A fair assembly. Saira Malik, Nuveen CIO, is somewhat at odds with Christopher Ailman, Chief Investment Officer of the California Teachers Retirement System (CALSTRS). The former is bullish on equities; the latter more cautious. Ailman also remarks that his system has the lowest allocation to fixed income in its history.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/793769/000119312522079147/d310611d497.htm
497 1 d310611d497.htm HARBOR STRATEGIC GROWTH FUND SAI SUPPLEMENT
111 South Wacker Drive, 34th Floor
Chicago, IL 60606-4302
harborcapital.com
Supplement to Statement of Additional Information dated March 1, 2022
March 18, 2022
On March 15, 2022, the Board of Trustees of Harbor Funds approved the reorganization of the Harbor Strategic Growth Fund (the “Fund”) into the Mar Vista Strategic Growth Fund (the “Acquiring Fund”), a newly created series of Manager Directed Portfolios. The Acquiring Fund will have the same investment objective as the Fund and substantially similar principal investment strategies and limitations. Mar Vista Investment Partners, LLC, the Funds’ subadviser, will continue to act as subadviser to the Fund until the closing of the reorganization and will serve as the investment adviser to the Acquiring Fund.
The reorganization will allow Fund shareholders to retain access to the Fund’s investment strategy and maintain continuity of portfolio management. Under the terms of the agreement and plan of reorganization approved by the Board of Trustees, the Fund will transfer all of its assets and known liabilities to the Acquiring Fund in exchange for shares of the Acquiring Fund. Institutional Class, Investor Class and Retirement Class shareholders of the Fund will receive shares of equivalent share classes of the Acquiring Fund. Administrative Class shares of the Fund will be converted to Institutional Class shares of the Fund at the time of or shortly prior to the closing of the reorganization. Administrative Class shareholders will receive Institutional Class shares of the Acquiring Fund. The reorganization will not affect the value of your account in the Fund at the time of the reorganization. The reorganization is expected to be treated as a tax-free reorganization for U.S. federal tax purposes.
A shareholder meeting for the purpose of voting on the agreement and plan of reorganization is scheduled to be held in June 2022. Assuming shareholders approve the reorganization, the closing of the reorganization is expected to occur in July 2022. Shareholders of record will receive a prospectus/proxy statement prior to the meeting, which will provide further details about the Acquiring Fund, the meeting and the reorganization.
Investors Should Retain This Supplement For Future Reference
S0322A.SAI.HF
Back in 2016, Mar Vista Strategic Growth Fund was reorganized into Harbor Strategic Growth Fund.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1359057/000089418916013517/marvista_497e.htm

+1 @Junkster
You are correct re my status. Pension and SS cover basic needs. I had a better than average retirement package I guess. So the IRAs allow for travel, etc. and serve as reserves in case a large unexpected outlay comes along.
Still, I keep an open mind on the subject. Good to hear the higher interest rates have led to better annuity payouts.. In the past, I couldn’t see any financial advantage - albeit one might increase their living standard a bit on the payments.
Good thread.

Ever wonder what it would be like to live in a world where being secure in your old age wasn’t dependent on complete randomness and luck? Linking retirement to the stock market is a bit like linking it to a roulette wheel.

+1. MOST people can't even dream of having the sort of modest portfolio I've got. And it's not even my doing: I INHERITED the biggest slice. The rest has been my own decisions about what to do with it all, yes. My in-laws in that shit-hole country overseas go hand-to-mouth. How poor ARE they? When we send boxes of stuff, it includes LAUNDRY DETERGENT. Anyone who needs THAT sent to them is in a bad way. Just like everywhere else, they can't get out of their own way politically----- allowing for corrupt assholes to run the country. And part of that picture is the CULTURE, too. As long as things just don't move without a bit of bribery here and a bit of bribery there, nothing will ever change. To say nothing of the fact that (very much like HERE) very few have an inkling about how to grow their money and invest.

I've been in the habit of rebalancing once a year, when things were allegedly more predictable. Current circumstances equate to a flying circus. I still have not put money into any commodities funds or single stocks. I figure that train has already pulled out of the station. ..... I'd been aiming for a "safer," less volatile portfolio, given that I'm in retirement and am not getting younger. But Mr. Market has other ideas at the moment. I don't want to be the last one caught tilting at windmills. So, very quickly, in just the last couple of days, my bonds have dropped to 44 from 60 percent and stocks are back up to 48 percent of portfolio. The cash portion is mostly all in the sweep account now: standing at 13% of total portfolio.
Domestic equities: 34%
Foreign: 14%
This past week has halved my unrealized losses for 2022, so far. Much easier to swallow, now. There might even be some GROWTH, this year. But don't quote me. That will jinx the whole thing. ;)

would expect a ruling before this issue becomes a class action law suit
The suit was filed as a class action lawsuit. The cited piece reads: "The plaintiffs ... seek compensation for the alleged harm on behalf of a class of similarly situated investors nationwide."
What is the problem with that? This seems to be exactly the type of suit for which class actions were created - large number of plaintiffs, similarly situated, a common transaction, and not worth most people's time and money to sue on their own.
Assuming the court finds that some duty was breached by Vanguard, calculating damages will be interesting, since tax liabilities would seem to be more a matter of when a taxpayer owes taxes (i.e. when a taxpayer recognizes gain) than if a taxpayer owes the taxes. It could be a question of time value of money, not added tax liability.
The duty question: Vanguard has tax-managed funds. These were not promoted as such. Did Vanguard have any duty to consider tax implications?
Tax recognition timing: a plaintiff might argue that the recognition of gain was not certain - the fund shares could be bequeathed or donated to charities. So the damages should be the full amount of taxes due. OTOH, these are funds marketed as retirement funds, i.e. funds expected to be sold down during retirement. Arguably while other dispositions are possible, they might be considered speculative while gradual disinvestment would be considered the norm.
If it does come down to a question of timing (recognizing gain now rather than say, from age 65 to 95, then the damages might be just the time value of the taxes paid now rather than over those 30 years. Current discount rate (even with the 0.25% fed hike) is pretty low.
Lowering the institutional series' minimum was a stupid thing for Vanguard to do, given that it was going to merge the institutional and retail series of funds a few months later. But stupid and negligent are not the same, and in any case, the tax bills would have come due sooner or later.
See also
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/03/15/vanguard-hit-with-class-action-suit-over-target-date-fund-tax-bills/

At close on 3/15: Thought I'd update progress on some of these benchmarks. Over all I'm at about -6.5% YTD with about 45% in equities. My total is spilt between the hands-off robo, Schwab Intelligent Portfolio, -6.0%, and my self-managed, -7.1%. It appears I'm not as intelligent as Schwab. Go figure...
FWIW, TRP retirement funds YTD 3/15:
TRRIX 38% stock = -7.0%
TBLPX 41% stock = -7.3
TBLQX 45% stock = -7.8
TBLSX 48% stock = -8.2
TSBAX 52% stock = -8.6
TBLVX 60% stock = -9.6
VTWAX vanguard total world stock index -12.9%

Ever wonder what it would be like to live in a world where being secure in your old age wasn’t dependent on complete randomness and luck? Linking retirement to the stock market is a bit like linking it to a roulette wheel.

Did not intend to mislead or confuse; Fidelity e.g. makes little distinction.
Create future retirement income
This Fidelity Viewpoints article explains how deferred annuities work and the role they play in a retirement income plan.

which is the teaser for
https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/retirement/deferred-income-annuities
Am not thoroughly familiar w the sets and subsets. SP is nowhere mentioned here:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deferredannuity.asp
but (of course) income is.
Some of the comments at
https://humbledollar.com/2022/03/paying-for-aging/
dive a little deeper than the article.
The general Partnership link (I believe!) is
https://www.aaltci.org/long-term-care-insurance/learning-center/long-term-care-insurance-partnership-plans.php

DS:
The purpose of MSTR [[ in-house synonym: 'MSTR seeks to invest in “non-market sources of return,” that is, returns that can be delivered whether the market rises or not. That’s possible by choosing investments that are intrinsically uncorrelated ... ' ]] is to diversify your portfolio, not be your portfolio. Many investors overdiversify, adding one stock (or bond) fund after another with each new addition adding less and less to the robustness of the entire portfolio. At base, investors just add more exposure to the same sets of risks and the same return drivers. MSTR diversifies by tapping into other sources of alpha which is reflected in its relatively low correlation to the S&P 500 (0.58), very low correlation to the bond market (0.16), and low downside capture ratio (0.12) against the S&P 500.

Investors looking for a way out of high levels of volatility and inconsistent returns should add T. Rowe Price Multi-Strategy Total Return to their due-diligence list, just as many investment professionals at Price itself seem to have done.

By way of full disclosure: I reallocated a substantial fraction of my retirement investments to TMSRX in May 2020 and disclosed that allocation in our June 2020 issue.
underlining added
Wonder if DS has bailed too.

Though the old chart tabs don't chart multiple tickers, they do still chart multiple benchmarks. Admittedly not the most useful feature since the "appropriate" benchmark is already added automatically.
The problem with the purchase tabs isn't that they don't work but that their data is not always accurate.
Case in point: they list Vanguard Admiral class shares (e.g. VEIRX) as available at Schwab All (Retail, Instl, Retirement), Schwab Institutional Only, and Merrill Edge. While it is available at Schwab Institutional, it is not available at Schwab All (Retail) or at Merrill Edge.

One thing on the benchmark TBLQX. I compare to it "now" because it has a very similar equity percentage for where I want to be, where I've been the past couple years. The stated year makes no difference to me.

I don't use a bench mark & find my account continues to grow. I'm not trying to keep up with the Jones or Smiths , just sleep good !

@Derf, try a comparison. Just give it a look. What do you have to lose?
If I found that over the years I was substantially behind a benchmark I would just buy the benchmark. In fact, that was the purpose of putting a good chunk of money, over 1/2 my retirement savings, into Schwab's robo account. Most of us don't trail a benchmark because of the funds we choose or investments we make. I contend fund selection is secondary to portfolio management. We trail because humans tend to be undisciplined and move in and out of funds at the most inopportune times. Benchmarks don't, and they exceedingly win the race over time. I know @hank has mentioned over the years, it is hard to beat a benchmark. But I concede it is fun to try.

Mona, look up TDF retirement & their 2020 TDF. You could use one or the other or split the two. I believe the 2015 TDF is close to rolling into the Retirement fund. You will get tips also. I haven't checked Life Strategy allocation. The 34% cash maybe a problem to find a bench marking fund. If you combine cash & bonds as one , you could luck out & find one.
FWIW, Derf

Which Vanguard Target Retirement or Life Strategy Fund is best to use as a benchmark for a portfolio that is 34% Cash, 34% US Stocks, 6% Non-US Stocks, and 26% Bonds?
Thanks!

@msf,
Nice summary of Fidelity and T. Rowe Price retirement funds.
I agree that it's challenging to keep track of all these series!

It's impossible to keep track of all these series without a scorecard, and even then, I'm not sure.
Until 2013, T. Rowe Price offered an aggressive, but stable (unchanged glidepath) product, unlike its leading competitors, Vanguard and Fidelity.
2011 Ibbotoson Paper, Bait and Switch: Glide Path Instability

“In 2008 and 2009, there was increased interest in adjusting our glide path more conservatively,” said Jerome Clark, portfolio manager of T. Rowe Price’s retirement funds. “We avoid making glide path changes based upon short-term market environments, which is consistent with the message we communicate to our investors to stay the course when markets swing to extremes.”

https://www.investmentnews.com/target-date-glide-paths-are-unstable-at-some-major-plan-providers-37617
By 2013, T. Rowe Price and Vanguard had well outperformed Fidelity over the preceding five years because of their more aggressive glide paths. Consequently, Fidelity again changed its glidepath, bringing it in line with its competitors. It seems like a stretch to say that T. Rowe Price at the same time introduced a less aggressive line of funds because of loud complaints received years ago as it began multi-year run of superior results.

Still, it is notable that as of Aug. 22, [2013] T. Rowe Price launched new funds that recognize that some investors are more risk averse as a complement its core T. Rowe Price Retirement Funds, which had $88.1 billion in assets as of March 31.

https://riabiz.com/a/2013/9/27/after-a-lot-of-flak-fidelity-investments-does-a-study-and-pledges-to-change-how-it-manages-its-170-billion-of-target-date-funds
Meanwhile, Fidelity was not only tinkering with its initial Freedom series, but creating a slew of variants: Freedom Index (same idea, but w/index funds), Managed Payout Funds and Simplicity RMD Funds (originally Income Replacement Funds launched in 2008, with dates every two years). That change came about around 2017.
You can find those four series on Fidelity's Asset Allocation funds page (click on Asset Allocation tab).
https://www.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/fidelity-funds/overview
What Fidelity isn't showing you there is that it has a fifth(!) series of funds. Fidelity Freedom Blend funds, which is a "blend" of active and passive management. See, e.g. FHARX. These date from 2018.
As Yogi noted, in 2020, T. Rowe Price decided change the glide paths of both of its series to make them more aggressive. Rather than make a quick change, it changed the allocations over a period of two years, which should be complete in the middle of this year.
In 2021, T. Rowe Price launched a series of blend funds (that appear to make more extensive use of index funds to reduce cost). These follow the same new ("enhanced") glide path that the Retirement Series are migrating to. But since the Retirement Blend series is new, it doesn't need to transition to the new glide path, it starts with that immediately. The two series, Retirement and Retirement Blend, should be tracking the same path within a few months.

• The Retirement Blend Fund series is designed for investors who prefer a single, simplified, professionally managed solution for retirement investing and who want an approach that marries the benefits of active and passive investment styles, including placing a greater emphasis on managing overall cost.
• The Retirement Blend strategy has been in place at T. Rowe Price since 2018 but it was previously available only in the collective investment trust format. This mutual fund series extends the firm's Retirement Blend approach to a wider range of investors for whom a mutual fund is the preferred or most appropriate vehicle.
• The Retirement Blend Funds use the enhanced glide path and the same diversification and tactical asset allocation as T. Rowe Price's existing Retirement series of target date portfolios.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/t-rowe-price-adds-retirement-blend-funds-to-target-date-lineup-301343055.html
I respectfully disagree that T. Rowe Price has made this confusing to the max. IMHO that "honor" goes to Fidelity, with its ever changing glidepaths, its greater multiplicity of series, its "hidden" series of blend funds, and its changing of series names and objectives. And lest I forget, a slew of share classes, including K and K6, and Fidelity Advisor variants with their alphabet soup: A, C, M, I, Z, and Z6.

@Derf, leave to Price to make it confusing to the max.
So, there were the original TDFs going back to around 2002. These are now called (TRP) Retirement 20xx. These were/are known as the most aggressive among the TDFs.
To address the criticism (that was LOUD in 2008-09), Price introduced a new but tamer TDF series around 2013 called (TRP) Target 20xx (see the naming trick?)
In 2020, Price decided to change glide-paths of its TDFs so that they keep higher equity for longer. This opened Price to criticism again that retirees may be hurt in big downdrafts.
So, Price decided in 2021 to make even softer cousins, "blends" it calls, of its original TDF series, and these were named (TRP) Retirement Blend 20xx (I think Price needs better fund-naming execs).
So, now Price has 3 variations for each retirement date. For 2010, they are (TRP) Retirement 2010 TRRAX (2002- ), (TRP) Target 2010 TRROX (2013- ), (TRP) Target Blend 2010 TBLQX (2021- ); these 3 are Investor classes, and there are 3 corresponding Institutional classes, so 6 2010 TDFs, or 6x the dates in the TDF series. Do you want add CITs to the count?
Clear? May be call Price on Tuesday and see if its customer service even has a clue.
Well, the others have a better system where each TDF is labeled as (BlaBla) Target/Retirement 20xx Aggressive, (BlaBla) Target/Retirement 20xx Moderate, (BlaBla) Target/Retirement 20xx Conservative; most just have one type per TDF date.

Two drinks in & I have to question how TBLQX can be called a 2010 retirement fund when inception date is 2021 ? Thinking they looked at other funds (retirement) & determined what they held & made their fund up from a look see ?
Can someone fill in the blanks ____
I don't use a bench mark & find my account continues to grow. I'm not trying to keep up with the Jones or Smiths , just sleep good !
Thanks Derf

I like the idea of using a couple of target date funds as benchmarks.
I use VTHRX and TRRWX for reference since these funds' asset allocations
and assumed retirement dates roughly correspond with my personal situation.
Alternatively, I could use a combination of VTSAX, VTIAX, and VBTLX with the same allocation as my portfolio.
My portfolio consists of U.S. equities, foreign equities, and primarily U.S. high-quality bonds*
with a smidgen of multi-sector bonds. Finding appropriate benchmarks may be more challenging
for investors with large positions in alternative assets.
*large core-plus position temporarily replaced with stable value fund

@MikeM,
Wealthtrack guest this week discusses TRP Retirement Funds:
Linked Here