Watch the video here. Chris Pedersen and Daryl Bahls join Paul to answer questions from investors of all ages.  1:  I hold a REIT fund in my tax deferred account but have found other funds include REITS.  Am I overweighted in REITS and what should I do about it? 2:  Are all total market index funds created equal?  Should there be meaningful differences in returns? Chris compares the returns of 4 total market funds using Portfolio Visualizer. 3.  I am a 79 year old retiree who wants to use your 2 Funds for Life strategy.  How do you recommend I put my portfolio together?  4.  How would I establish an expected rate of return for the U.S. 4 Fund Portfolio?  5. I’m a young investor with a Worldwide All Value Portfolio.  As I age should I start to transition to a lower risk equity portfolio?  6.  The Avantis funds use a quality factor to produce better returns.  Why don’t all small cap value funds use the quality factor in their selection of companies?  7.  How have real returns of equity asset classes compared to theoretical returns?  8.  I want to carefully build my portfolio to work within my risk limits. My challenge is to decide what period of time represents the kind of losses I’m willing to accept.  If I use the information starting in 1928 or in 1970 the loss exposure is very different.  Which period should an investor use to match their asset allocation to their risk tolerance?  9. Chris, Daryl and Paul discuss the long term implications of the risk and return of a 60% equity and 40% bonds using a  combination of equal percentages of the S&P 500 and small cap value. During the presentation Daryl and Chris reference a new 1928-2022 Fine Tuning Table for an equity portfolio of 50/50 S&P 500 and Small Cap Value.  Daryl introduces a new table that compares the returns from 1928-1969 with 1970-2023 

Financial Feast Pod is a new podcast  focused on simplifying personal finance, with each segment dedicated to understanding and implementing the most important financial decisions.  In this podcast Zach and Kevin interview Chris Pedersen about “2 Funds for Life”. Not only will you learn about Chris’ book but the hosts ask a lot of questions about the Foundation and Chris’ favorite food. Topics: 2 Funds for Life explained Risk and return of 2FFL How to use 2FFL in a 401k To rebalance or not to rebalance Conservative, moderate and aggressive portfolios Why not put all in small cap value What about international small cap value Advantages and disadvantages of hiring an investment manager If you haven't signed up for our weekly Sound Investing newsletter, click here to sign upand for a copy of  2 Funds for Life and We’re Talking Millions Orange County AAI video- (Chris' presentation starts at the 5:20 mark) On July 22, 2023 Chris Petersen made a 2 hour presentation to over 650 AAII members and our Foundation members.  The following is the AAII announcement of Chris’ topics: As investors, we all want to get the best return we can with the least possible risk. We often think of this as an asset allocation problem. Although there is some truth in that, it can only go so far. We still have to take some risk to get a reasonable return, and select specific funds in which to invest. And then, we're still left with the risk of our emotions and behavior. In this presentation, Mr. Pedersen will discuss how portfolio asset allocation, fund selection, and investor behavior impact the returns we get for the risks we take. He'll also show some practical approaches to help us all come closer to being best-in-class in all three of these areas. Attend Mr. Pedersen's discussion and you will learn: How various types of equities and bonds interact to impact risk and reward An objective approach to choosing best-in-class funds for equity asset types The impact investor behavior has on risk and reward, and ways to mitigate or improve it. Chris Pedersen is Director of Research at The Merriman Financial Education Foundation and creator of the 2 Funds for Life investing approach to augmenting target-date funds. He is an engineer by training, and a new opportunity finder by nature. In his work for the Foundation, he develops and maintains a set of best-in-class exchange-traded fund (ETF) recommendations, the customizable Merriman Aggressive Target Date glidepath calculator and regularly contributes to articles and podcasts.  Like the rest of the Merriman Foundation staff, his work is motivated by a genuine desire to learn and help, free of any financial incentives or conflicts of interest. I hope you will forward this presentation to friends and family that are looking for better ways to invest.

Host Paul introduces an upcoming presentation on small cap value. Ben Carlson's article 'The Luckiest Generation' is discussed, highlighting the challenges faced by baby boomers. The SPIVA Report reveals the underperformance of actively managed funds, promoting the use of low-cost index funds. The impact of high management fees on low-risk investments is explored, emphasizing the unlikelihood of active managers outperforming.

The podcast discusses the article 'Everything & Everyone Underperforms Eventually' and compares the performance of long-duration bonds to other asset classes. It emphasizes the importance of investing in intermediate to short-term government bonds as a defensive position. The host expresses trust in Eduardo Repeto's strategies and plans to share valuable information through regular newsletters.

This podcast discusses the differences between investing today and 40 years ago, as well as the future of investing. They also cover the Avantis All Equities Market Value ETF and whether it's a good substitute. The topic of converting traditional IRA funds to a Roth IRA using the backdoor strategy is explored, along with the importance of various tables on the website. They also address whether younger investors should include TIPs in their fixed income and discuss personalized investment options vs prepackaged products.

On July 22, 2023 Chris Pedersen addressed the Orange County Chapter of the American Association of Individual Investors.  At the end of his 2 hour presentation there were many unanswered questions. Our last podcast and video addressed 16 of those questions. In this podcast Paul responds to 20 more of the AAII questions.  1.  How do you feel about using a balanced fund such as Vanguard Wellington in retirement?01:44 2.  I subscribe to your mantra of index funds, keep costs low, buy and hold etc,  Is Merriman Wealth Management your company as well?  I ask because that company espouses buy and hold and market timing and charges “AUM” fees. 14:15 3.  I am a new retiree at 65 and have decided to use the “2 Funds for Life” target date fund with a 10% small cap value portfolio.  Do you recommend the 10% small cap value be split between U.S. and international small cap value funds?  23:30 4.  Is it too late for someone just entering retirement to change their investment portfolio to the 10-Fund Merriman Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio?   26:39 5.  What is your impression of a recent Vanguard study that showed a large percentage of investors over 85 with an asset allocation of 100% in stocks? 30:14 6  How about using a technology fund instead of a small cap value funds? 35:00 7.  What are some short term bonds funds you recommend?  Bonds funds discussed VSBSX, VMLTX and VSCSX 39:24 8.  I am 25 years old and have a high risk tolerance.  Would it be okay to be all small cap value and would it be okay to invest 10% of the portfolio in individual small cap value stocks? 41:06 9. I have been using the Merriman 10 fund portfolio for 10 years.  The annual rebalancing takes a lot of time.  Do you recommend I move to the worldwide 4 fund portfolio instead? 43:00 10. I am retired and just took a full distribution from my 401k and invested the cash in a Vanguard Rollover IRA.  I I use one of Merriman's portfolios should I stage my investment over many months or invest it all immediately? 44:45 11.  I currently hold a large amount of cash and want to start investing.  Do you recommend a lump sum investment or dollar cost average over a few months? 48:25   Fine Tuning tables. 12.  Do you think the Avantis All Equity Markets Fund (AVGE) has enough small cap value to compete with the returns of your Worldwide 4 Fund Portfolio? 53:53 13.  How does the Avantis Small Cap Value ETF (AVUV) compare to the DFA Small Cap Value ETF (DFSX)? 56:46 14.  Do you recommend buying individual bonds instead of bond funds? 59:58 15.  Do you recommend moving to a target date fund with a later retirement to get more exposure to equities? 1:02:00 16.  What would happen if one of the Avantis funds closed?  Paul recommends reading this article. 1:03:39 17.  I own VBR (Vanguard Small Cap Value ETF) in a taxable account.  Should I take the tax hit and move the investment in AVUV (Avantis Small Cap Value ETF)? 1:07:00 18.  What is your opinion of holding target date funds or a fund of funds during retirement? 1:10:33 19.  What is the range of Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of large and small growth and value funds? 1:13:00 20.  I think I need a professional advisor to help me with my financial decisions.  Will the fees I pay be covered by higher returns?  Financial Advisor services. 1:17:21

On July 22, 2023 Chris Pedersen gave a 2 hour online presentation to the Orange County Chapter of the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII).  The title was “Best In Class Fund Selection and Behavior.”  Over 650 people attended the presentation, a record turnout for our presentations.  The video will be available in the coming weeks.  While  Chris answered  many questions during his presentation, there were over 60 questions remaining unanswered.  In this podcast and several to follow Chris and Paul will try to answer all of the questions.  Here are the answers to the first 16 questions: Should investors limit their bond holdings to short term bond funds? Are CDs a good place to park cash right now? Do you think investing in an internationally diversified index fund is a good way to manage currency risk? My wife and I are 70 with our portfolio 75% in cash.  Is now a good time to invest and should we put it all in now or dollar cost average?  Chris mentions a podcast on dollar cost averaging vs lump sum investing by Rob Berger. Dimensional Small Cap Value Fund appears to have less than a 2% return over the last 16 years.  Could that be true? For retired investors wouldn’t it be prudent to apply a market timing system that will protect against a big selloff? How does your Ultimate Buy and Hold Portfolio compare to your other portfolios in terms of risk and return?  Paul mentions Table H1 at this link. Would an investor be better served in a target date fund or managing a simple 3 Fund Bogleheads portfolio?  Paul mentions H1 here as well. Why not put your bond holdings into a diversified stock fund that pays dividends, like the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD)? What is average maturity of the short-term bond funds you recommend? If I don’t have small cap value available in my 401k, should I substitute a small cap blend fund in my 2 Funds For Life portfolio? How does Portfolio Visualizer work on target date funds? Your charts show the possibility of an 81% decline.  Does that mean the fund could see the value fall from $100,000 to $19,000? Please explain the term investment factor. Instead of comparing different market factors, how would you compare the returns of different market sectors? Would you consider producing a factor regression video/course so do it yourself investors could learn to evaluate funds for themselves?

Some of the worst investment advice I know happens to millions of investors each year. Between paying commissions, paying higher expenses,  paying more taxes, being less diversified, and sitting on too much cash, so-called experts encourage investors to hold investments that are built to make as much as 2 to 4 percent less PER YEAR.  Paul uses Tables 1 and 2  to show the impact of making an extra .5 and 1 percent a year.  Click here to view all the tables. He also references information from the annual SPIVA Report  on pages 7, 9, 13, and 19.  He mentions Morningstar risk and return date for the Investment Company of America (AIVSX) and the Vanguard S&P 500 (VFIAX).

Paul announces Chris Pedersen’s upcoming AAII presentation on Saturday, July 22.  The 2 hour Zoom presentation will begin at 8:45 a.m.  Chris will discuss how portfolio asset allocation, fund selection and investor behavior impact the returns we get for the risk we take.  He’ll also show some practical approaches to help us all come closer to being best-in-class in all three of these areas.   The public is invited to attend this webinar.  Please share this information with your family and friends.  The FREE WEBINAR will be live-streamed to your computer or mobile device, but you must register at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xYAAhMVnT--qDnipfpaIqQ#/registration   After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.   Paul mentions a new survey on AI. 45% say they would turn to AI to make financial decisions. Paul mentions AI eliminates wading through 20 advertisements to get to the information you’re after.   Paul mentions his lists of 80 project.  One list of 80 focuses on important Investment lessons. One lesson is figuring out how to deal with the reality that there is always good news and bad on every important economic factor.  In a recent Ben Carlson article, "Good News-Bad New About the Economy” he explores the good  and bad news about the economy, inflation, cost of housing prices, wage growth and unemployment. So what do investors do with this list?  Paul suggests it’s best to ignore the temptation to take sides.   Paul mentions a new fund from Avantis.  The Avantis All Equity Markets Value fund combines U.S. and international small, mid cap and small cap value asset classes.  Will this new fund be a one fund solution for the 5 fund Worldwide All Value Portfolio on Table H102?   Paul suggests investors watch the Morningstar U.S. Barometer style box returns on a daily basis.  The purpose of this exercise is to become aware of the wide swings of the range of equity asset classes over short periods of time.   Paul updates the work of Truth-Teller Tim Ranzetta and his non profit NGPF.org.  Their mission is to have every state require a semester of personal finance as necessary for graduation from high school by 2030.  In the last 2 years the number of states that meet the requirement rose from 8 to 22, with 6 more expected this year.   Paul recommends parents consider ways to help their family and their school district make the move.  Here are ways Tim suggest you can help your family and local schools: Find out what their state is doing about personal finance education. Here's the most up-to-date: https://www.ngpf.org/state-of-financial-education-report/ Find out what their school is doing: https://www.ngpf.org/got-finance/ Advocate at their school using these resources: https://www.ngpf.org/expand-access/ Take an activity from our website and teach in their child's schools: Bean Game is a particularly easy one and very popular: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MRzOVjYtctMlYpLogKbdc5ZCgBO1b8Rc-FlbGfE5IA4/edit?usp=sharing Paul recommends parents subscribe to one or more of the NGPF regular newsletters:     https://www.ngpf.org/blog/current-events/whats-new-with-investing-2023/

On this week's podcast Paul addressed a couple of very important questions:1. Is there really such a thing as a buy and hold investor?2. What can an investor do to improve their chances of staying the course through all market cycles?3. Many of your portfolios don’t include international equities.  Should investors use portfolios that don’t include any international funds? The following links were referenced in the podcast: https://paulmerriman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/7-Sound-Investing-Portfolios-50-50-2023.pdf SCV vs S&P500 Fine Tuning Tables (2022) Paul also talks about his early 80th Birthday party, it was a magical success.