So, in general, I'm hopeful that each fund adds something to the strength of the whole portfolio. I tend to approach portfolio changes, additions especially, in three steps:
1. is there something that I believe I should have exposure to (for a bad example, crypto) but don't? If yes ...
2. is there a particularly good vehicle for gaining that access? Experienced manager, high insider investment, track record across multiple market cycles, clearly articulated positions on risk management and strategy capacity ... If yes ...
3. is the fund highly correlated with something I already own? I might, for a bad example, think that crypto is interesting but learn that corporate high-yield debt is so correlated with crypto - presumably because they are driven by similar forces - that adding crypto has no benefit.
Ran a correlation matrix just now. My top holding is FPA Crescent, at about 21% of the portfolio. For those not familiar, Crescent as a go-anywhere hybrid fund that started long ago as a hedge fund, has an absolute value discipline, about 60% equity just now, most of the rest in cash.
Quick quiz: which of these funds is highly correlated (an R-squared of 85 or above) with Crescent?
Grandeur Peak Global Microcap, 121 very small growth companies, about 13% EM exposure
Leuthold Core, a quant-driven tactical allocation fund
Seafarer Overseas Growth & Income, a GARPy emerging markets equity fund
T Rowe Price Spectrum Income, a fund of actively managed T Rowe Price funds
At the other end of the spectrum, which fund is most independent? T Rowe Price Multi-strategy Total Return, a sort of retail hedge fund, or Palm Valley Capital, a small cap value fund for people still shaking their fists at the 21st century?
David

“Ya in hindsight why say screw around with cost averaging in, should have just pushed all the chips in.. “
If you’re still working and contributing as much as you can to your retirement plan (IRA, 401-K) out of every paycheck (sometimes called dollar cost averaging) may I inquire where you would obtain all those “chips” to push around?
Does BB suggest younger investors during their accumulation phase try gaming the markets by moving back and forth between equities and cash?

Reading 08/09 forums is a good exercise to do. I do it frequently. The one common thread of discussion was lack of income producers. Too much equity and not enough longer duration bonds, CD's etc. to provide income to pay bills. Another issue was portfolios designed to sell shares to pay bills in retirement. Selling shares in collapse. 50% down takes 100% to get even.

The mandatory 12% in cash that returns about 0.2%, plus the mistimed heavy allotments to international, emerging markets and small caps since the funds inception has been a losing strategy for Schwab's Intelligent Portfolio. At one time it was 1/2 my retirement savings. I thought it would be care-free professionally managed money. After about 8 years, I finally gave up and baled on it at the end of last year. What sounded like a good idea, was not.

During the GFC we didn't sell anything, didn't buy much either other than continue to contribute to our Roth IRA's. We were mainly in PRWCX. I did jump into PRHYX when the yield was approaching 20%!! I believe it was early 2009 when I sold PRHYX after ~40% gain.

Yes. ‘07-‘09 (especially ‘08) would have been a wonderful time to be dollar-averaging in to a retirement account. I hadn’t considered that. At a younger age I’d had paid it little heed. Stay the course.
For some of us the year and a half long market crash was an unwelcome retirement gift. I was already 10 years in. Those retirees who got caught with more risk on the table then their individual situation warranted got taken to the cleaners.

Schwab is at the bottom of the performance rankings YTD, 1 year (the only robo with single digit returns, more than a point behind second worst), and 5 year (tie for worst). Over three years it did 0.2% better than the worst.
As a blind guess without checking, I suspect the cause is cash drag, especially since Vanguard has outperformed Schab recently by more than 3%, and by more than 1% over three and five years.
Schwab ranks in the middle of the pack overall. That seems to be due to broad financial planning tools and features like Intelligent Income (mentioned by Barron's) for managing a monthly income stream. Raw performance only counts for so much; with Barron's that's 25% of the total score.

Thanks @gman57 for clarifying.
@BaseballFan is spot-on in terms of the mood of most investors during those uncommon but spine-chilling episodes. Yes, the ‘87 flash-crash (about 25% down in a single afternoon) is emblazoned in my mind. Some of the older guys at work who were on the eve of retirement resembled pale ghosts walking the hallways the following day.
Can still remember overhearing a young guy freaking out on his cellphone at the Atlanta airport sometime in 2000 while we waited for a connecting flight. His portfolio had fallen double-digits on several consecutive days and stocks were crumbling again as he spoke. (See data on NASDAQ 2000-2002 at bottom of post.)
And in the spring of ‘08 I bumped into a long-lost HS friend (from the 60s) while shopping in a local market who appeaed sickened by having lost more than 30% of his IRA assets in the last 6-8 months. I gathered that he had been led to believe junk bonds were “safe” investments. He’d loaded up on them.
The above merely paints an image of how humans in different situations react at these times. It’s not intended to exculpate them from blame or offer any advice going forward.
*** “In 2000, the Nasdaq lost 39.28% of its value. In 2001, the Nasdaq lost 21.05% of its value. In 2002, the Nasdaq lost 31.53% of its value.” (Data from Google)

Robo-Advisors - Barron's Rankings, 2024
Robo-advisors are now $1.09 trillion business. Those are no longer seen as steppingstones to other strategies. In fact both the young & the people approaching retirement like them. The leaders in the AUM now are all latecomers with financial &/or marketing muscle; the original pioneers Betterment & Wealthfront do have respectable presence. So, it isn't all about ERs. But the competition is tough & some big players like JPM, GS have left this business.
Performance Ranking (overall based on multiple criteria): Fidelity, Merrill, SoFi, Vanguard, Wealthfront, Betterment, Schwab, Empower, Ally, USB, E*Trade/MS, SigFig, Wells Fargo, Acorns
1-Yr Performance for Allocation 60-40: SoFi, Fidelity, Vanguard, Wealthfront, USB, Empower, Betterment, Merrill, Ally, Schwab
AUM: Vanguard, Edelman, Morningstar, Fidelity, Schwab, Betterment, Wealthfront, Guided Choice
https://www.barrons.com/articles/best-robo-advisors-c2b901fe?mod=hp_columnists

Collective investment trusts (CITs) are unlisted, low-cost funds regulated by the OCC (banking regulator). So, their disclosure requirements are different - but the retirement plans have fiduciary duty in selecting them. Many firm's CITs are clones or cousins of their OEFs. The CITs are available in workplace retirement plans.
News is that they are now more popular (50.5% of all TDFs, 06/2024) than the listed OEFs regulated by the SEC (securities regulators). For holders, the difference isn't important except that CITs don't have useable tickers for portfolio tracking, and in-kind transfers out aren't possible. Notably, some outflows from OEFs have been into CITs, so keep that in mind using the new MFO Premium FLOW, FLOWS, TNA tools. @Charles
This while ETFs are catching up fast with OEFs in taxable accounts.
Morningstar https://www.morningstar.com/funds/cits-dethrone-mutual-funds-most-popular-target-date-vehicle

@MikeW
Mike, my schedule is busy early today; but I'll reply in full later.
@Junkster, good to 'see' you here. You know of many more bond cycles that I/we, but special periods pop up here and there, for various reasons.
I am particularly reminded of the 'near' perfect storm, in junk bonds, after the GFC.
At the time, we had access to 6 HY/HI junk bond funds in retirement accts; and placed money into all of them.
I recall the period of time when this sector was badly damaged. Very low NAV's and of course, the related high yields. For a period of time, many fund yields were about 20%. SO, bought the cheap NAV's and obtained the yields. As the 'gov't' began to fix things, the sector began to recover, but with very nice yields. We made money on the yields and then more again from the NAV increases. I'm sure many 'bond' folks made decent money in this period.
For the heck of it CHART: SPY vs SPHIX from June, 2008 to June, 2011.

@old_Joe,
BA hired a new CEO, who will be based in Seattle and not at their HQ next to the law makers. The other good news is, he is an engineer. He came out of retirement to take this job.
Lucky for BA that the market did not care for its (subpar) earnings released today.

Stable-Value (SV) Rates, 8/1/24

TIAA Traditional Annuity (Accumulation) Rates
No changes
Restricted RC 5.50%, RA 5.25%
Flexible RCP 4.75%, SRA 4.50%, Newer IRAs 4.75%
(TIAA Declaration Year 3/1 - 2/28)
TSP G Fund hasn't updated yet (previous 4.500%).
Edit/Add. August rate is ?%
Options outside of workplace retirement plans include m-mkt funds, bank m-mkt accounts (FDIC insured), T-Bills, short-term brokered CDs.
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1581/thread

Welcome @Joyes!
Please tell us the following:
1. Your age and when you plan to retire
2. If this is the majority of your investment assets, or if you have anything held anywhere else (most people have the majority of their investments in their 401k/work retirement account especially when first getting started)
3. How much you hold (as a percentage of the total in each fund)
4. What your risk tolerance is (are you ok with being down 20% at various times and will you stick with the same plan, or sell out and go more conservative?)
5. No need to mention dollar amounts, as this is a public online forum (ie, to protect yourself).
6. Thanks in advance!

I am a bit familiar with Empower as it handles 401k of a relative. But I never looked at its free personal investing dashboard. Looks like it is only an app without a PC version. I will try to find out what info is available without setting up a login. I already use both M* Portfolio/M* Investors and Stock Rover (and I don't use brokerage connections), so I am not interested in getting into a 3rd (really, 4th?) portfolio tracking software, but am only interested in evaluating the Empower App.
Full name is Empower Annuity Insurance Company of America.
Empower is the old Great-West with several other recordkeeping businesses rolled up in it. It's now a subsidiary of Canadian Great-West Lifeco. It claims to be the 2nd largest retirement plan provider - depending on the source, the 1st may be Fidelity or TIAA or Fed TSP.
https://www.empower.com/personal-investors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empower_(financial_services)

All of Empower dashboard is free. It has quotes and charts (I don't use charts). I have two limited use cases for Empower -- automated aggregation and allocation view.
I use the Retirement Planner on occasion but I prefer PV for that.

”Roth conversions now can reduce the size of those RMDs and keep more of the money tax-sheltered for longer. This may not matter to you since you don't expect to owe taxes either way.”
Roths are the best thing since sliced cheese. I’m not aware of a need for “reportable income.” Did 3 conversions in retirement. If @Crash means he doesn’t receive social security or any pension, then perhaps there’s a problem doing a conversion. I don’t know about that.
Like @msf says, you can reduce your annual RMD with a conversion because Roths don’t require any. And yet, if you need a big slug of money in a hurry, you don’t have to worry about paying taxes on your distribution because there aren’t any. I’d say Roths are a “plum” for the wealthy, and so I don’t expect Congress to kill them anytime soon.

Empower is the former Personal Capital. I use their free wealth tracker dashboard, not any of their paid FA services. I tried to do the same with Fidelity's Full View but did not find it convenient or useful.
Empower is convenient because it can automatically pull(like Yodlee) and aggregate from various accounts -- brokerages, banks, credit cards, etc. to give you a complete picture of net worth and allocations. It has other useful tools like Retirement Planner, Cash Flow, etc..
Below link has a visual on Investment Checkup feature
https://www.empower.com/personal-investors/investment-checkup
Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalCapital/
I primarily use Empower for the Allocation view and as a quick check on how much of a particular asset I am holding in aggregate across brokerages vs. having to login to Fidelity, Schwab and HSA to manually figure it out.

That's good - to show totals for the oldest asset class. But expand the note at the bottom to indicate this.
Looking at DODGX, it seems that the main display has total flows and total assets (checks with total $109.1 billion at M*; Fido has class AUM $65.3 billion)). But the bar chart below seems to show only the class flows. If intentional, this also should be noted.
BTW, many mutual fund outflows are simply to their CIT version/clone in workplace retirement plans. That also distorts the fund flows. I asked M* about it once and its response was that its database had only some CITs, so it couldn't indicate those flows for sure. Does Refinitiv have good data on CITs?

@BaluBalu,
I could see over the next several years stepping into VELIX to be 10%-15% of the portfolio...I'm likely a couple years away from stepping away from the corporate work environment...who knows, still enjoying most days what I do...and am therefore in that danger zone, within 5 years of retirement (whatever that means, right?) and post 5 years retirement...I'm very very high in cash equiv's, like over 90%...works for me, wouldn't recommend it for most but I should be transparent and state my wife and I were in the highest tax bracket for quite a few years...so what we left on the table with the uptick in markets we overcame slippage of inflation with salary/bonus/stock options etc...fully acknowledge that I've been actually taking on risk by being too conservative but on days like this, I'm going for a bike ride this evening and not overly concerned about what the markets are doing...back in my younger days, in the 20's and 30's, was uber aggressive in the stock market...not anymore...
Kind Regards,
BF

It sounds like you're in good shape - drawing modest spending cash from T-IRAs annually and owning no or little tax on those draws. From that perspective, conversions may indeed be just an added complication.
I've spoken with enough people who prefer simplicity, so take the following nudge toward conversions as just a suggestion, perhaps not worth the effort as you say.
I expect that the RMDs will have to be bigger than the amount I'm currently taking each year in January, but I'm confident we'll still owe no 1040 tax.
Roth conversions now can reduce the size of those RMDs and keep more of the money tax-sheltered for longer. This may not matter to you since you don't expect to owe taxes either way.
But if you're thinking of leaving a legacy, it could matter to your heirs. They'll owe taxes on an inherited T-IRA as they withdraw money. They won't owe taxes on inherited taxable accounts (they get a step-up in basis), but all future earnings will be taxable to them. They won't owe taxes on inherited Roths and the money can continue growing tax free for up to ten years. Even longer for a spouse who inherits.
Each person's situation is different. The amount of money you might convert could be small enough that it's just not worth the hassle. In my case, some of my beneficiaries are nonresident aliens living where there is no tax treaty. They will be subject to 30% withholding. So I'm doing conversions over many years to reduce my T-IRAs.
Finally, the good news - you get another year (until age 73) before RMDs kick in.