Quite so, Ted. But I was asking about tendencies, not certainties. I did not loose very much in the stock portion of my portfolio after the big market downturns of the past few decades because for the most part I had avoided investing in the high flyers that fell so far. A fund manager can do the equivalent. For instance a portion (say 15% ) of assets may be kept in cash at such times as a downturn seems inevitable. I know Rondure is bottom up style in its stock picking but sometimes you don't need to be a meteorologist to see a storm coming. Also although past positive performance is no predicator of future gains, past losses may possibly tell a bit more. (Or not). Anyway, thank you for responding, I appreciate it.

POAGX, though presently - limited access.
BCSIX, Sml/Mid Cap Growth - also limited access.
Maybe others have idea on getting into one or both. Possibly directly through Fund company.
Primecap Odyssey Funds:
odysseyfunds.com/index.html
Brown Capital Management:
browncapital.com/products/small-company-fund

Thanks for the praise, though rather overstated. Thanks also for the reminder that the biggest problem (at least for me) with the BofA cards has been their simultaneous paranoia on card use (e.g. refusing a $500 car repair charge 15 miles from home) and frequent issuing of new numbers (due to security breaches on their end).
To protect against problems abroad, I try to always carry cards from two different issuers. Capital One is an excellent card for that, with 1.5% and no foreign transaction fee.
Rather surprisingly, Discover Card is also becoming a reasonable alternative (1% and no foreign transaction fee), since it's been working hard at expanding its overseas presence in the last couple of years.. The current Fidelity VISA card's also reasonable (2% rewards reduced by a 1% foreign transaction fee).

@msf: Thanks for reminding me why I am no longer a BoA credit card customer. Never have we had a card that was compromised more often, requiring issuance of a new card. Worst experience was the day we arrived in Vienna to find the card refused; believe me, you don't want to have to contact customer service from overseas on a hotel line charging you big Euros.
Pretty happy with Jennifer Garner and Capital One, 1.5% reward in $50 increments. I'm too dumb to figure out cards with airline miles; or maybe I just don't trust the b€|£¥s.
We could not do without your knowledge, msf. Back in the days when "Car Talk" was live, Tom and Ray used to say that Ray Suarez (PBS) knew everything. They didn't know our guru.

Mind game...
Everyone moves into all index funds, presumably spread out over the whole market. Funds that hold all of the components of an index would skyrocket with their valuations dependent only on how much money was allocated to that index. But the relative value of each stock to the other would remain the same forever, until the SP500 for example delisted a company. Then it's price would drop to close to zero unless it was immediately added to another index
Indexes that rely on a "random" sample of larger universes would jockey to pick the best sampling process because if their returns were better they would get more money. If were truly random then we would really have a "random walk".
But if a company's value was only determined by what index it was in, then there would be no incentive for mangers to improve the bottom line as the stock price would only be determined by popularity of it's index. Large companies wold have access to almost unlimited amounts of capital small companies almost none. More of the smaller ones would go private further exacerbating the situation.
MFO would go dark.

FYI: The U.S. dollar has been and will likely continue to be on a gentle weakening pattern, Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive at DoubleLine Capital, said on an investor webcast late on Tuesday.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-doubleline-idUSKBN17Y2IN

I can't understand how the author gets to $3,245 in this example:
"Say you gain 30% a year in three years and lose 20% in the other two... your $10,000 would be worth only $3,245..." Multiplying the corresponding factors together, 1.3x1.3x1.3x.8x.8 = 1.4061, so your $10,000 would be worth $14,061, not $3,245.
Also, "... because losses after good years would be bigger dollar amounts than average, and gains after bad years would be smaller dollar amounts." is not an explanation. The order of the gains and losses in the example doesn't matter; for example, 2x4 is the same as 4x2.

I guess there's no official position and very limited inquiry. That said, I'm not sure what would draw you to it. It's got a high correlation to its index (96-97 against the Russell 2000 Growth index over the past 3-, 5- and 10-year periods) despite a high active share. Over the past decade, its trailed its peers by 1.7% annually while offering very, very marginal gains in downside protection. Standard deviation, downside deviation, Ulcer Index, and bear market deviation are all within a point of its peers. All of the risk-adjusted metrics (Sharpe, Sortino, Martin) are lowered than its peers. The adviser receives relatively rich compensation (95 bps) for its services, which leads to a noticeably high e.r.
On whole, why bother?

Here's another quote from the Markets Insider interview that I found interesting:
"I can't help think that there may be a period when folks who are putting their money into index products are going to regret it a few years from now. This is not a prediction, but just an observation that indexing has had its waves of popularity before. It hasn't been proven wise to deploy your capital there."

"Perhaps then we can ask the question, if one sold DODGX when value fell to $90, and then bought it back after it crossed $100 again, ... "
That's a surefire way to lose money. You're selling on dips, and buying back when the price is higher than when you sold. For the money you got by selling your shares at $90, you get fewer shares back when you repurchase at $100.
I can make this concrete. I'm glad you mentioned 2000-2002. (All data from Yahoo finance.)
The first time in that time frame that the fund price dipped to $90 or below was 2/25/2000, at $89.44. (It had last been over $100 on 1/19/2000.) The lowest it got after that before going back over $100 was $89.36 on 3/7/2000. It reached $100 on 5/12/2000 ($100.09). Selling at virtually the bottom and buying back at $100 would have cost about 11%. Not to mention the missed dividend. (DODGX pays quarterly dividends, or at least it does now.)
The next time it dipped to $90 or below was 9/20/2001, at $87.95. The lowest it got after that was the next day, at $86.51. It went back over $100 on 11/26/2001, at $100.34. Selling low ($86.51) and buying high ($100.34) would have cost around 14%, again plus quarterly dividends forgone.
The final time it dipped to $90 or below might make you feel a little better. It dropped to $89.22 on 7/16/2002. It got as low as $75.03 on 10/9/2002, before passing $100 again on 6/12/2003 ($100.15). By being out of the market, you would have avoided some discomfort at watching your shares drop another 16%. Ultimately though, you'd still have paid $100.15 to buy back shares that you sold at $89.22.
A more effective strategy is to use trailing stops, which may be what you had in mind. I think you're trying to clip off the worst of the loss (by selling when it seems the fund is on its way down), and conversely, to pick up most of the gain (by selling when it looks like the fund is on its way to recovering). Trailing stops help you do that.
You want to reenter once the fund starts moving up, say from that low of $75.03 to a price "just" 10% higher, rather than wait for it to blow past the price you sold it at only to repurchase at a higher price.
An issue with this strategy is that corrections (10% moves) are more common than bear markets (20% moves). So if you sell when the fund drops 10%, you'll likely be selling into a correction, not a bear. In those cases, the fund won't drop 20%. Let's say the fund drops 15%. When it then gains 10% and you repurchase, its price will still be higher than the price you sold it at.
With 10% trailing stops, the only time you come out ahead (and it could be far ahead) would be in bear markets.
Peace of mind comes at a price. I prefer the strategy that BobC and others have suggested - keeping enough in cash and short term bonds to wait out market gyrations.

FYI: U.S. equities struggled to hold gains on Wednesday as investors digested President Donald Trump's outline for tax reform, while earnings season continued.
The Dow Jones industrial average turned lower about 20 minutes before the close, with United Technologies contributing the most gains and Procter & Gamble the most losses. The 30-stock index was about 1 percent away from its all-time high of 21,169.11, however.
Regards,
Ted
Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-25/global-stock-rally-lives-on-as-u-s-earnings-climb-markets-wrap
Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks-idUSKBN17S1FK
MarketWatch:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stock-rally-poised-to-stall-as-investors-wait-for-trumps-big-tax-plan-2017-04-26/print
IBD:
http://www.investors.com/market-trend/stock-market-today/stocks-at-highs-of-day-ahead-of-tax-cut-plan-details-chipotle-jumps/
CNBC:
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/26/us-markets.html
AP:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FINANCIAL_MARKETS_MARKETS_RIGHT_NOW?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-04-26-12-01-27
Bloomberg Evening Briefing:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-26/your-evening-briefing-j1zenb0h
WSJ Markets At A Glance:
http://markets.wsj.com/us
SPDR's Sector Tracker:
http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker
SPDR's Bloomberg Sctor Performance Pie Chart:
https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/sectors
Current Futures: Positive
http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

FYI: (This is a follow-up article.)
Shareholders of British asset manager Henderson Global Investors (HGGH.L) backed its $6 billion merger with U.S. fund firm Janus Capital (JNS.N) on Wednesday, after Janus shareholders approved the deal earlier this week.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-henderson-m-a-janus-idUSKBN17S2BJ

Hi @BobC,
My bonds have about 3.5 years of effective duration and my cash is in U.S. Government MMFs for now. I'm up to 74% bonds/cash now after a little trading today (incuding a little tax loss harvesting to offset some LT capital gains I took back in February). Thanks for your input, and I agree on avoiding long-term bonds or even intermediate-term bonds that are on the long-term end of the scale.

FYI: We’ve been hearing a lot of talk over the last few days that just a handful of stocks are driving the rally in US equities. This suggests that the gains aren’t representative of broad market strength, but instead strength in just a handful of stocks. We’ll be the first to agree that the S&P 500’s gains this year are the result of gains in some of the index’s largest members, but that’s only because they have grown so large. As we noted earlier this week, the five largest companies in the S&P 500 have a combined market cap of over $2.75 trillion, and the four largest companies in the index have a greater market cap than the entire Russell 2000 small-cap index. Just because the largest companies in the S&P 500 are doing so well doesn’t mean that the rest of the index is doing poorly though.
The first chart below shows the S&P 500 market cap weighted index over the last twelve months. As shown in the chart, after the rally of the last few days the index is currently just 0.52% below its all-time high from 3/1.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/narrow-rally-is-fakenews/

The amount of dollars you should have in cash/CDs/short-term bonds depends on what you need to withdraw from your portfolio. We advocate 4-6 years, some folks use longer time frames. Let's assume a person needs $1,250 per month from their investments. That would mean $15,000 per year multiplied by five for five years of protected income stream. This does not account for any taxes that might need to be withheld. You would gross up the monthly amount to accommodate that.
On a $300,000 portfolio, that would require $75,000 be in cash/CDs/short-term bonds. Have at least 6-12 months of this in cash or CDs maturing in the near term. The remaining portfolio can be invested as aggressively as your risk profile and time horizon allow. In years when the stock markets are good, you would capture gains from your equity investments to replenish the $75,000. In lean years, you use dollars from your set-aside stash. The last two market crashes have meant recovery of values in about 5 years or less for our clients. The stash means you won't have to sell devalued assets in a down market.
Does this work? Yes. We have used this strategy with many clients for 30 years. The variables are the dollars needed, the number of years selected for protection, whether to withhold taxes from distributions in retirement accounts. Many clients reduce spending in years when returns are not good or negative. Some do not have that option. The key is to establish a very conservative total return projection for your retirement, and be able to adjust your cash flow need. If you base your lifetime income projection (to age 100) on a 7% annual return, you may be asking for a rude awakening.

@BenWP: Bespoke is considered one of the best sources of market and stock information on Wall St. I only link their free info, and like many other financial websites they have some material for free along with a premium package for a fee. Granted much of the data is short term in nature, however; might I suggest you put a cloths pin on your nose and continue reading their links. Here is a relink of the Barron's interview Pual Hickey and Justin Walters Bespoke founders. (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search) "Another Year of Double-Digit Gains"
https://www.google.com/#q=Another+Year+of+Double-Digit+Gains+Barron's
Regards,
Ted

@davidrmoran
You are correct, this is not a $10K chart like at M*. This is performance based charting.
@Derf, some of the below may answer your question. If not, let me know here.
The below link describes a bit about how stockcharts adjusts their performance data. I have not read through this link for some time; but recall either from this site or at another info piece somewhere; that the performance is adjusted for any distribution type, including splits; so cap. gains, etc are part of the total return performance numbers. I have used prior data from Vanguard to check a total return for whatever fund for year "x" and the numbers match with what I have found at StockCharts. There may be other sites for this, but I am not aware of such sites.
Additionally, I see @Old_Joe has added some other details, too. Wait there's more.....
Using the 6 month graph and move the days box to somewhere in the middle of the graphic and then you may also "right click and hold" onto either end of the "days slider" and move the right end or the left end to "stretch" the days forward or backward.
I'll probably think of something else, but outside I must go to finish a few chores before the sun leaves my time zone.
Lastly, all of what we are doing with this chart is FREE! And this chart, as you know is active (as has been linked). You may replace any of the tickers in the box below the graph and work with other stock, etf or fund ticker symbols. Just place the cursor at the right of an existing ticker and backspace to remove. One may enter up to 10 tickers separated by a comma. If you have not, save this particular graph page to return to and play with other tickers, too.
http://stockcharts.com/articles/mailbag/2014/01/how-can-i-plot-dividend-adjusted-data-and-unadjusted-data.html
NOTES: This site has a "chart school" and here is a video show and tell video link.
OPPS, did forget one item that I generally don't use; but one may "right click" onto the "day" box and a few other default time frames appear to choose. Keep in mind that if one is viewing, say 3 funds, as with our working example, the looking backward date for all 3 funds will stop at the date of the "youngest" fund. So, if one ticker is only 4 years old, this is as far backward one may view comparisons, although the other 2 funds may be older. ALSO, I recall graph data will not be available backward past 1999.
Regards,
Catch

"Live in the present" might work better as a matter of tactical allocation (stocks or bonds this year? here or there? defensive or aggressive?) but the strategic question (how much do I need to squirrel away over each of the next 35 years to have a reasonable chance of meeting my goals) has to include a "likely market return" variable.
Over 35 years, shifting the assumed annual return from 4% to 6% annual return changes your end value by 100%. (That's a simple compounding calculation assuming nothing other than a fixed amount invested and held for 35 years.)
I'd also be cautious about taking double-digit growth in the stock market as an entitlement. It might return 15% a year this century and the dividend checks might be delivered by unicorns, but I'm not sure that's the way to plan. Market returns are a combination of capital appreciation plus dividends. Capital appreciation is a combination of economic growth plus P/E expansion (a/k/a the supply of greater fools). The lower your starting P/E, the greater the prospect of expansion.
In the 20th century, per capita US GDP grew 2.3% annually; in the current century, it's been about 1%. P/Es in the 20th century averaged in the low teens; in the 21st, they're in the mid 20s.
Perhaps the rise of our Robot Overlords will change everything. Perhaps The Chinese Century will be different. Perhaps Mr. Trump's tax package will sail through Congress unscathed by partisans or lobbyists, hundreds of billions in overseas earnings will be repatriated and American corporations will again be the envy of the world.
Don't know. For me, the question is just, do I want to bet my future security on it?
David

There are a lot of thoughts when it comes to investing and if one should as some say market time using some common known and often written about investment strategies. From my perspective, if they did not work folks would not write about some of the more commonly known and the more easily used strategies.
From my own experience, I've been successful with my special investment positions because my account through the years has often commented to me ... You owe taxes on your stock market profits. Sometimes he ask ... Did you have losses that could have been sold to offset some of these gains? And, my answer is usually ... No.
With this ... I plan to continue opening and closing special investment positions from time-to-time as I feel warranted.
Skeet

Hi @Old_Joe,
I hope you have a most enjoyable trip. My wife and I plan a fall trip to Panama and we have given trading authority on our investment and retirement accounts to our son ... just in case account action might be warranted ... plus he is also our Power of Attorney so he can handle other matters should it become necessary. I'm not wanting to sell down our taxable accounts before we travel out of the States because come tax time I'd be paying tax on the capital gains just to re-enter the market a bit later plus a good bit of our invstment worth is held in these accounts. The retirement accounts are a little different as we don't pay taxes until we take withdrwals. So selling out and then going back in could be done without capital gain taxes along with I'm thinking you have a certain period of time you can reinvest the sell proceeds commission free. Check with your broker first before doing this.
Have a great trip ...
Old_Skeet