Sound Investing

In the final episode of the 2026 Boot Camp series, Paul Merriman sits down with Chris Pedersen and Daryl Bahls to tackle the last fork in the road every investor faces: how to and how much automation to use. After all the boot camp decisions — stocks versus bonds, which equity asset classes, how much fixed income, how to handle contributions and withdrawals — the final question is how much of the day-to-day management you should hand off to a tool, and which tool is right for you.
Chris walks through how M1 Finance “pies” let buy-and-hold investors put their portfolios on autopilot: automated contributions, on-the-fly rebalancing as new money comes in, fractional shares, and one-button rebalancing. He explains the pre-configured Merriman portfolios — the Ultimate Buy and Hold, Worldwide and US Four-Fund, All Value, All Small Cap Value, and the Aggressive Target Date glide path in five-year increments — and an important limitation: once you grab a pie, there’s no live link back to the source, so website updates won’t change your account.
Paul then makes the case for Fidelity’s Basket Portfolios as an alternative, especially for anyone uneasy about moving large sums to a younger company. He covers the flat $4.99-per-month fee regardless of account size, eligible account types, the TFLO short-term Treasury workaround for holding cash, and why Fidelity may fit investors already in the Fidelity ecosystem. The team compares trading windows, account minimums and how each firm counts the $10,000 threshold, and Daryl shares that M1 has grown from about $1 billion in 2020 to roughly $12.5 billion in assets under management.
The conversation closes with practical guidance on mixing and matching Sound Investing portfolios, the question everyone’s asking — “how long do I have to wait for small cap value?” — a reminder not to flail or chase recent performance, why the 10-fund Ultimate Buy and Hold strategy still stands, and a clear explanation of the move from AVUS to AVLC and where AVSC fits.
CHAPTERS
00:00 - Intro
03:10 - M1 Finance
13:45 - Fidelity Baskets
24:27 - Portfolio Combos
29:55 - When to Change Allocations
42:44 - AVLC vs. AVUS
45:15 - Outro
LINKS:
Sound Investing Portfolio Pies
M1 Finance Pie Tutorial (Mobile App)
M1 Finance Pie Tutorial (Web Interface)

In this interview from the 2026 Bainbridge Community Foundation Annual Financial Education Series, Paul sits down with Bill Bernstein — neurologist, financial historian, and author of The Four Pillars of Investing and If You Can — for a wide-ranging conversation drawn from 50-plus years of investing experience.
Bill explains why you're only rewarded for taking risk in well-regulated markets (and why crypto doesn't qualify), how today's market echoes the late 1990s, why the "reverse glide path" makes sense the older you get, and what the Bessembinder research really tells us about the cost of trying to pick winners. Paul and Bill also debate withdrawal strategies, the case against long bonds, and whether tilted small-value investing still works once "the bozos know about it."
A masterclass in evidence-based investing from one of the most respected voices in the field.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro from Matt Longmire, Bainbridge Community Foundation
02:50 Welcoming Bill Bernstein
03:50 Why The Four Pillars of Investing belongs on every DIY investor's shelf
05:50 Risk vs. reward — and why Bitcoin doesn't qualify
08:30 How many asset classes do you really need?
11:50 Where today's market resembles the late 1990s
13:40 Are REITs still worth holding?
15:50 The case for automating everything
19:45 Why retirees need to fear sequence-of-returns risk
21:30 Paul's 5% rule vs. the 4% rule
25:30 The two-bucket theory and the reverse glide path
27:30 Prediction markets, gambling, and "being the house"
32:00 The sociological signs of a bubble
35:00 Speculation vs. gambling — gold's real return
40:00 The Bessembinder study: why 4% of stocks make most of the returns
46:00 Why rich people plan three generations ahead
49:00 Audience Q&A
58:30 Tilted index funds (DFA, Avantis) — worth it?
01:03:50 The future of Social Security
01:07:00 Closing thoughts and book recommendations
LINKS:
The Four Pillars of Investing — Bill Bernstein (2nd ed., 2023)
If You Can — Free PDF from Bill Bernstein
The Bessembinder Study — "Do Stocks Outperform Treasury Bills?"
Bainbridge Community Foundation
Ben Carlson's New Book on Risk and Reward

Chris and Paul explain what target-date funds are and do, and how to augment them with some small-cap value to get the broad diversification benefits of the other Sound Investing portfolios.
They describe several approaches and tools investors can use to determine what might be best for them.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
03:03 Target-Date Funds
07:00 Glide Paths
15:17 TDF Backtesting
19:55 TDF Weaknesses
26:20 "Easy" 2FFL
34:46 "Moderate" 2FFL
37:48 "Aggressive" 2FFL
41:00 Customizer
52:15 Calculator
61:07 Books
66:00 Outro
LINKS:
Wharton: Target Date Funds & Portfolio Choice in 401(k) Plans
Morningstar: “2026 Target-Date Fund Landscape”
Chris' Tables of 2 Funds for Life and Target Date Funds (PDF)

Paul sits down with Chris Pedersen and Daryl Bahls for the first Q&A session in months — and this one is built around the questions readers and listeners ask most often. Chris and Daryl share what they're working on next (Best-in-Class ETF updates, Target Date Fund work, telltale charts, risk-adjusted return analysis), Paul talks about a smarter way to use AI for the questions outside our wheelhouse, and the team works through six reader questions about portfolio design — from combining model portfolios to choosing between fund families.
If you've ever wondered whether your portfolio is "right," this conversation will help you think about it the way Chris and Daryl do.
8:30 — Should I combine the Worldwide Four Fund, U.S. Four Fund, and Worldwide All Value with a small cap value tilt?
16:00 — How do I read the Sound Investing tables to compare portfolios?
30:30 — Worldwide All Small Cap Value vs. the U.S. Two Fund — which is better?
38:15 — My Vanguard Four Fund uses VOO, VTV, VB, and VBR — am I using the right ETFs?
41:30 — How do Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, DFA, and Avantis compare on size and value exposure?
46:30 — How do I get help with Merriman portfolios when I need it?
Table B2 Table H2 Fine Tuning Tables Portfolio Configurator
You'll get the full answers, the data behind them, and Chris and Daryl's reasoning by watching or listening.
Watch the video here- https://youtu.be/BdTNOkALpuQ

Paul and Chris introduce the new Avantis and DFA Best-in-Class fund family recommendations and talk about the shift away from evaluating and recommending à la carte choices from multiple fund providers. 
They emphasize that the quality and breadth of the offerings from Avantis and DFAhave reached a point where it's better and more sustainable to recommend these fund families than to continually change recommendations among funds that are increasingly close unexpected performance.

Best in Class ETF recommendations https://www.paulmerriman.com/best-in-class-recommendations

Portfolio Configurator https://lookerstudio.google.com/u/0/reporting/a941a5d4-0929-45ea-b22e-3bb82dc334ff/page/99wxc?s=hqmha3-AK5k