement funds, which are designed to automatically shift to more-conservative investments as an investor grows older, have become a popular way for working Americans to save for retirement.
But the same firms that created these all-in-one funds have struggled to provide a solution to the next dilemma many people face: how to prudently manage a nest egg while drawing it down in retirement. So far, the industry hasn’t managed to attract much interest for “managed payout funds,” which make steady cash payments to fundholders while continuing to invest the remaining assets.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-these-new-retirement-funds-catch-on-2017-10-20/print

Yes. Merrill went ahead and implemented the DOL rule in retirement accounts effective the original day in June. One still can continue trading as self-directed and pay 6.95 per equity trade and get mutual funds etc. .45 fiduciary stuff provides strategic risk based asset allocation and rebalancing with cheap etfs for those who cant do it themselves and starts at $5000 minimum. .85% service includes a larger fund selection and a human being to talk to... i believe the min is $25k. Note that all models are created by the CIO office and are of institutional quality from open architecture platform. Mutual fund shares within those are either advisory or institutional, depending on the company.
And then there is merrill lynch, a full service brokerage: financial planning, behaviorial, alternatives, financing, etc. All new retirement accounts have been fee-based fiduciary relationships since june, or none. Taxable could be any.
Hope this clarifies the new post-DOL arrangement at merrill somewhat.

Thanks @Ted and @TheShadow for bringing these funds and this article to the board.
I came across another article (I linked below) back in May, but in light of these funds introduction I thought it was worthy of re-posting. The article looks at using an single open ended mutual fund as the sole source for a 4% withdrawal rate in retirement.
VWINX was one of the funds research and the winner of the back test.
Just wondering if MFOers feel that a globally managed fund like Global Wellesley might serve a similar role in a retirement distribution strategy?
Article:
long-term-growing-income-open-end-mutual-fund-possible
MFO discussion on VWINX:
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/33358/vwinx

I've owned this fund for a few years now. 4 years ago there was some discussion about it. Currently it seems quite. I own about 10% in my 401k. About a year or so from retirement. I have to say it has always bothered me that the expense ratio has been so high for the low return rate. Curious as to members opinions on this fund as well as alternatives. Thanks in advance.

@PRESSmUp, Thanks for mentioning the need to differentiate taxable and tax sheltered funds.
As far as "coughing up" goes... my sense is it often will have at least two triggers.
1. The 1-3 year bucket balance is low and in need of replenishing or,
2. The other (buckets) have reached a predetermine goal (dollar or percentage gain).
As @MikeM mentioned, none of this is done in a vacuum.
Income from pensions, social security, annuities and other income streams (part time work in retirement) paint a large part of the retirement mosaic while these other investments (buckets) fill in the rest.
Thanks all for your fund suggestions so far. Always nice to see what funds others incorporate into their portfolio.

Bee...several funds you listed are common to what I have as well. I don't have it broken down into the annualized categories that you've described, but I think the result may be similar.
I have a group which can go by many names...1-3 year funds, bucket 1, etc...the objective of the group to hold spending money for the next 3 to 4 years regardless of what the market does. A secondary objective is to contribute 2-3% account growth to offset possible cash drag. In an ideal world, these dollars are not touched because the second and third groups are supplying needed funds used for income. The initial group consists of:
Taxable Account: VWITX and VWAHX
IRA: PIFZX, SSTHX, ZEOIX, and SUBFX
The next group consists of a bunch of items which throw off income. This has changed in my recent retirement, as these now generate the dollars I use for annual spending, where before it was reinvested. It consists of:
Taxable: FKINX and then a half dozen dividend paying stocks
IRA: VWINX, PONDX, WATFX, PTIAX, SAMBX and then 4 individual REITs
Funds for growth....in both taxable and IRA, I have a slew of funds whose goal is to provide appropriate growth that I can periodically, when the funds hit a specific dollar threshold, take a slice off the top to send to my checking account. It holds a variety of usual suspects, all equity funds.
Falling outside these classifications, in both IRA and taxable, I do hold a few individual equities that are "flyers"...things which are generally inadvisable but could send me and siblings on a cruise to French Polynesia.
Bee....as I think the process is equally important as what you actually hold, how do you determine when the subsidiary groups cough up their contribution to the group (1-3 year, Bucket 1) used to hold your spending dollars?

@Old_Skeet...lots to ponder...longer response coming.
@Ted, yes. They have been and should be good investments for growth going forward.
@Derf, yes. I looked at these retirement funds as glide path funds for the 5 year increment / spending needs in retirement.
I never pull the trigger on this idea, but it would go something like this:
Yr/Date----Age---Hold Retirement/Income Fund
2020 ------60----2020 Fund
2025-------65----2025 Fund
2030-------70----2030 Fund
2035-------75----2035 Fund
Etc

@ bee: At one time didn't you throw out the idea to use target date funds to accomplish this in a retirement portfolio ? Ret. income, 2020, 2025, 2030.
@ Old Skeet; You bring up a point of interest. How much to put in each pot so to speak?
Derf

One strategy that I have attempted to include as part of my portfolio review and yearly reallocation is to use "allocation funds" as the destination for other funds that need paring back. I consider these allocation funds as having attributes that served my goals well when I started investing and I now see them as serving a different goal in retirement.
I began my investing (call this my 30's) by first owning well diversified allocation funds such as VGSTX, OAKBX, VWINX, VWELX, DODBX, PRPFX, PRWCX, and others. These funds provided me with a way to funnel small contributions into one or a few of these funds based mainly on their availability to my workplace retirement plan. It exposed "my meager, but dear savings" into what I consider a long term well managed (hopefully), well diversified investment. These funds often had a history of good risk / reward, solid management, were reasonably priced (low ER ratio) and made "staying the course" pretty certain.
As my savings increased and my knowledge base grew (call it my 40-50's) I began realizing that I could create my own personal portfolio allocation using not only these funds, but a combination of "non-equity" funds (Bonds, RE, Commodities) and equity funds that had an "alpha/growth" strategy (sector, size, class, valuation, manager, etc.). These "fund combos" provided me with the biggest momentary losses and the largest momentary gains, but in the end have kept me up at night more often than the allocation funds I also still owned.
I began to discipline myself to trust my fund choices to "stay the course" and use these momentary ups and downs in the market to reallocate between the "non-equity" portion and the "equity" portion of these investments, but as I reach my 60's, 70's and beyond I see myself developing a third approach.
I see some of my low risk / low return "non-equity" funds along with some very conservation allocation funds as serving a roll in holding a portion of my portfolio for short term needs. (1-3 year, call these PONDX, PTIAX, CBUZX) for distributions of income, RMD, emergencies and retirement "fun".
I see the higher risk / higher reward "non-equity" funds along with the higher risk / higher reward "equity" funds as serving a roll in maintaining long term growth. (10 years and longer), and I'll place my stallions here (POAGX, VGHCX, FSRPX, etc). Note to self: "I have too many of these..."
I see my conservative, moderate & aggressive allocation funds as having a larger and key place in my retirement portfolio as the core of my holdings will occupy this space. These are investments have a (3-9 year) holding period that provide good portfolio diversification as well as "growth and income" to reallocate and "feed" ongoing (1-3 years) needs.
The Conservative Allocation fund (3-5 year) needs in VWINX, GLRBX or CBUZX.
The Moderate Allocation fund (5-7 year) needs in JABAX or OAKBX.
The Aggressive Allocation fund (7-9 year) in PRWCX or BTBFX).
Each of these allocation funds will periodically "feed" the 1-3 year funds over time.
Each of the long term funds (10 years or more) "feed" the allocation funds.
Hopefully there will be enough "feed" to go around.
If you have any thought on this approach or suggestions for potential candidates for:
1-3 year funds -
3-5 year funds -
5-7 year funds -
7-9 year funds -
10 and longer funds -
I'd appreciate it.

I recently received a written reminder from one of my IRA custodians that they apparently mailed all their clients. (I think it came from Oakmark.) The abandonment laws vary by state.
Their advice was to either (1) phone them once a year or (2) login to your account online once a year. Since I login to all my accounts at least once a year, I let it go at that. I think it’s a good practice to change passwords once or twice a year. And doing so ought to satisfy anyone looking on that you’re still alive.

As I recall, you're in Michigan. I don't know whether all states follow this rule, but in Michigan, its three year clock doesn't begin running until you're 70.5:

An IRA (Individual Retirement Account) account, Keogh plan, or 401K plan becomes distributable under the terms of the account or plan [i.e. RMDs for the IRA]. If the plan or account requires a distribution at a certain point in time, then the three-year dormancy period begins at that point.

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/2013i_2598_7.pdf
I don't know any state that has law that property escheats in less than three years, though some financial institutions may be obnoxious and freeze your account after a year of inactivity. (I made an old post somewhere about WF doing this, and making a lot of errors along the way.) So it's still a good idea to check in yearly.