OJ - thanks for the memories. While there's a lot more information available now than back then, I'm not convinced that investing is any easier. For example, in the past few years, the thinking on designing 401K plans has shifted from "offer everything" to "offer a well chosen, limited set of options", because people become paralyzed with too many choices and not enough understanding.
When I first started working, my employer (one of the largest in the country at the time) offered just four options - guaranteed interest, diversified equity portfolio, government obligations, and company stock. I just took a glance at my old records - it seems like I started with a 50/50 split - company stock/diversified equity. But then the stock market took a dive, and for the next several years it seems I put everything new into the guaranteed interest option.
Not the most insightful move, but understandable. In hindsight, I probably would have benefited as you did from an adviser. Some people may benefit when they're starting out. Some people have an aversion to dealing with financial details, and for them it is worth paying someone for that service for many years. (Aversion is not the same as inability.)
Just curious - the original IRAs (enacted in 1974, allowing for contributions starting in 1975) only allowed contributions if one was not covered by a pension plan at work. It wasn't until 1982 that the max went up to $2K, and you were allowed to contribute even with a pension. So when exactly were you first able to contribute to your IRA?

"there's been a plethora of noload funds for decades"
Certainly no argument on that observation. But let's take a look at the "ignorance factor". We have been saving as much as possible for retirement ever since we were married in 1970. We established IRAs as soon as possible, primarily using savings accounts for that purpose. (Remember them?)
I did attempt to venture into the equity market in a small way, with very mixed and generally poor results. As I've mentioned a few times before, in the late 70's with double-digit inflation roaring, I took a chance on some Munis paying 14/15%, figuring that if inflation couldn't be tamed that money would pretty quickly be worthless anyway. That turned out to be a great bet. For some years we took advantage of the San Francisco real-estate market with a lot of sweat-equity, and that too worked out well.
But mutual funds? Sure, we watched Lou Rukeyser along with lots of other folks, but that really didn't give us the depth of knowledge regarding funds to get our feet wet there. Along came an American Funds "adviser". Sure, they charged a load. Sure, he got his cut. But he sat with us for many an hour explaining the ways of the mutual fund world, and even though I really hated the load I regarded it as the price of entry and education.
American Funds has always treated us fairly. Unlike other load funds at that time, they did not charge any load on reinvested proceeds, and their ERs were (and still are) very reasonable. They allowed consolidation of the two IRAs and our trust fund to minimize the front load. After a few years we had accumulated enough to eliminate the load altogether. In 2008 the economic fiasco caused our American Funds total holdings to drop below the no-load threshold, but they still honored the no-load for us on additional investments.
Perhaps most importantly, our experiences with American have allowed us to have a sound basis for comparison as we have branched out into many other funds and fund types and companies. I don't for one minute regret our experiences with American Funds.

The load model of compensation is awful and it would be nice to see an industry titan take a stance on that, but I think it's fair for M* to consider the funds both with and without load because many people do have access to it no-load. My wife had the R5 class shares in a previous 401k plan and her father has access to R6 shares. These are really cheap, for Growth Fund of America, the A shares have an ER of 0.77 vs 0.39 for R5 and 0.36 for R6. At these prices, the funds are quite attractive.

Hi Charles and Guys,
When you questioned the appropriateness of calling the investment world’s regression-to-the-mean observed phenomena a law, it did prompt me to do some deeper thinking on the matter. Well, that puts us into some dangerous waters.
Certainly investment wisdom and operational rules assembled over decades of practical experience deserve some elevated status when they address investment process and not investment outcomes. Probably assigning these assembled rules the title of “laws” might be a “bridge-too-far”. Why did I do it?
In thinking about my readings over the last month, I recalled a White Paper produced by the respectable GMO investment house. It was written by James Montier, Montier titled his work “The Seven Immutable Laws of Investing”. Eureka! That was likely my inspiration. Here is a list of his laws, immutable no less:
1. Always insist on a margin of safety
2. This time is never different
3. Be patient and wait for the fat pitch
4. Be contrarian
5. Risk is the permanent loss of capital, never a number
6. Be leery of leverage
7. Never invest in something you don’t understand
There’s a ton of Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham embedded in these “laws”. I believe they serve as excellent generic investment guidance. Maybe they do rise to the level of laws.
If you are interested, here is a Link to the complete White Paper:
http://conferences.pionline.com/uploads/conference_admin/JM_0311.pdf
These rules do emphasize investment process over investment outcomes. A nice way to illustrate the tension between process and outcomes is to visualize a 2 X 2 matrix with Process on the vertical axis and Outcomes on the horizontal axis. Both dimensions can have either a good or a bad result.
The 2 X 2 boxes can be filled with the following conclusions: Good process/good outcome is an earned reward, good process/bad outcome is unlucky, bad process/good outcome is lucky and is likely a misleading signal towards overconfidence, and bad process/bad outcome is true justice.
The key to continued long-term investment success is a solid Process that is NOT abandoned when the markets turn South. It is amazing how many investors are lured by the Sirens' song of a lucky outcome. The likelihood of any future success with a poor investment Process is dubious at best.
Enough of this serious stuff for now. I too liked Kaspa's submittal; good stuff, very well summarized.
Best Wishes to All.

Here's where we are right now on the 10-year Treasury yield:

Ouch.
And someone needs to help counterbalance M*'s blind coverage in the case of AF.
On the ER stat. If you ignore load, yes ER is good with AF. But you shouldn't...and neither should M*.
Thanks OJ. Understand. In years long past, most funds had awful loads and folks did not have much choice. Not true anymore, fortunately.

Blind coverage? Ignoring load? What's M*'s most prominent aspect of fund coverage? (Rhetorical question.) I would say its star ratings. Not most useful, but most prominent.
M* adjusts for loads in its star ratings. This is why .lw (load waived) shares often get higher star ratings (and why I specifically suggested to Schwab that they show these latter ratings when displaying OneSource funds).
How does the total cost of ownership for the long term investor compare with American Funds vs. almost any other fund family (outside of Vanguard)? Given American Funds' low ERs, I would guess that it's lower than most. (We're not talking buy and hold here, just staying within the family - once a load is paid, it doesn't have to get paid again when one switches funds.)
I'd give more weight to your complaints about American Funds if you showed the same concern for families like PIMCO, which has more assets in A shares than D shares in funds like: GNMA ($334M vs. $121M), Investment Grade Corp ($1.1B vs. $0.5B), Unconstrained Bond ($1.5B vs. $1.3B) and of course, Total Return ($21B vs $15B).
In years past, people didn't have much choice? Though Vanguard started as a load family, it went noload in 1977. The No-Load Mutual Fund Association was formed in 1971. You had noload funds then from Scudder, from T. Rowe Price, Stein Rowe, even Lehman Bros.
By the mid 80s, as mutual fund sales took off, almost half those sales dollars (45%) went into noload funds. Sure, if one wants to go back to the days when CEFs made up a major part of the market, there weren't too many noload fund choices. But there's been a plethora of noload funds for decades.

BrianW: With all due respect, I promised my cat, Pink, I would feed this turkey to him on Thanksgiving Day. Its never to late to sell a fund.
Regards,
Ted
Total PercentileRanking (09/08/2014)
1-Day 98%
1-Week 99%
1-Month 99%
3-Month 15%
YTD 72%
1-Year 99%
3-Year 99%

Mr. Gundlach mentioned he will be hosting a webcast today at 4:15 pm eastern, entitled "Total Return and Core Fixed Income". If you're interested in hearing more from him, there's still time to register: Link https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1026698

There is a DoubleLine webcast scheduled for this afternoon. Gundlach will be the presenter. I'm sure we'll be getting quite a bit more than soundbites from him then. I haven't liked the recent action either but don't know what, if anything, it means; maybe he'll have some hunches about it.
"Ya can't trades the markets ya wish for, ya have to trades the markets ya have." I suspect Big Money is trying to weaken our resolve and scare us out of all our bonds. Sorry, Banksters, you can't have them, you'll have to recapitalize your off-balance sheet Rule 157 losses some other way.

CNBC is showing the direct quote below from Gundlach on the subject:
U.S. 10-year bond rates will remain between 2.2 and 2.8 percent for the rest of the year, bond guru Jeffrey Gundlach told CNBC on Tuesday.
"The low in U.S. rates was in July 2012, so U.S. rates are rising. They're just rising very slowly and I think that's going to remain the case for a couple more years," Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital, said ....
That July '12 low was ~ 1.40 on the 10yT, way below the recent low of ~ 2.33. He continues to use the 2.2-2.8 range for the rest of the year that he's been talking about for months, so, with the rate higher than 2.2 now, he isn't saying the low is necessarily in for this year. Essentially there's nothing new from JG here.

I know what you're saying Ted. But on my IPad with Safari there's no place to click-off the ad. Tried multiple approaches.
Any more like this and I shall ask David to reduce your pay by 50%!
Thanks :)
PS - First read the link on the one Derf inadvertently posted. Yes, was able to turn off the ad that one time. Maybe they have it set up so you can only read it once? (I suppose deleting cookies and trying again would help if that is the case.)

So, through June since inception 3.5 years ago, the fund has returned 7.6% annually...way better than US aggregate bonds.
I see it as a unique conservative allocation fund.
It is better than its M* 1 star quantitative rating for investors more concerned with risk.
Experienced, true value manager. Watches downside. Great communication.
My biggest issue with the fund is same issue I have with most funds.
It charges too much.
Part of the reason is organizational overhead. But 1.41% on several hundred million AUM is indefensible.
ASTON continues to impose 12b-1 fees.
ASTON continues to impose high minimums ($1M) for institutional shares.

FYI: Many stock mutual funds yield more than the S&P 500's 1.87%.
But only a few of those that do have also performed near or above the 10.15% the S&P has gained this year,
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTg0NDQ3OTU=
Enlarged Graphic: http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=WEBlv090914.gif&docId=716564&xmpSource=&width=1000&height=1149&caption=&id=716565

Hi Catch22,
I am not at this time concerned about minor moves and with market valuation at this time. However, I do feel it is, remains, overbought in general with some sectors more so than others. When I look around for value and things that might be oversold I come up with the metals and perhaps commodities … but, there again, metals are a store of value from my perspective.
For me a dip in the market is a drop in valuation of up to five percent. A pull back would be a drop in valuation from five to perhaps ten percent. A down draft would be a drop in valuation of ten to fifteen percent. A correction would be from a drop in valuation form fifteen to twenty percent … and, a recession would be a drop in valuation of more than twenty percent.
In review of my asset compass I am finding the only assets that I follow that have moved into a downdraft or correction mode are the metals down about 17% and commodities, in gereral, which are down about 12%. Everything else for the most part has not yet move past the dip range although I have a few that are in the pull-back range. In my own portfolio I am only off my 52 week high by about 1.2% overall with a couple of positions in the pull-back range.
I'm thinking we need a good pull-back before we can make the climb of the next mountain. Otherwise, we are going to move sideways and range bound around the current pinnacle.
With this, my answer to your question is …. It’s Too Soon To Call; but, I would not be surprised to see a good dip, or pull-back, come before we get through October.
Old_Skeet

Here are 150 different portfolios to look over (includes the 7/12)
http://whitecoatinvestor.com/150-portfolios-better-than-yours/
Dave

It's hard for me to read around the WSJ ad covering 80% of page and was unable to cut and paste the relevant passage. But, I'm very perturbed to read that Obama's 2015 budget would, if approved, make Roths subject to mandatory withdrawals at 70.5 the same as for traditional IRAs.
Let's hope that doesn't go through. Ability to defer withdrawals (and taxation) on that portion of retirement investment was the #1 reason I prepaid considerable taxes in order to convert a sizable portion of my Traditional to Roth only a few years ago. (My ... how quickly things can change.)
Issue here is financial "planning". I can invest and earn a decent return in a variety of ways (as can you). But, if government can change the rules in the middle of the stream ... how can anyone plan effectively for the future?
Edit: The thinking there is curious. Are they hoping for a court challenge as to whether the change could be applied retroactively? Than, if successful in court, perhaps implement the next stage - fully taxing Roth withdrawals? OMG - I'M beginning to sound like Fox News, :(

I continue to see sloppy trends in too many areas. Our health care investments are attempting to maintain some positive movements; but this is mostly due to the inclusion of the biotech stocks within these funds. @Junkster noted positive trends in the HY muni sector; but too many other area remain sideways (recently), including most bond sectors.
I've some homework and intuitive reminders to sort out for the remainder of this week.
Take care,
Catch
Below is just after opening this morning.
VWO 45.62 -0.72%
ITOT 91.36 -0.30%
EMB 114.50 -0.16%
IBB 270.54 -0.92%
TIP 113.71 -0.10%
LQD 118.67 -0.11%
IEF 103.56 -0.18%
IWM 115.56 -0.86%
IYR 74.52 -0.23%
HYG 93.01 -0.17%

@Old_Skeet: Held IJH for close to five years which a nice performance, beating, SPY, but thought it was time to try and capture the upward momentum of the Nasdaq.
Regards,
Ted
YTD:
QQQ: 14.82%
IJH: 8.15%
Three Months:
QQQ: 8.11%
IJH: 2.23%

People should also be aware that inherited IRAs are no longer afforded bankruptcy protection per a Supreme Court ruling last week. Essentially the Court said they aren't "retirement money" if inherited. You can try to roll inherited IRAs over, but that has possible tax consequences.

Apparently, spouses may be affected by Court decision too if they do not roll over to their own account:
American Bar - Supreme Court Rules Inherited IRA Funds Not Exempt In Bankruptcy

"....
The case involves a daughter’s inherited IRA of a daughter and not that of a surviving spouse. The opinion implies that the surviving spouse’s rollover IRA is the person’s own IRA and thus exempt in bankruptcy but, if the surviving spouse does not rollover, then the IRA is an inherited IRA and subject to the same rules as an inherited IRA of a non-spouse beneficiary. The opinion says no more on that subject and does not address whether a surviving spouse’s rollover IRA is comprised of “retirement funds” or whether the surviving spouse’s inherited IRA does not have “retirement funds.” Since the funds would be the same in either case, that would be a difficult distinction. The opinion implies that if a surviving spouse does not rollover an IRA and thus does not make it his/her own IRA, the result would be the same as the daughter’s inherited IRA, as the IRA that is not rolled over by a surviving spouse is also an inherited IRA. The Court states: “If the heir is the owner’s spouse, as is often the case, the spouse has a choice: He or she may “roll over” the IRA funds into his or her own IRA, or he or she may keep the IRA as an inherited IRA (subject to the rules discussed below).”
...
Nevertheless, while not clear, the Court seems to imply that an IRA rolled over by a spouse beneficiary will be treated as the spouse's IRA, rather than an inherited IRA, and such IRA will be an exempt asset. If the spouse chooses to treat the IRA as an inherited IRA, however, it will not be an exempt asset."

FYI: Even the strongest have to evolve.
Regards,
Ted
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=663995