Thanks Brownsfan, Excellent advice and spot on, I do have a portfolio of the corresponding ETF's in my charting software which I use to apply TA for position trades on the short term and set emergency stops on my long term portfolio. I believe in the power of compounding and avoid capital gains taxes whenever possible, thus I intend to keep the index funds until they hit their trailing stops and then re-enter the positions using the ETF's on opportunity. Considering the premise of the thread was mutual funds, I didn't expand on the ETF's.... The one drawback to the ETF's, however, is the urge to pitch during intraday moves... the index funds tend to keep emotions in check... VNQ is not a long term holding, just a mis-timed position trade VWEHX was doing well until recently as well. I sold off the vbtlx when it was at is peak recently. All in all, I have been quite content with the performance of this conservative approach for the long term investments, albeit in today's world economy most all markets are more and more correlated. Blue skies and tailwinds...