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Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

Minimum and Maximum
Ah, the age-old question @Bobpa. I agree whole-heartily with hank. Portfolio diversification is more important than number of funds, at least, imho. Holding 30, 40 or 50 funds can certainly be a diversified portfolio, but likely any 1 holding at 1, 2 or 3% is going to be meaningless to overall return. Being in 1 target date or retirement fund is likely as good or more diversified as that collection of funds. I happen to have more than 1/2 my money in the Schwab Intelligent Portfolio account (I remember you used to be in it also), and I see that account as nothing different than one of those target funds. So, I guess I have about 60% of my money in that "1 fund" :) .
I'll always suggest that everyone run their portfolio to their risk-comfort level. You can do it with 1 fund, 5 funds or 50 as some here do, but keep an eye on how you are diversified, and by all means make sure you measure against a benchmark. I've mentioned before I use TRP fund TBLQX because it matches fairly close for equity % to where I want to be at 68 yo. Playing with your own portfolio is fun and that is why we come to MFO, but is it fun at the expense of maybe falling 10s of thousands behind a benchmark you can just own otherwise?
If you are still at Schwab, I'm sure you know how easy it is to check your portfolio for diversification. FWIW, PRWCX is 25% of my self-managed portfolio.
As always, good luck.

MikeM July 2022 in Fund Discussions
Need advice on contacting Vanguard on the weekend
@Anna, sorry to hear about your loss.
First, RMDs are also required for the year of the death. So, a scheduled RMD is OK. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-participant-employee/retirement-topics-required-minimum-distributions-rmds#:~:text=For the year of the,identity of the designated beneficiary.
"For the year of the account owner’s death, use the RMD the account owner would have received. For the year following the owner’s death, the RMD will depend on the identity of the designated beneficiary."
Second, there is just NO WAY to contact Vanguard except during weekday hours. I had Vanguard account alert once on late-Friday and my account was locked. I looked for a variety of ways to get hold of Vanguard customer service or its security department but nothing worked. So, I called promptly on Monday 8:01 AM Eastern and got hold of someone at Vanguard. When I complained about not getting through over the weekend, the Rep tried to reassure me that the account was locked for security and there was nothing to worry or be concerned about. I didn't feel reassured but there is really nothing else that can be done at/by Vanguard. Low ERs and poor service are its goals.

yogibearbull July 2022 in Other Investing
Vanguard settlement over 2021 target funds distributions
It's Friday night, thoughts getting a little weird. Below the image is my Rube Goldberg-ish idea on what Vanguard might have done.

When the institutional investors place exchange orders from retail to institutional class shares, Vanguard redeems their retail shares in-kind (OEFs as well as ETFs can do this).
Institutional shareholders then sit with retail shares of a half dozen Vanguard funds (the underlying funds in the retail target date funds). Vanguard executes tax-free exchanges (not that it matters inside the retirement plans) of these retail shares into institutional shares of the same underlying funds.
These funds now constitute "creation units" that are used to purchase shares of the institutional target date funds
Thus, no sale of underlying funds in the retail funds; no recognized gain. In fact, reduction of unrealized gain - just like ETFs.
Vanguard might have been able to turn the mass migration into a positive rather than a costly negative.
Needless to say there are a lot of details I haven't checked; this is just some end-of-week rambling. But if Vanguard could have made something like this work, it really looks negligent for not doing it.

msf July 2022 in Fund Discussions

Vanguard settlement over 2021 target funds distributions

The Regular TDF did not have its own institutional class. It didn't even have Admiral shares. Below is an excerpt from the 2020 SAI for the funds.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/752177/000168386320000191/f2353d1.htm
That's why Vanguard would had to have created a Regular TDF institutional class.
Edit: As I think about it, creating such a share class would have been problematic. Vanguard charged no management fees or any direct fees at all for these funds. The total ER came from acquired fund expenses. That's likely why Vanguard created a clone fund with lower expenses. The institutional clone cost less because it purchased less expensive shares of the same underlying funds. I don't know how Vanguard could create a share class of the retail series with lower charges than what the underlying funds were charging.

DESCRIPTION OF THE TRUST
Vanguard Chester Funds (the "Trust") currently offers the following funds and share 
classes (identified by ticker symbol):
Share Classes	 
Fund							Investor Admiral	Institutional
Vanguard PRIMECAP Fund					VPMCX	VPMAX
Vanguard Target Retirement 2015 Fund			VTXVX	—		—		 
Vanguard Target Retirement 2020 Fund			VTWNX	—		—
Vanguard Target Retirement 2025 Fund			VTTVX	—		—
Vanguard Target Retirement 2030 Fund			VTHRX	—		— 	 
Vanguard Target Retirement 2035 Fund			VTTHX	—		—
Vanguard Target Retirement 2040 Fund			VFORX	—		—
Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 Fund			VTIVX	—		—
Vanguard Target Retirement 2050 Fund			VFIFX	—		—
Vanguard Target Retirement 2055 Fund			VFFVX	—		—
Vanguard Target Retirement 2060 Fund			VTTSX	—		—	
Vanguard Target Retirement 2065 Fund			VLXVX	—		—
Vanguard Target Retirement Income Fund			VTINX	—		—	
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement 2015 Fund	—	—		VITVX 	 	 
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement 2020 Fund	—	—		VITWX 	 	 
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement 2025 Fund	—	—		VRIVX 	 	 
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement 2030 Fund	—	—		VTTWX 	 	 
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement 2035 Fund	—	—		VITFX 	 	 
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement 2040 Fund	—	—		VIRSX 	 	 
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement 2045 Fund	—	—		VITLX 	 	 
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement 2050 Fund	—	—		VTRLX 	 	 
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement 2055 Fund	—	—		VIVLX 	 	 
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement 2060 Fund	—	—		VILVX 	 	 
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement 2065 Fund	—	—		VSXFX 	 	 
Vanguard Institutional Target Retirement Income Fund	—	—		VITRX

msf July 2022 in Fund Discussions

Midyear Investing Outlook: Where to Invest Now
First, getting out isn't momentum.
Second, I have heard so many times, you can't time the market. When I was an accumulator, I didn't care. When I got older, and had a lot more, I learned how to do it. Since 2018, retirement, I was out to MM with a max loss of less than 1%, while the SP500 lost 3 times 20% minimum.
Third, I got back on time, not the bottom, but at much lower prices.
If you want to swim, you can't learn it from a book, you actually, have to do it live.

First, you previously described yourself as a "momo" trader.
Second, frequent trading significantly impairs returns for many investors.
There have been numerous studies which confirm this finding.
The Barber/Odean study may be the best-known.
Third, get over yourself.
Most people don't care about your "special" trading system or that
you supposedly averted losses and got back in at much lower prices.

Observant1 July 2022 in Other Investing
Midyear Investing Outlook: Where to Invest Now
First, getting out isn't momentum.
Second, I have heard so many times, you can't time the market. When I was an accumulator, I didn't care. When I got older, and had a lot more, I learned how to do it. Since 2018, retirement, I was out to MM with a max loss of less than 1%, while the SP500 lost 3 times 20% minimum.
Third, I got back on time, not the bottom, but at much lower prices.
If you want to swim, you can't learn it from a book, you actually, have to do it live.

FD1000 July 2022 in Other Investing
Vanguard Customer Service
@sven, just call TIAA. It has 2 business sides, retirement plans with restrictions (for colleges/universities & nonprofits) and general accounts (for everybody) for mutual funds, brokerage (via Pershing), 529s, taxable annuities, banking, and used to be life insurance but it stopped those. As my involvement with TIAA is through retirement plan (403b), I don't have first hand info on the latter aspects. Remember though that access to TIAA Traditional (SV-like) and TIAA Real Estate Account VA (your indicated interest) is only for special IRAs that also meet TIAA Eligibility requirements (link below that was also posted earlier) - some direct or indirect/family connection with TIAA.
TIAA Eligibility https://www.tiaa.org/public/pdf/eligibility_flyer_external.pdf
TIAA Products https://www.tiaa.org/public/invest/financial-products

yogibearbull July 2022 in Other Investing
Matthews Asia ETFs in registration
Not sure. She's nowhere near retirement age, so I'm guessing she will pop up somewhere. I saw her just a month or so ago on Bloomberg, she is a pretty frequent contributor.

ProtonAnalyst33 July 2022 in Fund Discussions
Vanguard Customer Service
Anyone can open a conventional taxable brokerage account at TIAA.
https://shared.tiaa.org/private/mytcbrokerageaccountopening/aobrokerageapp/secure/required
It gives you access to what you'd find at most brokerages - stocks, ETFs, mutual funds. Like those other brokerages, it does not give you access to mutual funds sold through annuities.
Most brokerages offer retail IRA accounts that, aside from being wrapped up in an IRA, are virtually identical to their retail taxable accounts. TIAA does not. It used to but stopped offering such an IRA account a few years ago.
What TIAA does do is sell retirement annuities. To colleges, that's a 403(b) annuity. Like most variable annuities, TIAA's have a limited set of funds that are sold only through annuities. Notably the CREF funds, like CREF stock. And like some variable annuities, the TIAA annuities offer a fixed annuity option. Here, that's TIAA Traditional Annuity.
For individual investors, TIAA offers two variable annuities. One is your typical VA, called TIAA Intelligent Variable Annuity. It offers "funds" (typically VA clones) shown here. The other VA is effectively the equivalent of the 403(b) annuity (plus brokerage window). It's that one that gives you get access to TIAA Traditional, CREF, and TIAA Real Estate.
That annuity is only offered to "eligible" investors, and only as an Individual Retirement Annuity. Unlike typical VAs, you can't buy it for a taxable account.
https://www.tiaa.org/public/retire/financial-products/annuities/annuity-ira-benefits
As Yogi mentioned, the TIAA Traditional Annuity (fixed annuity investment option) that you can get though this limited access IRA annuity comes with a lower rate than paid to 403(b) participants. It is paying 2.50%, and has a guaranteed floor of 1.0%. I believe the IRA annuity contract restricts Traditional withdrawals to one per quarter.
An IRA investor is at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to the CREF funds. Several years ago, TIAA split these into three share classes, with large institutions getting cheaper shares and small institutions getting the most expensive shares. As an IRA investor, you're thrown in with the small institutions. It could be worse; TIAA could have created a fourth share class for IRA investors.
IMHO the only significant benefit to this IRA annuity is access to TIAA Real Estate Account (TREA).
You can find the VA options (including those for this IRA annuity) here. The IRA doesn't give you access to the non-TIAA VA subaccounts listed (except for Nuveen, which is owned by TIAA).
https://www.tiaa.org/public/investment-performance
Since it is structured as an annuity, this IRA can be difficult to deal with. You can't do transfers in kind (e.g. for RMDs, or IRA-to-IRA). When transferring money out of this annuity, you have to initiate the transfer from the TIAA side; typically one initiates transfers from the receiving side. These are attributes normally associated with employer-sponsored plans (401(k)s, 403(b)s), not with IRAs.
The website is atrocious. I'm won't go into details. Suffice to say that people who complain about Vanguard's website likely haven't yet had the "pleasure" of dealing with TIAA's. And you won't know what funds you can buy through the IRA brokerage window until you actually open an account.

msf July 2022 in Other Investing
Midyear Investing Outlook: Where to Invest Now
Appreciate the post ... Where to Invest Now? That is the question. If you're not in retirement and you have some cash on the sidelines, where do you invest? You definitely want to avoid any companies that are not generating profits. It's impossible to call a bottom. Yes. Ok, so will the recession (we are in one) last 18-24 months? If so, should you wait for another 12 months before deploying cash? DCA into index funds? Which ones? S&P 500 or Small Cap or both?
Kiplinger article "The good news is that stocks tend to do well in the first year of Fed rate hikes. Looking back some 65 years, Deutsche Bank found that 12 months following the first hike, the stock market was up 91% of the time, by an average of 7%." <-- that's some positive data.
I'm keeping an eye on the labor market. It's a strong point at the moment but we're seeing a lot of hiring freezes and offer letters being rescinded. It appears the Tech companies are gearing up for a slowdown. Interesting times.

JonGaltIII July 2022 in Other Investing
JULY commentary. Hats off to all for your presentations; of particular note for me.....Lynn's writes
I enjoyed all of the presentations in the July commentary. Lynn's commentaries regarding retirement planning will allow me to have more "ammunition" to "prod" a few folks who still don't realize how fast the years move along; and suddenly find themselves a lot closer to retirement than they had remembered. The psychological aspect being as important as the investment aspect.
Remain curious,
Catch

catch22 July 2022 in Fund Discussions
Stable Value (SV) Rates
SVs are available only in workplace retirement a/c and their rates have gone up significantly. SVs guarantee principal and accumulated interest.
Federal TSP G Fund is at 3%, https://www.tspfolio.com/tspgfundinterestrate
TIAA Traditional restricted RA is at 5.25%, flexible SRA at 4.75%, https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/thread/142/tiaa-traditional-rates-monthly?page=2&scrollTo=690
Taxable a/c alternatives include m-mkt funds, m-mkt accounts (by banks), T-Bills, short-term CDs.

yogibearbull July 2022 in Other Investing
International: Thnking about switching
@Sven,
Good move rotating to VGWAX.
I like VGWAX but prefer separate funds for stocks and bonds.
I also checked VWICX shortly after inception but decided against investing in this fund.
Last time I checked VWICX was doing ok YTD.
So, don't listen to me! :-)
Edit: Although James Anderson was a great manager and thought leader,
I wasn't too concerned about his retirement.
Baillie Gifford has a deep bench and Vanguard takes a thoughtful approach to succession planning.

Observant1 June 2022 in Fund Discussions
International: Thnking about switching
I too have invested in VWILX for awhile when growth stocks were in favor. When long time Baillie Gifford manager, James Anderson announced his retirement, I rotated gradually to value-oriented VG Global Wellington, VGWAX, as part of risk reduction. It worked out well as value stocks started to lead after a decade long trailing the growth stocks. Wellington also runs the VG International Core fund, VWICX. YTD both VGWAX and VWICX are ahead of VWILX.
In addition, Chinese government interfered with their tech stocks including Alibaba and Tencent that contributed to sizable loss in VWILX.

Sven June 2022 in Fund Discussions
10-Year CDs @ 4%
Everyone will put their on spin and expectations on this bear market, strong probability of becoming a recession. For me, I am 74, and 9 years into retirement. My focus is to preserve my accumulated assets, and to do my best to make a positive return in this tough market. I exited the market several months, with a slight YTD loss--less than 1% and have been in money market funds. I am now adding shorter term CDs to my portfolio, to ensure I will finish with a positive total return by year end. My focus is on 6 to 9 month CDs, which have been going up in interest return in the past month. I am expecting shorter term CD interest rates to rise significantly by the end of the year--if I am correct, I will look at some laddering for 2023, but if I am wrong and this bear market/possible recession is shorter than I have predicted, then hopefully I can catch some of the rebound and maybe more stability in investing. My current, imperfect opinion, is that 2022 will not improve for the remainder of the year, and 2023 will not start off well--I may very well be wrong, but I think the Feds will continue raising interest rates to try to beat down inflation, oil supply will struggle for the rest of the year, and we will start seeing unemployment creep up. All in all, I would prefer the safety of CDs until I see more positive signs that this bear market is over.

dtconroe June 2022 in Other Investing
Wealthtrack - Weekly Investment Show
How do you manage through a cycle of rising interest rates and higher inflation? There aren’t too many money managers who have that experience …

The bond bull market began in 1981.
That’s about 41 years ago.
Let’s assume the manager had a minimum of 10 years experience as an investment manager / advisor preceding the bond bull market.
If age 15 when he / she began their career they’d be 66 today (in or near retirement).
If 25 when he / she began investing they’d be 76 today.
If 35 when he / she began investing they would be 86 today.

hank June 2022 in Fund Discussions
Portfolio Withdrawal Strategies Using Cash, VFSTX and VWINX
Before pulling the pin,retiring, one should have more than a 3 legged stool or bucket in place. Pension, health care, spending pre & post retirement estimate. Can you get by with spending less? Age at which you retire, meaning when will SS & Medicare kick in ? What are you going to do to fill all that free time. To much sitting will probably become a problem . I'm speaking from experience here.
Time to hit the gym, Derf

Derf June 2022 in Fund Discussions
Portfolio Withdrawal Strategies Using Cash, VFSTX and VWINX
My only concerns with "bucket" suggestions is that I think they underestimate how long the market can be down. While I do not think American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) is helpful most of the time, they did provide simple guidelines for withdrawals. When the SP500 is within 5% of its all time high, take money out of stocks. When it is not use your cash. This avoids selling in a down market
They think 4 to 5 years cash is enough, but if you go back to 1929 you can see years where the market took 7 to 8 years to recover.
I would keep at least 6 or 8 years of minimal expenses in cash or short term bonds
The worst thing that can happen in retirement is to go into it in the middle of a bear market

sma3 June 2022 in Fund Discussions
Portfolio Withdrawal Strategies Using Cash, VFSTX and VWINX
We all are pretty familiar with the 4% rule which provides a mechanism to adjust one's SWR or "safe withdrawal rate" based on one portfolio value. In a year like this, any percentage withdrawal feels anything but "safe".
For example, if one started the year with a portfolio value of$1M and took a 4% withdrawal for the up coming year, one would have pulled ($1,000,000* .04) or $40,000. If after that withdrawal one's portfolio fell 20%. That $1M portfolio minus $40,000 (withdrawal) minus a 20% market correction, is now $768,000.
This math frightens retirees. It's human nature to see this 24.2% portfolio drop as a permanent loss. This can trigger some of us to "sell low" and other poor timing strategies.
For me, years before pulling from my retirement portfolio, I tried to determine what my yearly withdrawal needs were going to be and decided to separate those 3-5 year needs into lower volatility assets. In a sense, try to insulated these near term withdrawals from near term volatility. I would give up some upside to protect against the downside. So instead of selling equities into down markets, I positioned 3-5 years of withdrawals in assets that were less exposed to equity assets volatility. For me, these lower volatility assets are CASH, ST Bonds (VFSTX), and conservative allocation funds (such as VWINX).

I position 20% of my retirement portfolio in low volatility assets. Collectively the losses in these assets YTD has been close to (-6.5%). with this in mind, I have reduced my 4% SWR by 7%. So instead of my normal 4% SWR of $20,0000, I limit myself to 7% less or $18,600. I am hoping it is a helpful adjustment that my budget can handle.
Any criticisms, comments or strategies welcome.

bee June 2022 in Fund Discussions
Wealthtrack - Weekly Investment Show
June 2nd Episode:
In an article titled “In Praise of Target-Date Funds,” one of our favorite WEALTHTRACK guests, Morningstar’s Director of Personal Finance, Christine Benz described them as “…nothing short of the biggest positive development for investors since the index fund.”
That got my attention! So this week we are interviewing one of the best target-date managers in the business. He is Wyatt Lee, who is Head and Co-Manager of T. Rowe Price’s $390 billion Target Date Strategies, the largest group of actively managed target-date products in the U.S.
The firm’s Retirement Series earned a Gold analyst rating from Morningstar, one of only two in the actively managed category, for its stellar performance and high ratings for its process, people, and the parent company.
Lee begins with the basics and defines what a target-date fund does and how the product has evolved since it was first introduced in 1994. It turns out target-date funds can be an effective retirement vehicle for investors at all stages of life and that there are many options available.

June 4th Episode:
Part 2 of 2
Candid career advice from three super successful women portfolio managers. Causeway Capital’s Sarah Ketterer, Capital Group’s Karen Choi, and Canyon Partner’s Robin Potts share their victories, setbacks and strategies as they tear down the pink wall.

bee June 2022 in Fund Discussions