http://www.thestreet.com/story/13465544/1/you-ll-need-2-million-before-you-can-think-of-retirement.html
Retirement is really post WWII concept that people still believe is possible for them. But if you are 30 or under prepare for living on the street or in the boondocks (read up on BLM land) in your 60s.
Thank you for paying your SS taxes - I'll be enjoying them.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1141819/000089418916007712/collins-tpm_497e.htm
497 1 collins-tpm_497e.htm SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS (497E - STICKER)
Filed pursuant to Rule 497(e)
Registration Nos. 333-62298; 811-10401
Collins Alternative Solutions Fund
A series of Trust for Professional Managers (the “Trust”)
Supplement dated February 19, 2016
to the Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information dated June 28, 2015
The Board of Trustees (the “Board”) of Trust for Professional Managers (the “Trust”), based upon the recommendation of Collins Capital Investments, LLC (the “Adviser”), the investment adviser to the Collins Alternative Solutions Fund (the “Fund”), a series of the Trust, has determined to close and liquidate the Fund. The Board concluded that it would be in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders that the Fund be closed and liquidated as a series of the Trust effective as of the close of business on February 19, 2016.
The Board approved a Plan of Liquidation (the “Plan”) that determines the manner in which the Fund will be liquidated. Pursuant to the Plan and in anticipation of the Fund’s liquidation, the Fund will be closed to new purchases effective as of the close of business on February 19, 2016. However, any distributions declared to shareholders of the Fund after February 19, 2016 and until the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange on February 26, 2016 will be automatically reinvested in additional shares of the Fund unless a shareholder specifically requests that such distributions be paid in cash. Although the Fund will be closed to new purchases as of February 19, 2016, you may continue to redeem your shares of the Fund after February 19, 2016, as provided in the Prospectus. Please note, however, that the Fund will be liquidating its assets as of the close of business on February 26, 2016.
Pursuant to the Plan, if the Fund has not received your redemption request or other instruction prior to the close of business on February 26, 2016, the effective time of the liquidation, your shares will be redeemed, and you will receive proceeds representing your proportionate interest in the net assets of the Fund as of February 26, 2016, subject to any required withholdings. As is the case with any redemption of fund shares, these liquidation proceeds will generally be subject to federal and, as applicable, state and local income taxes if the redeemed shares are held in a taxable account and the liquidation proceeds exceed your adjusted basis in the shares redeemed. If the redeemed shares are held in a qualified retirement account such as an IRA, the liquidation proceeds may not be subject to current income taxation under certain conditions. You should consult with your tax adviser for further information regarding the federal, state and/or local income tax consequences of this liquidation that are relevant to your specific situation.
The Adviser will bear all of the expenses incurred in carrying out the Plan.
Shareholder inquiries should be directed to the Fund at 1-855-55-ALT-MF.
Please retain this Supplement with your Prospectus and
Statement of Additional Information for reference.

Fund now has $6B in assets, all classes. the A shares OSMAX is available load waived as NTF. I own OSMYX, institutional version. I called them and if fund is held with financial advisor, can still add. Nice fund.
January 29, 2016
OPPENHEIMER INTERNATIONAL SMALL-MID COMPANY FUND TO SOFT CLOSE ON APRIL 1, 2016
Dear Oppenheimer International Small-Mid Company Fund Shareholder:
In an effort to continue to provide our shareholders with a long-term strategy for success, we are placing limitations
on certain investor purchases into Oppenheimer International Small-Mid Company Fund. We believe
these new limitations will help position the Fund for continued sustainable long-term growth.
Effective as of the close of the New York Stock Exchange on April 1, 2016, the Fund will no longer accept
purchase orders from new investors and existing Fund shareholders will no longer be able to purchase new
shares or exchange shares of other funds into the Fund, subject to certain exceptions including:
• If you own shares in certain types of employer-sponsored retirement plans you can continue to purchase
shares and exchange into the Fund.
• If you own shares through an OppenheimerFunds Portfolio BuilderSM account you can continue to purchase
shares and exchange into the Fund.
• If you own shares in any 529 Plan that currently includes the Fund within one or more of their investment
options, those existing 529 portfolios are not affected.
Distribution and capital gains set to reinvest in Oppenheimer International Small-Mid Company Fund will continue
to reinvest after the close date. If you have automatic purchases established for this Fund and one of
the above exceptions does not apply, your auto purchase feature will be turned off before the effective
date. This will include purchases you make through Asset Builder, exchanges from another Oppenheimer fund
into this Fund (including dividend exchanges) and other automatic purchase methods. If you wish to continue
your automatic investments after the effective date, you will need to choose a different investment to receive
the purchases. Your financial advisor can help you make changes to your account.
We will continue to monitor the Fund to determine if we need to further modify these restrictions on investment
purchases. Please see the prospectus supplement, which is available on our website at oppenheimerfunds.com
for additional details on these and other changes to the purchase restrictions for the Fund.
If you have any questions, please speak with your financial advisor or contact us at 1 800 CALL OPP (225 5677)

Lipper puts VBINX in the Growth Allocation category. There are 113 such funds in its database ending January 2016, at least 10 years old, oldest share class only, open and closed.
VBINX stacks up pretty well. Here is list from top, sorted by 10 year annualized total return (APR), which includes expenses, reinvested dividends, and any max front load. (As always, no accounting for category drift or survivorship.)

It beat out Dodge & Cox Balanced DODBX, which has delivered 5% APR, placing it 41 out of 113.
Here is same list based a Martin Ratio, which is the risk return adjusted metric used to computed MFO Return Group ratings. Martin is excess total return over 90 day TBill divided by Ulcer Index, as described in the paper by Peter Martin, entitlded: An Alternative Approach to the Measurement of Investment Risk & Risk-Adjusted Performance.

If we look across all the asset allocation categories, VBINX ranks even better.
MFO groups the following categories as Asset Allocation (AA) type: Target Today, Target 2010, Target 2015, Target 2020, Target 2025, Target 2030, Target 2035, Target 2040, Target 2045, Target 2050, Target 2055+, Conservative Allocation, Moderate Allocation, Growth Allocation, Aggressive Growth Allocation, Absolute Return, Convertible Securities, Flexible Portfolio, Retirement Income.
There are 470 such funds ending January 2016, at least 10 years old, oldest share class only, open and closed.
Here's how VBINX stack up on that list, again, by APR:

All well and good:
- IF you knew then what you know now
- IF one is fully committed to buying and holding no matter what the market does
- IF you can refrain from spicing up your retirement stew from time to time with select outperformers as conditions warrant/dictate.
In the end probably not a bad course of action for most investors.

I had been looking at this ESG fund, for last two years. (this will be less than 5% of my retirement portfolio). PGRNX has 37% renewable energy, 40% water, 11% waste management.
http://paxworld.com/system/storage/19/d7/e/1748/fact_sheet_globalenvironmentalmarketsfund.pdf
This is tracked as a world stock. Expenses are a bit high, But I have more than 15 years for my retirement and was thinking to add one of ESG funds. I used to believe this was a hype but I do believe in climate change and have experienced personally scarce water issues in other parts of the world.
Thoughts? Opinions?
Thanks
Mulder

Howdy folks,
Mark is spot on. Goes back to Peter Lynch - play what you know. Everybody has some area of knowledge superior to most and if played . . . I've collected coins for some 60 years so I should know pm's. I've watched Mark play MLPs for years and tried, but I have NEVER been able to figure them out. Indeed, over the years, most of my investment losses have been from playing somewhere I had no business being.
That said, when you play within your circle of competence, as Mark put it, you are able to bear greater risks with a larger percentage of your portfolio.
As for investing differently because I have a pension is really beside the point of financing a retirement.
I've always thought of retirement as a footstool with one or more legs. Social security is a leg, as is a DB pension, and a 401(k), an IRA, savings, home equity, rental income, other streams of income, a child who is a physician with a granny flat, etc. Each of these represents a leg under your stool. The game is to get as many legs and make each of them as strong as you can.
and so it goes,
peace,
rono

@davfor, that is an interesting and useful observation. It is necessary to understand where something like this may fit in for fund evaluation.
At a very high level, those ratios answer questions like "Is this fund going to go up and down a lot for what I can get from it that may be a problem". RARE analysis answers questions like "If I buy this fund over an index fund (or another similar fund) at any time, am I (as opposed to the fund) likely to do better than the latter".
Regarding the ratios you mentioned, a quantitative study of correlation at this point wouldn't make sense because the sample space is so small and the selected funds are already skewed towards funds that are rated high over several metrics.
But qualitatively, they do measure very different things. Those ratios along with Sharpe ratio are volatility measures that may affect your ability to achieve a certain return or the deviations they make in reaching that return that may give you ulcers. So, they are affected by market volatility. A sector index fund that faithfully follows a highly volatile sector would fare poorly in those measures.
RARE grades on the other hand measure the ability of an investor to realize an alpha or excess return over the market using a particular fund even if you are losing money because markets are headed down. It normalizes with respect to market volatility.
So, it is more related to alpha measures for a fund. It differs from alpha measures in that it is also a measure of the volatility of the alpha generation as a rolling metric. Just as volatility of price in a fund affects the probability of returns you get based on when you bought that fund (near a peak or a trough), volatility of alpha determines the probability that any individual investor will realize the alpha that is measured for the fund in discrete steps.
If the underlying market is very steady and the fund is very volatile with respect to it, it may be correlated with volatility measures. But if the fund is also steady, then it isn't correlated. A fund that generates alpha uniformly will have good RARE grades and a fund that is equally steady but loses with respect to the index say with high ER, will have poor RARE grade while the volatility measures might be the same for both.
The reason this distinction to alpha measure is important is because of timing and the incentive fund managers have to manage returns for a calendar year. If the alpha performance of a fund is streaky or lumpy as may happen with a focused fund, then the alpha you would see will be very dependent on when you bought into that fund and may be much less or negative compared to the alpha reported for that fund in some fixed time period.
Fund managers are in the asset gathering business not fund returns business, so the latter is only important as to help in that asset gathering. Because of the year to year metrics used which determine how a fund fares in rankings and comparisons, it sets up an incentive for a manager to manage the returns for a calendar year rather than manage the returns for the investors coming in and out.
The activity of fund managers trying to juice up returns towards the end of the year by increasing risk or beta exposure especially if they are trailing the index is much talked about. If you sold the fund before they did this (or have been selling regularly in retirement), you may not get anywhere close to the returns for the fund for the year.
What is not talked about much is the opposite, when fund managers get a windfall earlier in the year. Depending on that gain, it may be safer for the managers to reduce risk for rest of year and coast than risk losing that earlier gain. So if you are doing monthly buys or buy later in the year, you may not see anywhere close to the gains for the fund for the year.
RARE grades try to separate funds that have streaky or lumpy gains in narrow periods from those that steadily (not calendar year consistent as some metrics try to do) beat the market over longer periods. While it may protect you from poor timing of when you got into the fund, it also has the benefit of potentially avoiding funds that look good on paper but that may be from one or two lucky streaks and unlikely to be repeated. Funds with steady gains over longer periods may indicate better management and/or strategy.
Should complement other fund evaluation criterion.

Great work Andy and what a nice fund! Wish it didn't have that pesky short term redemption fee. As I mentioned to someone here, that would be something I would love to own if I could ever get into a retirement mode. I should be out hiking today and everyday for that matter. But have to stay put and decide whether I need to lighten up on the junk corporates. At least the junk munis continue to just roll along with PYMDX the leader of the pack.

@lljb, you are right. My first reading of those slides was wrong. He was badmouthing the critics not Bill Miller by quoting the badmouthing of Bill Miller by the critics. So, I take that part back and apologies to Mr. Smead for that mischaracterization.
The critics weren't doing anything other than echoing the sentiments of the passive indexing over active indexing crowd that saw the fall of Bill Miller as validation of their long-held views. I don't see this is necessarily foolish because there are good reasons for criticizing the performance of active managers as a whole.
Ironically, his argument against the criticism relies on the same calendar year metric that I show above can hide the performance real investors may see in the funds relative to the index.
Just to note, I am not doing an indexing vs active argument here. My point is that bad metrics make it difficult to select good active funds that may exist from bad/lucky ones.
Here is an idea for the site owners since they seem to have the data and the computing capability.
What if you computed a metric that calculated the 1yr, 3yr, 5yr returns as an average and variance to the index over multiple runs of the fund each with a single purchase at the beginning of each month since inception and held for that period of time? Right now, the metrics say what happens if investors purchase only at the beginning of the year which is very artificial and subject to gaming by fund managers.
Wouldn't this be a more valid indicator of what an investor coming across a fund and purchasing without paying attention to the calendar can expect from the fund? This would make explicit any destructive effect of the fund's volatility if they tend to be volatile and can burn investors. Would the great owls be still be great owls using this metric? If a fund had a long and distributed poor performance periods with some lucky short spikes then this would expose the destructive power of such underperformance even if the fund managed a tiny gain in enough years from such spikes to look great in current metrics.
The second metric would be adding a fixed investment every month for each run above as might happen in a retirement fund or a disciplined investing plan. This is for investors in the accumulation phase. The complement would be withdrawing a fixed amount each month during that run.
Isn't it worth doing this experiment if the current metrics have the potential of misleading investors setting false expectations of what a fund is likely to do even when future performance mimics past performance? Is it feasible or such metrics already available?

Mark,
Could not agree more and have posted so. "... common argument [for raising the retirement age] amounts, in effect, to the notion that we can’t let janitors retire because lawyers are living longer" [Krugman and others].
Press was talking about the Federal Reserve. Not the debt fearmongerers who advocate bad changes to SS.

Hi expatsp:
I manage, or mismanage, retirement accounts for 2 kids and their spouses. Bought FAIRX maybe 10 years ago, sold maybe 5 years ago. Why? The 'star' manager phenom. Some of those 'kids' are more attuned than others, but none of them have the level of cynicism I do. I like the team managed stuff, thinking that there might be some continuity over the coming years. I use two you mentioned: Primecap and Dodge & Cox. Tweedy Browne Global has been in their ports for years as well, although I think their ER stinks: they don't trade an awful lot and won't buy anywhere they can't drink the water - so whats the deal with 1.40 ER?
Am taking antacids over Sequoia: thought I had a good one there. We'll see if they can right the ship.
Matthews MACSX requires monitoring now - I have been neglectful of their management changes. Artisan ARTGX can stay for a while and we'll see. Bridgeway B
ridgeway is another concern of

I learned very early on in my teaching career there was a big difference between a 40b(b) (IRA deferred annuity with loads, riders and fees) and a 403b(7) (IRA mutual fund account at low cost places like vanguard).

I think you mean 403b(1), not 40b(b).
In any case, it seems you're confusing implementation with requirement. That is, each vehicle allows for a variety of different plans, good and bad. 403(b)(7) plans allow for load funds (not necessarily load-waived). And 403(b)(1) plans allow for very cheap, noload, straightforward annuities.
One really can't talk about 403(b)(1) plans without looking at the elephant in the room, TIAA-CREF. You're not going to get a stable value option paying 4% in any 403(b)(7). You're probably not going to have a loan option with a 403(b)(7), at least according to this description of 403(b) plans provided by New York State United Teachers (NYSUT).
A CREF VA is pretty much plain vanilla, no loads, and inexpensive (including the annuity fee) totaling less than 40 basis points for actively managed funds in some plans. Here's their prospectus (expenses are on p.8, pdf p. 11):
http://www.tiaa-cref.org/public/prospectuses/cref_prospectus.pdf
That's not to say that all the wannabe annuity plans don't charge an arm and a leg, or that 403(b)(7) plans are typically high priced. Just that it's more the provider than the type of plan that matters. Even a Fidelity 403(b)(7) will likely cost more than a TIAA-CREF 403(b)(1).

One thing to keep in mind: the many kinds of deferred annuities "guaranteeing" 5, 6, 7% are not "bought" by consumers. Consumers are SOLD these things.

I learned very early on in my teaching career there was a big difference between a 40b(b) (IRA deferred annuity with loads, riders and fees) and a 403b(7) (IRA mutual fund account at low cost places like vanguard).
Vanguard never brought me lunch in the teacher's lunch room, but they continue to help fund my post-retirement parties.

Either I'm reading the DOL proposal wrong or the news article is an insurance industry PR piece.
If you want a "short" summary, here's the DOL fact sheet:
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fsconflictsofinterest.html
My two line summary: Fiduciary responsibility will now generally apply to advice on IRAs (so if brokers intend to avoid that responsibility, they'll have to stop selling IRAs altogether, which won't happen), and virtually nothing gets special treatment or singled out. If annuities lose market share, it's because they are often not the best investments (especially inside of IRAs), not because they're being picked on.
I'm still wading through the proposal - which is long and takes several readings to appreciate. With that qualification (i.e. I may not know what I'm talking about), here are some responses to the article:
- "annuity retirement accounts [would be added] to the list of investments for which brokers [have to act as fiduciaries]"
Sure, and so would mutual funds, and anything else in an IRA. What's being changed is that if you get individualized advice on an IRA (or 401(k)), the adviser would now be considered a fiduciary, regardless of the investment. The proposal says:

Today, ... many ...advisers have no obligation to adhere to [fiduciary standards], despite the critical role they play in guiding ... IRA investments. Under [the Internal Revenue] Code, if these advisers are not fiduciaries, they may operate with conflicts of interest that they need not disclose and have limited liability under federal pension law for any harms resulting from the advice they provide. Non-fiduciaries may give imprudent and disloyal advice ...
With this regulatory action, the Department proposes ... a definition of fiduciary investment advice that better ... protects plans, participants, beneficiaries, and IRA owners from conflicts of interest, imprudence, and disloyalty.

The proposal goes on and on about how high cost funds are costing IRA investors a percent or more a year. I don't see any similar criticism of retirement annuities.

The underperformance associated with conflicts of interest--in the mutual funds segment alone--could cost IRA investors more than $210 billion over the next 10 years and nearly $500 billion over the next 20 years. Some studies suggest that the underperformance of broker-sold mutual funds may be even higher than 100 basis points, possibly due to loads that are taken off the top and/or poor timing of broker sold investments

- "The extra work required by the new rules ... would likely push brokers away from selling annuities and toward mutual funds and other fee-based investments"
The extra work imposed by the new regulations would apply to all IRA investments, so annuities wouldn't be disadvantaged. As a result of industry comments, DOL streamlined the regulations to reduce the overhead. DOL acknowledges compliance costs:

The Department nonetheless believes that these gains alone would far exceed the proposal's compliance cost.... For example, if only 75 percent of the potential gains were realized in the subset of the market that was analyzed (the front-load mutual fund segment of the IRA market), the gains would amount to between $30 billion and $33 billion over 10 years.

- "They feel the government is favoring mutual fund companies like Vanguard over insurers"
The proposed regs allow advisers to keep their front end loads, their wrap fees, etc. so long as they are reasonable under the circumstances.

Investment advice fiduciaries to IRAs could still receive commissions for transactions involving non-securities insurance and annuity contracts, but they would be required to comply with all the protective conditions [that apply to mutual funds]

For the full set of DOL docs, see: http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/regs/conflictsofinterest.html

FYI: Lincoln National Corp., the Radnor-based life insurer and retirement investments company, is among a group of American insurers facing a steep drop in annuities sales to retirement investors and their IRA accounts, if a year-old Obama adminstration consumer-protection proposal gets enacted this winter, as industry observers expect
Regards,
Ted
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/Is-US-favoring-mutual-funds-vs-insurers-annuities.html

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1567138/000116204416001395/gator497201601.htm
497 1 gator497201601.htm
January 20, 2016
GATOR OPPORTUNITIES FUND
Supplement to the Prospectus dated July 29, 2015, as supplemented December 21, 2015
On December 21, 2015, the Gator Opportunities Fund (the “Fund”), a series of the Gator Series Trust (the “Trust”), notified shareholders that, pursuant to various considerations and approvals by the Trust’s Board of Trustees (the “Board”), the Trust expected that, subject to approval by the shareholders of the Fund, the Fund would be entering into a transaction with BPV Family of Funds (the “BPV Trust”) for the purpose of reorganizing the Fund into BPV Small Cap Fund (the “Transaction”). The Fund had prepared, with the assistance of the BPV Trust, a draft proxy statement regarding the Transaction, which was filed on Form N-14 with the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 14, 2015, in anticipation of finalizing the same for a shareholder meeting. However, the Trust was informed on January 15, 2016, that BPV Capital Management, LLC (“BPV”), the investment adviser to the BPV Trust, had determined not to go forward with the Transaction.
In light of the foregoing, effective immediately, the Trust has terminated the public offering of the Fund’s shares and will discontinue the Fund’s operations and liquidate no later than March 21, 2016 (the “Closing Date”). Shares of the Fund are no longer available for purchase.
The Board, in consultation with the Fund’s investment adviser, Gator Capital Management, LLC (the “Adviser”), determined by written consent dated January 20, 2016 (the “Written Consent”) to discontinue the Fund’s operations based on, among other factors, the Adviser’s belief that it would be in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders to discontinue the Fund’s operations. Through the date of the Fund’s liquidation, currently scheduled to take place on the Closing Date, the Adviser will continue to waive fees and reimburse expenses of the Fund, as necessary, in order to maintain the Fund’s fees and expenses at their current level, as specified in the Prospectus.
In the Written Consent, the Board of Trustees directed that: (i) all of the Fund’s portfolio securities be liquidated to cash in an orderly manner on or before the Closing Date; and (ii) all outstanding shareholder accounts on the Closing Date be closed and the proceeds of each account be sent to the shareholder’s address of record or to such other address as directed by the shareholder including special instructions that may be needed for Individual Retirement Accounts (“IRAs”) and qualified pension and profit sharing fund accounts. As a result of the liquidation of the Fund’s portfolio securities described above, the Fund’s normal exposure to investments will be reduced and eventually eliminated. Accordingly, shareholders should not expect the Fund to achieve its stated investment objective.
Shareholders may continue to freely redeem their shares on each business day during the Fund’s liquidation process. The distribution of proceeds from the closing of shareholder accounts remaining on the Closing Date will be considered for tax purposes a sale of Fund shares by shareholders, and shareholders should consult with their own tax advisors to ensure its proper treatment on their income tax returns. In addition, shareholders invested through an IRA or other tax-deferred account should consult the rules regarding the reinvestment of these assets. In order to avoid a potential tax issue, shareholders may choose to authorize a direct transfer of their retirement account assets to another tax-deferred retirement account before the Fund liquidates. Typically, shareholders have 60 days from the date of the liquidation to invest the proceeds in another IRA or qualified retirement account; otherwise the liquidation proceeds may be required to be included in the shareholder’s taxable income for the current tax year.
If you have any questions regarding this Supplement, please call (813)-282-7870.
Investors Should Retain this Supplement for Future Reference

@heezsafe, thanks for the link. It made interesting reading. Biotechs have been flat from that point not counting today's bounce.
It is like when you read a news report that seems credible and plausible. If you were a participant in the news or had inside information, the reports you read are almost always full of inaccuracies.
Same thing with investing. We make investment decisions within the narrow scope of what we know or can imagine but the reality is most often very different. Lot of times, it does not matter because you place a bet, the stock goes up for other reasons or as is more often the case, because a lot of people place the same semi-ignorant bets, and we think we have it figured out. When it does not, we blame the "other" investors, manipulators, etc or move our targets to a longer term. This is fine as a game app you play on a smartphone but trusting the entire retirement plan to it? Just nuts.
But that is the only game we have if you haven't earned enough via wages to make retirement without playing this game. What is insidious is that a whole industry is vested in doing exactly that convincing everyone else to play the game. That includes every broker and fund manager.
I really have to wonder why people buy individual stock because of the games being played within the companies to make their shares attractive to the "greater fool" markets we have. If you had visibility into any of the inner deliberations, you would never buy any company's share based on public disclosure unless you had that kind of visibility in which case you might be flirting close to insider trading territory.
Most of the wealth in the Bay Area comes from exploiting that market system of greater fools, not from playing it as another fool. Biotechs and Unicorns are currently doing so. Same is true of NY area I would think.

Think of it this way: You've worked your entire life at a job or a career if you hopped around. Then you're expected to trust your retirement--your golden years--to the stock market--something the best experts on the subject admit is a random walk. If you're lucky you do well as the market is rising when you retire. If you're unlucky and retire during a terrible crash, you're broke or at least struggling. Either way, the situation is largely out of your control. Meanwhile money managers collect their tolls on your assets regardless whether the market rises or falls. It's a heads I win tails you lose scenario.
There is something grotesquely unfair about that for someone who has worked their entire life and just wants now to rest and enjoy their remaining few years. This is why when I hear politicians saying Social Security should be invested in the stock market, I laugh. People are right to distrust Wall Street.
Yet I recognize Sauter has a point in the country we live in. That country is one where there isn't a strong social safety net and interest rates are near 0%. So the stock market is the only game in town. And for most people who don't have the time or ability to find good money managers, index funds are often the best way to go. They are the only way to prevent Wall Street from extracting its pound of flesh from their retirement funds.

Hi Everyone,
I use Powerfunds Portfolios to guide my investing -- Aggressive Portfolio for IRAs (we're about 15 years from retirement) and Conservative Portfolio for college funds (needed in the next 1 to 6 years). I have found them to be quite prescient about what categories will do well going forward, though sometimes a bit early in switching. Last year, the Aggressive Portfolio had a gain of 3%. (Sadly for me, I didn't do as well, with -1.7%. The recommended double oil short DTO was too volatile for me and I passed on it, but it is up 100% over the last year). In 2008, the Aggressive Portfolio was down about -16%, not too bad. The portfolios change every 12 to 18 months.
New recommendations for the portfolios came out yesterday -- check them out at the link above. Basically, in the Aggressive Portfolio, they are recommending ~ 40% in long term bonds, a switch from growth to value, new investments in utilities and Italy, and some shorts in case of a total market meltdown.
lrwilliams