To Norbert...guess your olive branch had some olives on it.  Good tone...constructive. 

See ya on future posts....retired at 48

bilperk:

First, let me say that I really understand and respect Mel's point of view.  I know him personally and truly believe that his main goal is to see that investors, particularly newer investors, get accurate and well reasoned advice in line with the teachings of Jack Bogle.  His history of providing and facilitating that message stands on its own, and can't be diminished by the occasional heckler that passes through.

I also have a lot of respect of Chin.  I don't agree that a person HAS to defend his opinion, however.  I do agree that opinions that are stated more like facts than opinions should be open to challenge.  "Wellington has beaten Balanced index over the last 10 years", is a fact.  The implication that the poster is trying to make  may be that Wellington is a better investment, or else why post that fact?  No reason why that shouldn't be questioned.  OTOH, I don't think a person HAS to defend why he has chosen to use a low cost active fund if his opinion is that it is better suited to his goals.

I don't pretend to have an answer to Tim's problem, but I don't think after reading this thread that it is being well understood.  I do understand his frustration as I'm sure Petrocelli does.

Essentially, there are times when some of us would like to talk about a managed fund without having to defend why we own it or if it will have comparable returns to some benchmark over time.  After all, how many times do we need to do that?

Maybe we want to get into the individual make-up of the fund.  Maybe we want to discuss the pros and cons of management decisions, like why did they keep so many financial stocks or are they getting too heavy in energy or whatever.  Maybe we want to discuss distributions, and if they are "safer" than relying on NAV appreciation. Did you know that both Wellington and Wellesley have NAVs that are essentially where they were 10 years ago?  That means their entire return over the last 10 years came in the form of distributed interest, dividends, and CGs; cash flow.  Maybe as a retiree, this is interesting and important in considering a withdrawal strategy.

Yet that is unlikely to happen without many, many challenging posts asking why we invest in Wellington or Wellesley in the first place.  And when you ask these challengers why they feel it necessary to change the focus of the post, they often seem to fall back on the "protect the newbie" mission of the forum.

Most retired investors aren't newbies, yet that often doesn't stop them.

I know there are other forums we can go to, and I do.  MF forum seems to have its own set of criteria.  Mention Wellington, and you get a slew of post about high ER balanced funds that have performed better over the last 5  or 10 years.  Or "What's wrong with Dodge and Cox?", just because its NAV is down from its historical  high over the last 6 months.  Not knocking MF forum, but it isn't the answer for Vanguard investors.  Neither are most of the other forums.

So to me, this is the appropriate place to discuss Vanguard funds, but unfortunately, it seems difficult to have a discussion about active funds that doesn't involve comparison to index funds.

I think that this is Tim's real source of frustration, perhaps.  As I said, I don't really have an answer, except maybe a clearly written preface to a thread stating that the intent is to discuss only the merits of X managed fund.  Of course you will get the obligatory, "you can't tell me what to discuss" posts, but I've noticed Petrocelli has been marginally successful in using this technique and then ignoring all those who try to change the focus.

Anyway, just my 2 cents on a sunny Florida morning :o}

best,

Bill

Take care, all

Tim

tar42:

I can see after responding to Bill's great post that others feel the same way.

Hi Tim...See Ya on future posts!   R48

tar42:

I can see after responding to Bill's great post that others feel the same way.

Tim - Bill makes some good points. But please realize your OP made an incorrect allegation in my view. Mel's response was more than adequate so I won't repeat. As I stated I support debate of various points of view, and I believe the passive approach will win out. I know others here disagree and that's fine. Many here seem to interpret arguments for or against an investment methodology as an attempt to control the discussion. Might that be your view? I think it is wrong to see it as such.

Jerry 

bilperk:

First, let me say that I really understand and respect Mel's point of view.  I know him personally and truly believe that his main goal is to see that investors, particularly newer investors, get accurate and well reasoned advice in line with the teachings of Jack Bogle.  His history of providing and facilitating that message stands on its own, and can't be diminished by the occasional heckler that passes through.

Not sure if I used the quote feature correctly.  I was a semi-regular here a while back, and  lost interest with the forum redesign.

I have to say that when I came here, I didn't really understand the basics of investing.  I knew I was SUPPOSED to be diversified, but didn't really know what that meant.  I had no clue about costs.  I didn't understand the role of bonds. 

With thanks to Mel, Taylor, Nancy and some others, I got advice that, I think, really put me on the right path. My wife and I are not totally indexed, and we can't be as more than half our assets are in my 401k - which is with American Funds. When I found this place our portfolio was Large Cap and Cash  That's ALL IT WAS. Thanks to Mel and other regulars we've added small cap, international, real estate, bonds, Tips.  We now have a ROTH accounts, a Taxable account, and a six month emergency fund.

While I do watch our accounts closely, I don't move to much around.  I've only truly rebalanced twice in 5 years..we use new money to move things in the right direction.  We've developed our own style that suits us. We contribute the hell out of it, save 25% of our income, live cheap, don't ever carry a credit card balance, try to keep it simple.  Our passion is really skiing, not funds and investing so it works for us.  We may not end up a rich as folks who are more on top of it, but you never know.  All I can say is that I KNOW we are doing a much better job than we were before I found this place.

THANKS Mel. (And Taylor, etc, etc...)

Mark