Reply to @Old_Joe: Thanks! I think for me it's a matter of trying different paths, looking globally and going with themes that I think will do well over the longer term (EM, real assets including things like Brookfield Infrastructure and even something smaller like probiotics/enzymes.) Recommendations I make on the board tend to be more conservative, because as I've noted I think what's right for me and what I'm trying is not going to be right for someone at/near retirement (and that's okay, and I certainly have things that I like to suggest that are more conservative.)

HI WSR: HSGFX is the only one you mention I'm familiar with. Recently pulled small (4-5%) allocation out. Hey - I'm all for mixing in a few alternative-type funds. Consider them almost a form of "tribute" paid to the "gods of market destruction" in exchange for investing in more traditional funds which are long stocks, bonds, commodities or real estate. Relatively small investments in these alternative strategy funds serve to remind us that conventional wisdom will sometimes be wrong - markets don't always go up. These products may dampen sharp market downswings while earning better returns than available in money market or short term bond funds. One problem is they are hard to classify. Strategies vary quite a bit. I suspect the other two you put up are tied more to commodity investing and may not resemble HSGFX very much. (BTW I advocate some exposure to hard assets.) Another problem is they are by necessity running "against the grain" of conventional wisdom and so are not easily understood by most. Certainly HSGFX has a bit of a black-box quality to it. You may understand JH's weekly array of charts and graphs - but I dare say 90% of his readers don't.
Funds like HSGFX would appear more suited for investors nearing or in retirement and who like me harbor powerful reservations about the bond market. For early savers-investors (under 40) I question the need, considering they will continue dollar averaging into markets - both good and bad - for many years. Bit of a rush here, but don't think you addressed age & varying risk tolerances in your HSGFX recommendation. Giving up on HSGFX wasn't easy after 10 years. Would just say look at the 10-year record. Compare the 2.6 annual return with his gab about "complete market cycles". Well, we had a complete cycle in there somewhere - stock markets going from boom to bust and back to boom again. And a 2+% annual gain over that time was the best he could muster? Tell me one wouldn't have been better off in a very conservative balanced fund - 40% equity & 60% fixed, or even fully invested in a short term bond fund. So, no idea were that fund will go. Always the possibility markets will make those of us who pulled out look like idiots and HSFGX will have a phenomenal 10 year run. Hummm ... FWIW

Reply to @catch22: fwiw - no problem here with your keeping SIRRX. Speaks volumes about the different approaches to "retirement" investing. (Who knows - they could be proven right.) IMHO, as long as benchmarks reflect a good mix of different approaches, don't think anyone can fault them.

Hi hank,
Yes, SIRRX is showing to be a bit of a strange duck, too. A more conservative retirement fund than I though it might become and/or remain.
Knowing that many of us use our own benchmarkets privately; not unlike the ongoing chit-chat here; I hope the benchmarks we show may be of some benefit to those we know read through MFO, but either seldom or never comment.
The most difficult part (sometimes) for any jabber I post is to not forget that the mix of age groups and investment knowledge spans a vast range.
The "ease of use" from the wonderful program Accipiter set for use here with the tickers; lets folks jump to their favorite sniffing site to get further knowledge about the fund noted. This is part of the reason for placing the psuedo benchmarks.
We're all traveling a grand investment road here from the value of, to and for the participants at MFO. What a delightful place.
I gotta go outside to catchup on some chores. The wind here today, is strong and cold, from the northeast.
Take care,
Catch

Hi Catch. Thanks for the reply. I'll confess jerkin your string a little with the HSGFX suggestion (too easy a target anyway :-). You are to be commended for including a variety of benchmarks against which to measure performance - and which should reflect different approaches to a retirement portfolio. Either TRRIX or TRRFX would seem an excellent choice for inclusion. As noted, the whole series is on the aggressive side and may well outperform other retirement approaches during bull markets. Would, however, provide a nice off-set to the Northern Lights fund (SIRRX) whose approach seems remarkably devoid of equities. Have linked its allocation below. Take care, hank
http://funds.usatoday.com/funds/holdings.idms?SYMBOL_US=SIRRX

Reply to @hank: Hi Hank. The TRP Target funds are exactly what I use as bench marks. And honestly, some times I wonder why I bother with putting my own portfolio together. Those all-in-one funds are pretty darn good. I think I just like "the game" of putting together my own group of funds. But anyone who struggles with that or just doesn't like to do the work should absolutely be in a Target Date fund - and T. Rowe Price, I think, has some of the best.
And one more word on these funds; I would suggest anyone using the funds should only use the "target" retirement date as a guide. More important is to match the fund to your risk tolerance, not necessarily your age. If you are comfortable with 40% stocks, use the retirement fund. If you are more comfortable with 50% stock, use 2005. I think the 2015 fund is closer to the standard 60:40 stock:bond mix.
Anyway, these funds are a pretty good bench mark and a challenge to beat.

Catch, May I suggest rather than using Hussman's Total Return Fund (HSTRX) as one of your "pseudo benchmarks", you instead use his Strategic Growth Fund (HSGFX)? This would result in your out-distancing Dr. Hussman by an additional 5.80% YTD. While it's admittedly hard to understand the inner workings of HSGFX (puts, calls, options), HSTRX appears decidedly more conservative than what you are attempting to accomplish with your fund boat. In its Dec 31, 2011 semi-annual report, HSTRX reported having over 34% of its assets invested in money market funds, about 20% in stocks (mostly mining shares), and the remainder in U.S. Treasury bonds and bills - most with under 5 years to maturity. The fund reported holding no sub-Investment grade debt - nor has it ever to my recollection. By contrast, if I'm reading your synopsis correctly, you hold 27-28% in high yield bonds with 0% in money market funds. This appears to make your risk profile considerably higher than what Hussman intends for HSTRX.
Additionally, may I suggest using one of T Rowe Price's highly regarded Retirement Target-Date funds as a future pseudo benchmark along with the others you have chosen? Linked is a M* report from Dec. 31, 2011 which ranks these funds as a group in the upper 20% of their peers. One of the most conservative TRRFX (Retirement 2005) is designed by Price for those who attained age 65 in 2005 (age 72 today). As of Dec. 31, 2011 the fund held 45% in equities. YTD it is up 6.08%.
http://news.morningstar.com/pdfs/STUSA04OMN.pdf

Howdy,
Again, a thank you to all who post the links and also start and participate in the many fine commentaries woven into the message threads.
For those who don't know; I ramble away about this and that, at least once each week.
NOTE: For those who visit MFO, this portfolio is designed for retirement, capital preservation and to stay ahead of inflation creep. This is not a buy and hold portfolio, and is subject to change on any given day; based upon perceptions of market directions. All assets in this portfolio are in tax-sheltered accounts; and any fund distributions are reinvested in the funds. Gains or losses are computed from actual account values.
While looking around..... The equity and bond kids continue the battle. While there remains decent YTD returns in many equity sectors, the bond kids are not buying into the whole picture; at least as is reflected in the so-called "safe harbor" issues of the U.S. Treasury, German bunds, British gilts and Japan's bonds. The Spanish bond auctions this past week performed better than I expected. However, both the Spanish and Italian 10 year bonds remain close to a 6% yield. While this yield would not be out of place during a period of growth for these or other country economies; I am not convinced that such a yield/payment burden upon these two countries is sustainable given the current existing debt burdens, delevering at many levels, potential for growth and ongoing austerity programs. If one could find a statistic; I would not be surprised to find for this summer, that the number of increase in size or new vegetable gardens among the citizens of Greece, Italy and Spain, in particular, as well as many other European countries. This would be another indicator of economic quality.
As to sector rotations; at least relative to the U.S. (Note: any given fund in any of these sectors will have varing degrees of performance based upon where the manager(s) choose to be invested.)
--- U.S. equity +1.5 through - 1.2%, avg. = +.6%
--- Int'l equity +3 through 0%, avg. = +1.4%
--- U.S. eq. sectors +4 through -2.6%, avg. = +.5%
--- U.S. IG bonds +.2 through 0%, avg. = +.05%
--- HY bonds +.7 through +.1%, avg. = +.3%
The best groups among the equity sectors were health/medical, utilities and consumer staples. The best average in the IG bonds were TIPS funds. Int'l equity (generally Europe) performed much better than the broad U.S. equities. There is an obvious large spread among some of the areas listed above. Now if we can only discover the forward paths.
Meanwhile, the IMF continues to beg for money to support and/or stablize some European countries. To a point, I don't really care about or give credit to words that continue to flow from the mouths of many of the heads of these various groups. On any given day one may find a reversal of what these folks word to the microphone about the quality of a region or the prospect for global growth. Behind closed doors, I suspect one would find a great deal of concern as to "how do we get out of this mess?" Of course, a possible true scenario may be that "reality bites" and to allow the unwind to take place. Perhaps this is the plan with all of the money being thrown about; as what took many years to acccumlate will also take many years to unwind. Sadly, the uttered and changing words and thoughts from some of these folks in high places is of little value or comfort; and only causes more uncertainty. I find very few upfront leaders anywhere who are associated with politics, governments or the numerous global monetary organizations. Surprise, surprise; eh?
You may consider our portfolio to be quite boring, but you may be assured that it moves and bends about each and every day; from forces beyond our control. We retail investors will find many interesting investment periods to ponder, as usual, in the coming years.
I have added a few blips related to our portfolio and market observations at the below SELLs/BUYs and Portfolio Thoughts.
SELLs/BUYs THIS PAST WEEK:

--- NONE ---
Portfolio Thoughts:
Our holdings had a + .20 % move this past week. Sidenote: The average return of 200 combined Fidelity retail funds across all sectors (week avg = +.16, YTD +8.8%). What is cash? This is a periodic question at MFO. For our house, we consider our IG bond holdings to be our cash in the current market conditions. One will find MM funds as a pure cash acct.; but even if fees are waived at this time, the average return for the past 3 years for a MM fund we could use (FDRXX) is .01%. Our IG bond funds have an average .45% expense ratio. An interesting question arises as to why in the world would one use a TIPS fund at all, let alone as a cash holding; and especially with the most recent TIPS auction closing with another negative yield? Move past the negative yield thought and to the fact that the yield also currently reflects a price/NAV increase. This is where the money is made today. Our two TIPS funds, APOIX and FINPX have YTD's of 1.9% and 2.2%, respectively. We find this return acceptable for parked money; with the added bonus of total flexibility to move the monies on a days notice to something more favorable.
The old Funds Boat is at anchor, riding in the small waves and watching the weather. To the high praise of MFO and the members, it is very difficult to find a topic to note here that has not been placed into the discussion boards. Excellence, as usual.
I have retained the following links for those who may choose to do their own holdings comparison against the fund types noted.
The first two links to Bloomberg are for their list of balanced/flexible funds; although I don't always agree with the placement of fund styles in their categories.
Bloomberg Balanced
Bloomberg Flexible
These next two links are for conservative and moderate fund leaders YTD, per MSN.
Conservative Allocation
Moderate Allocation
A reflection upon the links above; we attempt to establish a "benchmark" for our portfolio to help us "see" how our funds are performing. Aside from viewing many funds within the balanced/flexible funds rankings (the above links), a quick and dirty group of 5 funds we watch for psuedo benchmarking are the following:
***Note: these YTD's per M*
VWINX .... + .64 week, YTD = + 3.92%
PRPFX .... + .44 week, YTD = + 4.82%
SIRRX ..... + .13 week, YTD = + 2.47%
TRRFX .... + .51 week, YTD = + 6.08%
VTENX ... + .47 week, YTD = + 5.39%
HSTRX .... - .16 week, YTD = + .07% (to be removed, fund no longer matches our mix)
Such are the numerous battles with investments attempting to capture a decent return and minimize the risk.
We live and invest in interesting times, eh? Hey, I probably forgot something; and hopefully the words make some sense. Comments and questions always welcomed.
Good fortune to you, yours and the investments.
Take care,
Catch
---Below is what M* x-ray has attempted to sort for our portfolio, as of March 9, 2012---
U.S.Stocks 10.5%
Foreign Stocks 6.8%
Bonds 78.5% ***
Other 4.2%
Not Classified 0.00%
***about 35% of the bond total are high yield category (equity related cousins)
---This % listing is kinda generic, by fund "name"
-Investment grade bond funds 26.8%
-Diversified bond funds 19.8%
-HY/HI bond funds 23.2%
-Total bond funds 17.8%
-Foreign EM/debt bond funds 4.3%
-U.S./Int'l equity/speciality funds 8.1%
This is our current list: (NOTE: I have added a speciality grouping below for a few of fund types)
---High Yield/High Income Bond funds
FAGIX Fid Capital & Income
SPHIX Fid High Income
FHIIX.LW Fed High Income
DIHYX TransAmerica HY
---Total Bond funds
FTBFX Fid Total
PTTRX Pimco Total
---Investment Grade Bonds
APOIX Amer. Cent. TIPS Bond
DGCIX Delaware Corp. Bd
FBNDX Fid Invest Grade
FINPX Fidelity TIPS Bond
OPBYX Oppenheimer Core Bond
---Global/Diversified Bonds
FSICX Fid Strategic Income
FNMIX Fid New Markets
DPFFX Delaware Diversified
TEGBX Templeton Global (load waived)
LSBDX Loomis Sayles
---Speciality Funds (sectors or mixed allocation)
FRIFX Fidelity Real Estate Income (bond/equity mix)
FDLSX Fidelity Select Leisure
FSAGX Fidelity Select Precious Metals
RNCOX RiverNorth Core Opportunity (bond/equity)
---Equity-Domestic/Foreign
FDVLX Fidelity Value
FSLVX Fidelity Lg. Cap Value
FLPSX Fidelity Low Price Stock
MACSX Matthews Asia Growth-Income

Mr. Cuggino is most assuredly much sharper than any investment knife at this house. I am also in agreement that this house prefers to find growth of global economies going forward.
Mr. Cuggino notes the following in quotes:
"Thirdly, many investors continue to sit on the sidelines with investable cash, which means that additional liquidity will eventually come into the stock market over time as people become more comfortable with our economic performance and/or if economic growth continues at a more rapid pace going forward. That liquidity would likely result in multiple expansion and higher stock prices."
>>>>> I don't know who these investors on the sidelines may be, and will presume he is noting the retail investors; as in we here at MFO. A few trinkets of thoughts. Many retail investors remain via 401k's and related. I also know from my own personal diggings, that while this group of retail investor remains in place; they have also scaled back their %'s of monies to this area. Other stuff like food, fuel and related is drawing more of the take home income. I am also aware of some in this group who have taken loans against their 401k's; and others who are retired; tapping their IRA's and related for needed monies to help support other family members who are having cash flow problems. This does not take into account others who will begin (5 years away) some amount of required withdraws from many sheltered accounts. As to a large money area of the retail investors group being those already retired; I do not have a high expectation that many in this group will be throwing large sums of their retirement acct's. back into the equity arena; aside from the % they may already have invested. Like it or not; the boomer group does have access to or control a vast amount of investment monies.
"Wallace Forbes: So you think this is going to entice some of the people who have liquidity get back into the stock market?
Cuggino: Correct. Right now the stock market’s gains have been based on lower trading volumes and not a lot of excitement among average investors. Investors still feel burned by prior moves in the stock market and prior sell-offs, whether it was 2008 or earlier in the decade – 2000 or 2002 for example. It’s not a sexy asset class right now, if you will, among mainstream investors. When that excitement comes back into the market, you will likely see multiple expansions. In the 1980s and 1990s, stocks traded at multiples in the high teens. Right now they’re trading at multiples in the low-to-mid teens. There’s room for expansion there."
>>>>> As noted, I suspect the prior "excitement periods" may have been enough for many of the older folks. These folks , who understand, that they are not getting much from a CD and related, and not staying up with inflation; may likely prefer this to getting a big whack again. If and when numbers indicate a massive flow from retail investors back into equities, this house will be on guard to unload the same. As to the 80's and 90's. From August 26, 1982 through October 31, 2007 one could dollar cost average into just about any equity area and have a hugh monetary gain smile upon the face. Now and today, keeping most of one's money; let alone making a positive return, is real work, in my opinion. Its not August 26, 1982 through October 31, 2007 any longer and this is part of the shaping of what will become the "
new normal".
"Forbes: So you think that there is a fair possibility that we’re going to get those higher multiples back?
Cuggino: Yes, as more investors get interested in stocks again.
And then, fourthly – and it’s more of a wild card here – depending on the outcome of the elections and the actions or inactions of Congress and the Presidency, equity prices could go up further."
>>>>> I prefer that he is correct and that a long and winding road back to real growth of economies is in place. I will maintain, barring white or black swan events that this house will find what the "new normal" may be at the year 2019. All bets are off, if the Mayan calendar predictions causes no holiday season this year...:):):)
We'll muddle along with our boring portfolio, knowing that we have our legs spread astride the sharply pointed fence top of investing just below our crotch; with each foot placed precariously on pillars made from the word "if" and, of course, not wanting to fall onto the fence.
Perhaps PRPFX should be this house's current challenge for return measurement.
Just my inflation adjusted 2 cents, which today is not worth much, eh?
Take care,
Catch

Bee,I am trying to line up some open or closed end funds that deal mainly with MLP's.
No matter what the price of the energy source it has to be transported to an end point for use. The distributors of the product still collects a good fee for transportation.
These funds usually have a high dividend distribution which is ideal for retirement plans.
Any help in giving their opinion on which good funds available would be appreciated.
Prinx

Well, took a short noon time break and ck'd a few things. I did this before food intake, so perhaps my blood sugar is too low and the old brain pathways are a bit on the malfunction side.
--- 3 & 6 month T-bills appear to have some inbound cash flow today. Not gi-normous, but some folks want to go to this area for their own good reasons.
--- major market areas are flipping too much; we're up, Asia up, Europe down and then the other direction for the past several days.
--- noted about Spanish 10 yr bond last week. It did break 6% yield, now moved down a tiny notch. ECB can step in if they like to support this area; BUT the Spanish equity market is attempting to be down 4% today. Me thinks the money is letting the bonds lay where they lay, but there may be cash exiting the equity area for reasons of risk. The remainder of Europe is down, but less than 1%. This etf is a very close match to the Spanish market for pricing, EWP.
***Repsol/YPF energy is part of the Spanish-35 and the noted etf and is down today 7%; but only represents about 4% of the value. 40% of the value for the market index and eft is the banking related sector. YPF is noted as Argentina has decided to bad kids again and still; and has chosen to cause YPF to be a government run operation agains, after selling YPF in 1999 to Repsol. No, Argentina is not or will ever be on our vacation or retirement home list. Ongoing and serious cranial/rectal inversion go'in on down that a way.
So, just some blabber among the other gazillion things going; but which will keep my side attention for the rest of the week.
Hi-ho, hi-ho, tis back to work I go................
Take care,
Catch

The use of closed-end Central Fund of Canada, ticker CEF, that owns gold and silver bullion, is a way around this for taxable accounts. Capital gains get treated as capital gains, not income. Using GLD and other ETFs in retirement accounts avoids this issue, too.

Howdy,
Again, a thank you to all who post the links and also start and participate in the many fine commentaries woven into the message threads.
For those who don't know; I ramble away about this and that, at least once each week.
NOTE: For those who visit MFO, this portfolio is designed for retirement, capital preservation and to stay ahead of inflation creep. This is not a buy and hold portfolio, and is subject to change on any given day; based upon perceptions of market directions. All assets in this portfolio are in tax-sheltered accounts; and any fund distributions are reinvested in the funds. Gains or losses are computed from actual account values.
While looking around.....Bonds, bonds,bonds. As I have noted before, these are, in my opinion, the backbone of money at all scales; from small local gov'ts. and businesses to the large scale operations of central gov'ts. As to this and we individuals; we also issue a form of bond, in reverse. Very few individuals put up the full amount of monies for two major purchases; being a home(s) and several vehicles throughout our lifetime. One may shop around for the best mortgage or vehicle loan, obtain a loan and in effect have a private issue bond produced in your name. Not unlike traditional bonds, your credit worthiness will affect the yield (interest rate you pay). How does this relate to anything investing. It is nothing more than what our house attempts to view and understand all of what surrounds we investors each and every day. We try to place ourselves into the various positions of the financial machinations in the most simple terms we might understand. As this house will never have an inside track to how or why the big money houses or central banks function; nor will we have the intellectual skills to master all of the subtle changes (sometimes in 275 millisecond time frames---trading computers), we do our best to attempt to determine both fundamental and technical aspects of the markets(sectors), in a simple form and make choices from these aspects to position our monies, .
With a part-time staff of 2, on the best of days; our research staff does its best to find the major cause and effect issues in place.
An example is that "x" number of folks are familiar with a nearly perfect formed, very gently sloping range of small mountains, with either downslope side having 20 small water streams, that feed 10 larger streams, then 5 larger streams and then into one large river on either side of the Bondequity mountain range. A weather forecast notes that there will be a rather strong and slow moving storm; producing more than average rainfall, in the area. Each mountainside has its own set of crop growers (investors), being the bond and equity farmers. Some farmers have diversified/mixed their crops. In either case, not enough or too much rain may cause problems for either farm type; whereas it is possible for both crop types to provide ample returns with just the right amount of rainfall.
Knowing or tracking the storm path may be of great benefit to all growers in order to help protect the crops through the system of drainage gates and bypasses that have been used in this area for many years. Heavy rains may still prove to be overwhelming in the low lying areas in the flat lands below; as the amount of rain diverted above will still find its way to this area. As usual, there will be those who are aware of the weather conditions; and will plan accordingly, there will also be those not checking the weather forecast until after the storm has begun and those who seldom monitor the weather forecast. As time and knowledge allows, one should always make some attempt to monitor some aspects of the weather forecast, in order to protect the planted investment crops.
'Course, an ongoing problem area is too much information about the weather forecast, and who or what appears to be credible; and why. And yes, the forecast always has a mix of fundamental and technical aspects, eh?
Watch the forecast, short, medium and long term; or be prepared to find water over the boot tops.
I have added a few blips related to our portfolio and market observations at the below SELLs/BUYs and Portfolio Thoughts.
SELLs/BUYs THIS PAST WEEK:

--- NONE ---
Portfolio Thoughts:
Our holdings had a + .45 % move this past week. Sidenote: The average return of 200 combined Fidelity retail funds across all sectors (week avg = -.96, YTD +8.1%). Investment grade bonds gave support to the portfolio last week, the HY/HI bond sector was down about .22% and the equity funds were mixed to down. We're watching who and what is "twitchy". The following quote from last week reminds me of the more than two years of some of the "interesting" quotes that have arrived from Europe.... “I don’t see a good reason” for buying government bonds, Knot of the ECB said today at an event in Amsterdam. “I think there has been an overreaction to the unfortunate communication surrounding Spain.” Klaas Knot is a governing member of the ECB. Knot is commenting about the ECB buying more of Spain's bonds to offset the yields that have continued to increase after the LTRO (QE) placements of several months. Spain will have another bond auction this coming week, which will help tell more of this picture. One may conclude that bond yields for Spain and Italy have risen again; because the evil bond traders are playing games, or that folks are a bit on edge about holding the product due to the "unfortunate communications" regarding a vast array of circumstances in Spain in partiuclar that may indicate quality problems. One may suspect that the central bankers sure don't care much for all of the data (of which the public has a right of knowledge) traveling the globe. I will presume that the ECB will have to form a plan to move more Euro's to Spain and others again. My favorite quote person of the past 6 months is Christine LaGarde of the IMF. Perhaps I can find a top ten list.
Lastly, the U.S. is still my top equity pick from the turd pile list.
The old Funds Boat is at anchor, riding in the small waves and watching the weather. To the high praise of MFO and the members, it is very difficult to find a topic to note here that has not been placed into the discussion boards. Excellence, as usual.
I have retained the following links for those who may choose to do their own holdings comparison against the fund types noted.
This 1st link to Bloomberg is for their list of balanced funds; although I don't always agree with the placement of fund styles in their categories.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?Sector=888&pid=invest_mutualfunds&ListBy=YTD&Term=1
These next two links are for conservative and moderate fund leaders YTD, per MSN.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/partsub/funds/topfundresults.asp?Symbol=$HF&Category=CA
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/partsub/funds/topfundresults.asp?Category=MA&Type=&symbol=$HF
A reflection upon the links above; we attempt to establish a "benchmark" for our portfolio to help us "see" how our funds are performing. Aside from viewing many funds within the balanced/flexible funds rankings (the above links), a quick and dirty group of 4 funds we watch for psuedo benchmarking are the following:
***Note: these YTD's per M*
VWINX .... - .13 week, YTD = + 3.26%
PRPFX .... - .04 week, YTD = + 4.36%
SIRRX ..... + .26 week, YTD = + 2.34%
HSTRX .... + .57 week, YTD = + .23%
None of these 4 are twins to our holdings, but we do watch these as a type of rough guage.
Such are the numerous battles with investments attempting to capture a decent return and minimize the risk.
We live and invest in interesting times, eh?
Hey, I probably forgot something; and hopefully the words make some sense.
Comments and questions always welcomed.
Good fortune to you, yours and the investments.
Take care,
Catch
---Below is what M* x-ray has attempted to sort for our portfolio, as of March 9, 2012---
U.S.Stocks 10.5%
Foreign Stocks 6.8%
Bonds 78.5% ***
Other 4.2%
Not Classified 0.00%
***about 35% of the bond total are high yield category (equity related cousins)
---This % listing is kinda generic, by fund "name"
-Investment grade bond funds 26.8%
-Diversified bond funds 19.8%
-HY/HI bond funds 23.2%
-Total bond funds 17.8%
-Foreign EM/debt bond funds 4.3%
-U.S./Int'l equity/speciality funds 8.1%
This is our current list: (NOTE: I have added a speciality grouping below for a few of fund types)
---High Yield/High Income Bond funds
FAGIX Fid Capital & Income
SPHIX Fid High Income
FHIIX Fed High Income
DIHYX TransAmerica HY
---Total Bond funds
FTBFX Fid Total
PTTRX Pimco Total
---Investment Grade Bonds
APOIX Amer. Cent. TIPS Bond
DGCIX Delaware Corp. Bd
FBNDX Fid Invest Grade
FINPX Fidelity TIPS Bond
OPBYX Oppenheimer Core Bond
---Global/Diversified Bonds
FSICX Fid Strategic Income
FNMIX Fid New Markets
DPFFX Delaware Diversified
TEGBX Templeton Global (load waived)
LSBDX Loomis Sayles
---Speciality Funds (sectors or mixed allocation)
FRIFX Fidelity Real Estate Income (bond/equity mix)
FDLSX Fidelity Select Leisure
FSAGX Fidelity Select Precious Metals
RNCOX RiverNorth Core Opportunity (bond/equity)
---Equity-Domestic/Foreign
FDVLX Fidelity Value
FSLVX Fidelity Lg. Cap Value
FLPSX Fidelity Low Price Stock
MACSX Matthews Asia Growth-Income

I have a large position in OAKBX and I am going to reduce it. I called them and registered my dissatisfaction with how they announced Studzinski's "retirement" after a year when the fund could not get its bond sleeve to produce anything. Wasn't there a vigorous rally in Treasuries that the fund missed? I still have other Oakmark funds, but my over-all confidence in the management is wavering.

Hi Ted,
I will agree about collecting funds without motive for an investor.
Regarding our mix, and the related sectors we currently favor; that the choices in the given sectors are from 8 retirement accts; 4 of which are not yet in place for a rollover.
I.E., the 4 HY/HI bond funds are from a similar sector, active managed and don't always follow the same paths. Tracking the 4 is no more difficult than just 1; and if one finds the general HY/HI bond sector moving too much in one direction or the other, a quick check of the 4 funds will indentify their movement relationship to this sector.
In summary, we do choose to have exposure to the HY/HI bond sector and must choose from a minimum of 5 different vendors. A multi fund mix in a given sector is a method we find to be a suitable "smoother" for a given sector.
Regards,
Catch

Howdy,
Again, a thank you to all who post the links and also start and participate in the many fine commentaries woven into the message threads.
For those who don't know; I ramble away about this and that, at least once each week.
NOTE: For those who visit MFO, this portfolio is designed for retirement, capital preservation and to stay ahead of inflation creep. This is not a buy and hold portfolio, and is subject to change on any given day; based upon perceptions of market directions. All assets in this portfolio are in tax-sheltered accounts; and any fund distributions are reinvested in the funds. Gains or losses are computed from actual account values.
While looking around..... Mega, as in the recent lottery; and the word fickle indicates: is erratic, undecided, or unpredictable.
A few personal notes for reminders, or for those reading this for the first time. Surely there are those who view this portfolio mix as a possible clunker, not containing enough forward growth and/or value. In the current investment environment as this house views this area; the first and primary aspect is to retain capital. We will surely miss opportunities and turns in this sector or that, which will cause losses in some areas and gains in others. With this we must ride and adjust to the best of our ability. Also to this, with our misses and hits we find our portfolio in company with bright minds over the past few years; hedge funds, J.P. Morgan (in 2010, spring; the 10 year Treasury will move to 5%) and Pimco Total Return (PTTRX) missing the Treasury run and other bright minds on a global scale attempting to do the same thing. Horn blowing; no ! We all get lucky and find our monies in the right place at the right time, eh?
To the Mega: Would this portfolio look different if we were a Mega Million lottery winner? Without a doubt. Would we feel sad about a 20% loss to the downside, if we were farily wealthy? But, if we still had $8 million remaining of a $10 million portfolio; we would surely not be stretched into a poor lifestyle. Some many things are from one's perspective, eh?
The fickle side will be an addendum, as the write ran into the text limiter.............................
As usual, the markets and the sectors within the markets were scattered every which way this past week. I will note a few areas:
--- U.S. equity funds = +.45 through - 1.77 % (week avg= -.79/YTD +13.2%)
--- Int'l equity funds = +.32 through - 3.1 % (week avg= - 1.63/YTD +12.6%)
--- Sector equity funds = + .94 through - 6.6 % (week avg= - 1.09/YTD +12.8%)
--- Investment grade bond funds = +.74 through - .0% (week avg= +.15/YTD +.3%)
--- HY/HI bond funds = + .0 through - .41 % (week avg= -.23/YTD +4.9%)
--- Multi sector bond funds = >>>to be revised
--- Emerging markets bond funds = >>>to be revised
Average of 200 combined funds across all sectors above (week avg= -.73/YTD +9.4%)
The above numbers provide some value as to how one chooses to arrange their portfolio, not only relative to weighting of sectors; but also how confident one feels with using very narrow sector investments or broad based funds, be they active managed funds, indexes or etf's. The above list and the variances of gains or losses, of course; are nothing new. But as this house moves along with our portfolio, we continue to reshape and attempt to understand methods of how to best provide for positive returns going forward.
I have added a few blips related to our portfolio and market observations at the below SELLs/BUYs and Portfolio Thoughts.
SELLs/BUYs THIS PAST WEEK:

--- NONE ---
Portfolio Thoughts:
Our holdings had a + .003 % move this past week. Yes, that is 3/1000's. Well.......we'll sit with our current mix to find what this Monday brings. Our 50% reduction in FSAGX several weeks ago still finds the remaining holding to get whacked (-6.6% last week). Most of our equity holdings were down a bit last week; as well as the high yield bond sectors; while the mixed bag of other bonds were flat to slightly positive. To those holding 50% or more in equity postions, I salute you; as you should be at a most favorable YTD return, far surpassing our performance.
The old Funds Boat is at anchor, riding in the small waves and watching the weather. To the high praise of MFO and the members, it is very difficult to find a topic to note here that has not been placed into the discussion boards. Excellence, as usual.
I have retained the following links for those who may choose to do their own holdings comparison against the fund types noted.
This 1st link to Bloomberg is for their list of balanced funds; although I don't always agree with the placement of fund styles in their categories.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?Sector=888&pid=invest_mutualfunds&ListBy=YTD&Term=1
These next two links are for conservative and moderate fund leaders YTD, per MSN.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/partsub/funds/topfundresults.asp?Symbol=$HF&Category=CA
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/partsub/funds/topfundresults.asp?Category=MA&Type=&symbol=$HF
A reflection upon the links above; we attempt to establish a "benchmark" for our portfolio to help us "see" how our funds are performing. Aside from viewing many funds within the balanced/flexible funds rankings (the above links), a quick and dirty group of 4 funds we watch for benchmarking are the following:
***Note: these YTD's per M*
VWINX ....YTD = + 3.39% - .30 week
PRPFX ....YTD = + 4.40% - .82 week
SIRRX .....YTD = + 2.07% + .09 week
HSTRX ....YTD = - .34% - .26 week
None of these 4 are twins to our holdings, but we do watch these as a type of rough guage.
Such are the numerous battles with investments attempting to capture a decent return and minimize the risk.
We live and invest in interesting times, eh?
Hey, I probably forgot something; and hopefully the words make some sense.
Comments and questions always welcomed.
Good fortune to you, yours and the investments.
Take care,
Catch
---Below is what M* x-ray has attempted to sort for our portfolio, as of March 9, 2012---
U.S.Stocks 10.5%
Foreign Stocks 6.8%
Bonds 78.5% ***
Other 4.2%
Not Classified 0.00%
***about 35% of the bond total are high yield category (equity related cousins)
---This % listing is kinda generic, by fund "name"
-Investment grade bond funds 26.8%
-Diversified bond funds 19.8%
-HY/HI bond funds 23.2%
-Total bond funds 17.8%
-Foreign EM/debt bond funds 4.3%
-U.S./Int'l equity/speciality funds 8.1%
This is our current list: (NOTE: I have added a speciality grouping below for a few of fund types)
---High Yield/High Income Bond funds
FAGIX Fid Capital & Income
SPHIX Fid High Income
FHIIX Fed High Income
DIHYX TransAmerica HY
---Total Bond funds
FTBFX Fid Total
PTTRX Pimco Total
---Investment Grade Bonds
APOIX Amer. Cent. TIPS Bond
DGCIX Delaware Corp. Bd
FBNDX Fid Invest Grade
FINPX Fidelity TIPS Bond
OPBYX Oppenheimer Core Bond
---Global/Diversified Bonds
FSICX Fid Strategic Income
FNMIX Fid New Markets
DPFFX Delaware Diversified
TEGBX Templeton Global (load waived)
LSBDX Loomis Sayles
---Speciality Funds (sectors or mixed allocation)
FRIFX Fidelity Real Estate Income (bond/equity mix)
FDLSX Fidelity Select Leisure
FSAGX Fidelity Select Precious Metals
RNCOX RiverNorth Core Opportunity (bond/equity)
---Equity-Domestic/Foreign
FDVLX Fidelity Value
FSLVX Fidelity Lg. Cap Value
FLPSX Fidelity Low Price Stock
MACSX Matthews Asia Growth-Income

Reply to @CathyG: The various Arbitrage funds - Merger (MERFX) or Arbitrage (ARBFX) or AQR Diversified Arb (ADANX, I think?) would be a place to park low-key (although there is certainly still *some* risk) non fixed-income money I'd consider personally. Certainly would be more risk, but Sierra Core Retirement (SIRIX) is a conservative fund-of-funds geared towards retirees with an "absolute return" goal (emphasis on *goal* - I believe the goal is an 8% total return - capital gain + dividend on average per year *over a market cycle*, so there may be years less and more. It handled 2008 and 2009 well, but has been quieter since.)
There are likely a number of lower-risk fixed income options that others will likely be able to offer if you didn't want to go to cash. I'm not in cash at all - I own what I want to own for the mid-to-long term (especially long-term for a series of various stocks) and am really trying to make very little in the way of moves for the next year or two.
Or one can always look at going to cash (MM/CD/etc) as at least not putting money at risk (aside from inflationary risk.)

Yes, there is a way, but it sounds like you may not be clear on what creates that tax deduction. It's the fact that you're contributing money to a spousal IRA. It doesn't matter where that money comes from.
If the only way you can come up with the cash to fund that IRA is by taking a distribution from another retirement account, then perhaps that deduction isn't doing too much for you now, and you'd be better leaving the money in a tax-exempt account growing tax-exempt, rather than moving it to a tax-deferred account, where the growth will ultimately get taxed as ordinary income.
If this is a short term cash flow problem, you can move the money to the new employer account and borrow against it. (Something else that's not advisable, but it can beat outright withdrawing the money.) Technically, that's a way of taking 401K money and getting it somewhere else. At least for awhile. Note that you can do this only with a current employer's 401K, and the loan is due upon termination of the job, if not sooner.
As I described in a prior post, if you take a distribution of the Roth401K, roll most of it into a Roth IRA, then the remainder may be tax (and penalty) free. Then you have the cash to do with as you will - contribute to your wife's IRA, go on vacation, whatever. For example, say that you've contributed $6K to the Roth 401K, and it's now worth $9K. If you transfer $4K to a Roth IRA, the IRS says that this $4K includes the $3K of gains and $1K of original contributions. The remaining $5K consists entirely of contributions. They're tax-free. No penalty. That gets you $5K to play with. But also as I noted above (as did BobC), watch out for possible withholding on the distribution.

http://www.smartmoney.com/retirement/planning/mlps-offer-income-but-theyre-not-without-risks-1331654710712/?cid=djem_sm_dailyviews_h
Advisors flunk undercover stings
http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/stocks/financial-advisers-flunk-undercover-sting-1333374512622/?cid=djem_sm_dailyviews_h

To put some numbers behind what BobC is saying, here are the IRS's life expectancy tables from 1994, (see p. 60, Appendix E), and here are the current (2011) life expectancy tables (see p. 86, Appendix C). Both are from IRS Pub 590, the tables used for IRA MRDs. While different from the tables that the insurance companies use, they nevertheless give a pretty good indication of the changes the insurance companies use, and in any case, since you're talking about an IRA are not totally inappropriate.
My cursory look suggests an increase of about 4%. 4 percent! That's about what you need to pay just to get more money into the annuity. (And if you're looking at that 2% load, remember that you're also adding 0.5% each year to the cost as well - in four years, you've paid more than any benefit from an old, shorter lifetime.)
People are indeed generally better outside of an annuity for IRAs. That's exactly what the SEC says in the link that Catch already provided: http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/varannty.htm

if you are investing in a variable annuity through a tax-advantaged retirement plan (such as a 401(k) plan or IRA), you will get no additional tax advantage from the variable annuity. Under these circumstances, consider buying a variable annuity only if it makes sense because of the annuity's other features, such as lifetime income payments and death benefit protection.

By the way, that's the SEC's bold print, not mine. So if you're not going to take the lifetime payments (and nearly no one does), and you hold it for more than a few years (so that it's worth more than you paid, rendering the basic death benefit pointless), it's hard to see any reason for an IRA inside a deferred VA for an IRA.