Retirement nearing. I have between the wife and I 5 retirement accounts at 5 different places. I want to consolidate all the accounts for simplicity. Thinking Schwab. For those that have done this or thinking about it please share your thoughts concerning your choice(s) and why?

I've been waiting years for an opportunity to get into some of Pimco's amazingly high performing CEFs, and I'm thinking I'm going to get it. (These will go into my solo 401K, with retirement 15+ years away, so I'm happy to wait out volatility.) Anyone have any insights as to the big differences between the three and which might make the better long-term bet? It seems like PTY has much lower leverage (and therefore expenses), as well as a lower premium, but it doesn't seem much different in the end result.

By Christine Benz at M*
"Lower lifetime earnings and longer life expectancies paint a troubling picture about the state of women's retirement preparedness."
Article Link

I am strongly debating switching from bond OEFs, which currently comprise 10% of my dad’s income-managed retirement portfolio (essentially bucket 1), to bond ETFs (and i friggin’ hate bond ETFs/indexes).
At TDA, the 180-day holding period made it hard to opportunistically sell out of bond holdings (albeit temporarily) to purchase things that were selling off (and had become good values), such as the PIMCO CEFs (some of which traded at 1.5-2% higher yields last week). VCIT, VCSH, and some of the more conservative (oxymoron?) IG CEFs, such as BTZ and TSI. Currently hold IOFIX (arguably the best multi-sector), PONAX (steady ~5% income), and SEMPX (enhances cash) in this spot. I know OEFs (esp bond OEFs) aren’t for trading...
Ugh. That means I would be holding bond funds for ballast. Yikes....

I am strongly debating switching from bond OEFs, which currently comprise 10% of my dad’s income-managed retirement portfolio (essentially bucket 1), to bond ETFs (and i friggin’ hate bond ETFs/indexes). At TDA, the 180-day holding period made it hard to opportunistically sell out of bond holdings (albeit temporarily) to purchase things that were selling off (and had become good values), such as the PIMCO CEFs (some of which traded at 1.5-2% higher yields last week). VCIT, VCSH, and some of the more conservative (oxymoron?) IG CEFs, such as BTZ and TSI. Currently hold IOFIX (arguably the best multi-sector), PONAX (steady ~5% income), and SEMPX (enhances cash) in this spot.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/809593/000080959320000021/0131_fye_funds_liquidation.htm
American Beacon Acadian Emerging Markets Managed Volatility Fund
American Beacon Crescent Short Duration High Income Fund
American Beacon GLG Total Return Fund
497 1 0131_fye_funds_liquidation.htm
Supplement dated March 5, 2020
to the
Prospectus and Summary Prospectuses dated May 31, 2019, as previously amended or supplemented
The Board of Trustees (the “Board”) of American Beacon Funds has approved a plan to liquidate and terminate the American Beacon Acadian Emerging Markets Managed Volatility Fund (“Acadian Fund”), the American Beacon Crescent Short Duration High Income Fund (“Crescent Fund”), and the American Beacon GLG Total Return Fund (the “GLG Fund,” and together with the Acadian Fund and the Crescent Fund, the “Funds”) on or about April 30, 2020 (the “Liquidation Date”), upon the recommendation of American Beacon Advisors, Inc., the Funds’ investment manager.
In anticipation of the liquidation, effective immediately, each Fund is closed to new shareholders. To prepare for the liquidation of the Funds, Acadian Asset Management LLC, the sub-advisor to the Acadian Fund, Crescent Capital Group LP, the sub-advisor to the Crescent Fund, and GLG LLC, the sub-advisor to the GLG Fund, may need to increase the portion of the relevant Fund's assets held in cash and similar instruments in order to pay for that Fund’s expenses and to meet redemption requests. The Funds may no longer be pursuing their respective investment objectives during this transition. Each Fund will distribute cash pro rata to all remaining shareholders who have not previously redeemed or exchanged all of their shares on or about the Liquidation Date. These shareholder redemptions may be taxable events. Once the shareholder redemptions are complete, the Funds will terminate.
Please note that you may be eligible to exchange your shares of a Fund at net asset value per share at any time prior to the Liquidation Date for shares of the same share class of another American Beacon Fund under certain limited circumstances. You also may redeem your shares of a Fund at any time prior to the Liquidation Date. No sales charges, redemption fees or termination fees will be imposed in connection with such exchanges and redemptions. In general, exchanges and redemptions are taxable events for shareholders.
In connection with its liquidation, each Fund may declare taxable distributions of its net investment income and net capital gain in advance of its Liquidation Date.
If you own Fund shares in a tax deferred account, such as an individual retirement account, 401(k) or 403(b) account, you should consult your tax adviser to discuss a Fund’s liquidation and determine its tax consequences.
For more information, please contact us at 1-800-658-5811, Option 1. If you purchased shares of a Fund through your financial intermediary, please contact your broker-dealer or other financial intermediary for further details.
***********************************************************
PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/schwab-report-self-directed-401-140000346.html
Schwab Report: Self-Directed 401(k) Investors Finish 2019 Strong With Average Account Balances up 19% Year-Over-Year
According to Charles Schwab’s SDBA Indicators Report, an industry-leading benchmark on retirement plan participant investment activity within self-directed brokerage accounts (SDBAs), the average account balance across all participant accounts finished 2019 at $294,105, a 19% increase year-over-year and a 6% increase from Q3 2019.

@davidrmoran
When I say 4.5% including inflation it means exactly that. These numbers are based on 3% inflation. In 2010 I planned my retirement date to be at the end of 2017. I postponed it by one year because private healthcare (ACA) triple in price. So, from 2010 to 2018 I gradually decrease our portfolio % in stocks and increase bonds. Since 2018, I mainly invest in bond + make several trades in riskier stuff(stocks,ETFs,CEFs) for days and weeks.
I used to own a large % in PIMIX for years from 2011-2018. This is the performance of PIMIX vs 50/50 SPY/BND (link)
The 6% is just a goal but I happened to make more in 2018-2019. According to my Schwab account, my portfolio SD for 2018-19 is 1.7. In Q4/2018 when the SP500 lost almost 20%, my portfolio was down less than 1%. In the last 2 weeks, when stocks lost 12+% my portfolio made money every day.
Let's stay on the topic of this thread Bond fund analysis.

RRSP= Reserve Retirement Savings Plan.

Hi sir...imho if you have long term horizon >10yrs probably keep trucking and keep place your new monies into lifecycles etf funds or sp500/dows/qqq etf.
This is what we did before and continued after 2007 crash and we did extremely well
If short term horizon few yrs til retirement probably best to speak to fidelity or Schwab advisors./vanguard advisors and decide best actions maybe placed to high bond portfolio/cash/monies-CD high quality corporate bonds. We rebalance mama portfolio 16 months ago (she retired now high 50s%bonds and 40%stocks) ; she lost 1.5% over past 5 wks but lots Dividends from Corp bonds come in tomorrow so she maybe happy in next few days
Her few top holdings DODFX /fidelity contrafund(we stop distributing to these fund),
But continued to add to fbnd, phk, jnk, fidelity2015 lifecycle fund, poncx, lsbrx
Very conservative portfolio
For mine portfolio highest holdings are in brk.b, dows etf, vti vanguard primecap core, vgstx, spy, eem...we continued to add to these recently
2%in gold, 1% cash
We added vde energy oil etf late friday
Regards

@MikeM: It seems to me that you promote of recommend target date funds from time to time. Do you own any TDF's ? I have a small % of taxable TDF's at Vanguard & recently added to Retirement income.
Have a good one , Derf
P.S. Do you live in the recent snow zone?

Not sure what your goals are, but the best diversified fund over time may be a retirement target date fund. A lot of these balanced or allocation funds mentioned are focused on US domestic stocks and bonds. It has been for a while, but it won't always be the case that domestic outperforms. My 2 cents. Consider a TRP target date with the equity-bond allocation you're comfortable with.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/08/catch-up.asp?utm_source=personalized&utm_campaign=homepage&utm_term=19558807&utm_medium=email
Late-Stage Retirement Catch-Up Tactics
Fund your 401/krothIRA

Yup. See my previous post above yours. Will continue to nibble as appropriate

lots folks especially near retirement has bailed long time ago. probably best to have 50/50 if near retired/retired
anyone buying today or next few days once the dust maybe settling down?

lots folks especially near retirement has bailed long time ago. probably best to have 50/50 if near retired/retired
anyone buying today or next few days once the dust maybe settling down?

Investors prospel by staying the course
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.stltoday.com/business/local/report-investors-prospered-by-staying-the-course/article_8a368181-c1ac-5665-9ce9-e1c4335ec5d4.amp.html
Investors in “allocation” funds, which hold a mix of stocks and bonds, earned more than the funds themselves, indicating that the majority of investors put more money in the funds when prices were low than when prices were high. Target-date funds, which fall into this group, are likely the main reason for the category’s better performance. These funds, which invest in a mix of stocks and bonds that grows more conservative as investors near retirement, are predominantly held in workplace retirement plans, in which investors tend to hold for the long term and invest at regular intervals.
Investors showed the worst timing when they invested in alternative funds — investments designed to provide returns that aren’t correlated with stock or bond markets. Those funds didn’t benefit from a general upward trend, surrendering an average 0.61% annualized return over the 10-year rolling periods. But investors fared much worse, losing 2.05%
Tdf maybe good ways to go long term

Feb 21, 2020 Episode:

Fidelity Study Link:
fidelity/retirement-mindset-fact-sheet.pdf

This tread intention is to discuss only open-ended bond funds.
Not stocks vs Bonds
Not CEFs vs bonds
Not asset allocation
Not how anybody invests currently and in the past.
Not about retirement or accumulation phase.
If you like to discuss the above non-related topics please start a new thread.
+ 1

“I can make 20-30+%“
Funny thing about quoting percentages is that seem higher than they appear to be.
Say if a bond fund returns 3%, a 30% increase amounts to less than 1% increase in return.
Is the effort worth it for a tiny 1% increase in return?
Are other assets classes (stocks) or asset allocations (stock to bond ratios) better to target?

@BigTom
Nope, it's not only 1% increase it's much more than that.
Several examples:
1) PIMIX vs BND (link)=in the last 10 years PIMIX made 5% more annually with higher SD(but still low) and much better Sharpe+Sortino
2) IOFIX vs BND (link)=IOFIX made almost 8% more annually with similar SD and much better Sharpe+Sortino.
3) A relative used to invest in MM, I told him to use SEMPX instead after I explained it to him. In 5 years SEMPX made 4.4 while VG VMMXX made 1.2%, this is more than 3% annually.
4) I told another relative to use HY Munis instead of some of his MM/CD and he made over 7% in the last 3 years instead of 1.5-2%.
This tread intention is to discuss only open-ended bond funds.
Not stocks vs Bonds
Not CEFs vs bonds
Not asset allocation
Not how anybody invests currently and in the past.
Not about retirement or accumulation phase.
If you like to discuss the above non-related topics please start a new thread.
It's a pretty simple concept, you post a bond fund and we discuss it generally and compare it to other funds.
So, do you have a bond fund in mind you like to discuss?

Vanguard #10 TRP #20 AKRE Primecap not ranked because
"To qualify for this ranking, firms must offer at least three active mutual funds or actively run exchange-traded funds in Lipper’s general U.S. stock category; one in world equity; and one mixed-asset—such as a balanced or allocation fund. They also need to offer at least two taxable bond funds and one national tax-exempt bond fund. All funds must have a track record of at least one year"
These rankings have made little sense for years. If you do not use a "Supermarket" and stay with one firm maybe if that firms lags for years you might switch.
I assume Barron's continues to do this to appeal to institutional investors and retirement plans who can point to the fund families they use relative ranking to their client
It is far more helpful to compare funds to each other is a single class, along with risk statistics and ratios etc, ie at MFO Premium