Personal summary/note: one doesn't need to be excessively involved in a complex portfolio to have a decent return over time.

Agree @catch22, though it's more fun thinking we are actually steering the ship :) Often investing reminds me of my grandson a few years back at the amusement park, riding in one of those little cars that just goes around in a circle. He would be jerking that steering wheel feverishly as if it was making a difference.

An annual return of 5.54% is quite respectable for a 50/50 allocation for the past 5.75 years. Think you are not having a balance between growth and value stocks. Realistically you need to have both and make small adjustments in rebalancing. For example, S&P500 index returned 26% in 2023 while the value index returned 9.2%. The use of Great Owl or Honor Roll would be a starting point. The overall allocation and individual choices could make a sizable differences.
You made the correct decision on short duration bonds in a rising rate environment (2022-2023). What you planning to do when the FED cut rate in June/July? Moving to intermediate term bonds incrementally would be appropriate to take advantage of increase bond prices.

The answer largely depends on the future direction of the economy. On the short end, the Fed rules the roost. Farther out, inflation expectations should impact prevailing rates more. I wouldn’t feel comfortable locking up a whole lot for 10 years at the current 10-year Treasury rate of 4.2%. But I might be wrong,
For stability & cash-like returns TBUX has excelled since inception a year or so ago.
For short-term investment grade bond funds I like LSST a lot, but don’t currently own. Along the same vein (but under the TIPS umbrella) TDTT is gold rated by M* and has a lower ER.
Intermediate term (with some sub-investment grade holdings) JPIB is excellent. Newer BINC with Rick Rieder appears to be on a par, but with a lower ER. I hold Pimco’s new PYLD. All 3 of those seem to run about even based on my day-to-day observations. None has excelled YTD.
I really like CVSIX as a bond replacement. Should provide returns similar to an intermediate term bond fund over the longer haul. But, unlike most bond funds, it holds up well in a rising rate environment. Actually, I like the gang at Calamos a lot - but they’re certainly not the lowest cost option.
.

I too have owned BRUFX and wonder why the performance has been subpar the last two years. I have DODGX and they used to perform very similarly but BRUCE has performed much worse lately. post above about their being a lot of movement in the stock portfolio lately

I am 66 years old and have managed my own fund choices since 2018 and I have dutifully followed the advice of lowering my exposure to the stock market as I get closer to retirement. So, since June of 2018 I have been very close to a 50-50 Stock Bond portfolio with the stocks weighted towards the value end vs the growth end. The bond portfolio was weighted to the short end of the duration. Almost all of my fund choices can be found in the Great owls or the Honor Roll as described on this website. I just did an analysis of my past 5.75 years relative to if I had just left everything invested in the S&P 500.
The results are disappointing, and I do not understand the reasoning now of the balanced fund approach etc. So my overall return in this time period was 32% which works out to be 5.54% annually. The S&P 500 returned 84.09% or 14.62% annually. In real dollars I went from 660K to 871K. The S&P 500 would had taken me to 1.44Million.
In the up markets I got on average 61% of the return of the S&P 500 which I am okay with because I was not exposed as much to the market.
It's the down market. I managed to capture 85% of the down market, The Bond portfolio failed to moderate the losses. In 2022 in a down market I captured 107% of the loss suffered by the S&P 500 I was invested at 52% stocks and 48% the whole time period in 2022.
I am slowly learning that almost all financial advisor advice is BS sorry for my French.

The difference between the value funds in my accounts and PVCMX might be the commitment to the value stocks identified. I don't see how a value oriented stock fund can make much progress if it is unwilling to back its best stock picks past 17% of holdings.
I recently realized VSMIX was available in most of our accounts. We now have toeholds, or better. They commit.

I had also taken a small position in VSMIX before closing, but I do not think a direct comparison with PVCMX was meaningful.

Invesco Small Cap Value Fund (VSCAX/VSMIX) had three really good years. Even during this exceptional period they've managed a max DD of -20%, while I do not remember Cinnamond getting substantially below -20% in his entire career across 4 funds. (I do not have great fund data at that resolution, though, so please do not hesitate to correct me if this is wrong.)
If we take a more extensive view, things at VSCAX/VSMIX start looking downright dismal: max DD of -45%/-48% and alpha of -0.16/-4.74 at 5/10 y respectively. So, investing in VSCAX/VSMIX one hopes to make money now and not need them when another < -40% DD hits. I am more comfortable taking 5-10 y results and being reasonably sure that I'll have no less than 80% of max whenever I need the funds. To each his own...

To each his own. :) Did I read that you are a new subscriber to the data side of MFO? I hope you have as much fun with it as I do.
The only way I would compare VSMIX and PVCMX is to say that both invest some money in small caps.
When I look at five and ten year returns, I compare VSMIX to its peers in SCV. It doesn't make sense to me to include a fund that has never surpassed an 18% stake in equities, just because the manager says there is nothing worth buying, but he would buy, if only something; darn the luck, or curse the times.
Over ten years, as tracked by MFO Premium, VSMIX is in first place for APR in SCV. The standard deviation is not for the faint of heart at 25.5. And the alpha is -.1. OTOH, it's fourth in Sortino and Martin, so the pain doesn't last as long as it might with other SCV funds.
BTW. VCSAX is third in APR behind XSVM. In fact, Portfolio Visualizer tells me a person would take about a 2000$ haircut from VCSAX on an original 10000$ investment made ten years ago when the Invesco team took over. Zowie.
Over ten years VOO's APR beat VSMIX's 12.7 to 10.4
Over five years VSMIX (and two of its siblings) is once again tops for APR among SCV, and running ahead of VOO 16.8 to 14.7. Its alpha is at 6.1 to 0 for VOO.
I don't know if VSMIX is still beating its SCV peers, but it is still beating VOO if M* can be believed.
A five year run at MFO runs from March through February at this point. I am curious where you got the negative alpha for VSMIX? Portfolio Visualizer also shows a positive number starting from January 2019.
What about risk? What about if I need money right now? Well, that's why I own funds like GLIFX, FSUTX, IYK, VRIG, and USFR. Four out five had positive returns in 2022, and GLIFX was only off -1.30.
I have only owned VSMIX for a few weeks. But might the total return of a dog's breakfast portfolio like mine end up beating a fund like PVCMX over some period of time? Would it fall behind, what with volatility, drawdowns, and all that stuff? I have no idea.
Is my approach "simpler" than leaving the allocations to a few managers like Cinnamond? I suppose most would say not. OTOH, I'm reasonably certain that the funds I own are actually investing in what they advertise, rather than waiting for Godot. And none of my funds charge me a buck 38 for the pleasure of their company.

The main problem with

I've not been a fan since losing money investing in ARIVX (I think that was Cinnamond's first solo adventure with his "disciplined" style).

I won't try to defend Mr. Cinnamond's record or explain why I find his approach compelling - I've done this on a

different thread - and I can sympathize with the feelings one gets from a losing investment that sometimes takes year not to pay off. But to correct something you have said for others: ARIVX was Cinnamond's third fund as a manager and, I believe, second as a lead after ICMAX.
In my experience (and I've invested in three Cinnamond funds), his funds tend to go through a long period of flat performance, followed by fairly rapid appreciation bursts, followed by another period of flat performance. All of this can be readily understood within the technicalities of his style. So, when one is unfortunate to invest towards the end of the run, losses - though rather modest losses - would follow should one sell out before the next run or if Cinnamond decides to liquidate the fund (as he - rather objectionably, imo - did with ARIVX).
To be fair, if you wait for and hold on through the run, the returns might be quite impressive. I've invested early in ARIVX and did make money on it. Similarly, ICMAX returned ~ 100% over Cinnamond's tenure there (roughly, 2006 - 2011) while SP500 barely broke even during that time.

I think you touched on several good points. I mentioned Arnott before. Both did well when markets went down, but since 2009, PAUIX had a terrible performance compared to the easy SPY. Finding compelling risk-reward funds is what I have done since 2000. It is part of my system, but I stopped following Cinnamond more than 10 years ago.
The guy also jumps from one fund to another = not a great idea.
The main problems:
1) Is he going to be another Arnott in the next 5 years?
2) How much patience is someone supposed to have?
3) What % of your portfolio are you investing with him? The less you invest, the more it's insignificant. For me this is major.
4) How do you know when in the start, middle, or end of the cycle? Remember, markets can be irrational for a lot longer than you think. Prof Shiller claimed in 2012, based on valuation, that SPY would make only 4% after inflation in the next 10 years, it made 11%
(link)
5) Cinnamond plays timing hugely, owning less than 20% in stocks is difficult to grasp.
But, I'm a flexible investor who looks beyond categories and is interested in total portfolio risk-reward performance.
Someone's style and goals matter a lot when selecting funds.
How many funds do you own, what trading are you doing,

I've invested early in ARIVX and did make money on it.

What % did you make less than SPY or PRWCX?

@yugo, M* now provides Drawdown data for 3, 5, 10 yrs only. How did you get the data for 2009? From M* Chart? Old file data?
MFO Premium provides data for various timeframes.
Of course, PRWCX has been closed for many years, but there are some other things now for access to Giroux - all-equity TCAF, CA-PRCFX.

@David_Snowball
Hi David.
Thank you for sharing as always.
Your list of top managers largely and understandably looks like the cream of the crop from the funds in your portfolio as per most recent post. (I am less of a bond fund investor: Mr. Sherman is ‘David K. Sherman’ managing RPHYX, right?). And since I actually prefer low-profile managers, are the Leuthold and T Rowe Price people: Scott Opsal (+ m.b. Chun Wang) and Charles Shriver (+ m.b. Stefan Hubrich / Richard De Los Reyes)? Are there others at those co's I have missed?
Overall, your manager selections make perfect sense to me in all instances, but one. And I either trust these same managers with my investments (Seafarer, Grandeur, Artesian and now, Palm Valley) or would certainly consider doing so under the right circumstances, again – except for one. Oddly enough, this ‘one’ is your top fund holding: FPA Crescent (FPACX).
I used to have a position in FPACX long ago, but sold out for alternatives, because – to my eyes – this is a good example of where a fund and a manager ranking might diverge: i.e., a good fund with an average manager. Clearly, I am missing something, since you both value Mr. Romick highly and also have a better understanding of mutual fund dynamics.
You have previously mentioned that FPACX has ~ matched S&P 500 with about half the downside. That is a significant achievement and a strong relative metric when comparing funds – though not necessarily managers – as S&P 500 is unmanaged (sans relatively rare changes to the index). Also, S&P 500 is Large Cap while FPACX is MA/AL per MStar, so it does not seem to make for an entirely apples-to-apples comparison.
So, the questions I asked myself were:
1. How much value did Mr. Romick create for shareholders within the strategy where he operates: MA/AL (unless you believe FPACX is misclassified)? And
2. Are there managers within that strategy who have created significantly better long-term value so they might be called ‘great’ and, by extension, other manager – whose performance was meaningfully lesser – would be ‘average’ or below? (This also avoids the active manager vs passive index issues.)
Re 1, I looked at FPACX 10-year record on MStar – not as long as 30 years but might be sufficient to test across market conditions. There, FPACX has 10 y Alpha of 1.14, Beta of 1.14 coincidentally, max DD of -20.51%, and Sharpe ratio of 0.52 vs MStar MA/AL index w max DD -22.30% and Sharpe ratio of 0.61. This, and I could be very wrong, would seem to imply that active management of FPACX resulted in the fund fairly closely tracking the index and was able to generate a modest 1.14% excess return vs index at the cost of lower Sharpe ratio. To me, these numbers imply that active management of FPACX delivered average value for a good fund (i.e., a fund that managed to do marginally better than a well-performing index, which returns a poor manager / placeholder might implicitly or explicitly emulate).
Re 2, There are several options here, but I will use the one that has already been brought up: PRWCX. I think the comparison is fair since FPACX has spent most of the last 10 years in the same MA category as PRWCX. And it is a well-known fund not on your portfolio list, so you have – so to speak – chosen Mr. Romick’s fund management over Mr. Giroux’s. I do not believe, perhaps wrongly, that it is due to fund size as FPACX is not "small" and PRWCX has grown this "big" only in the last few years. As for active management metrics: per MStar PRWCX has 10 y Alpha of 4.55, Beta of 1.01, Sharpe ratio of 0.88, and max DD of -16.53%. That is, using a roughly similar pool of strategies and within the same timeframe, Giroux produces ~ 4x higher excess return, with better risk-return profile, lower downside if you happen to need the assets at just the wrong moment, and – depending on how you interpret data – does so in an arguably more predictable way. That sounds ‘great’ to me. So, why Mr. Romick and not Mr. Giroux?
To be honest, I was so baffled that I’d signed up for MFO Premium – one good thing to come out of this – and looked for clues there. The only thing I could find when running a comparison on MFO Premium was maxDD of -36.63% for PRWCX vs -28.83% for FPACX in 200902. Btw, things looked even grimmer @ MStar w max DD of at least -40.11% vs -30.80%, respectively, in the same timeframe. (Does MFO calculate max DD differently?) However, the time to convergence within 5% was quite short ~ 1 mo. So, does 5% extra DD over one month deprecate all other evidence that Mr. Giroux is a significantly better manager? Seemed doubtful to me. Finally, this comparison might not even be relevant as, in the words of Mr. Giroux, this was a BFS era, before Farris Shuggi […] it changed the way I managed CAF which happened in late 2009. In that sense, Mr. Giroux capabilities have undergone a (positive) qualitative change and, when comparing Mr. Giroux to Mr. Romick management skills since 2010, the superiority of the former appears to leave no doubt. So, I am still puzzled...
Of course, none of this is meant as a critique in any way – except, perhaps, of my own decision to sell out of FPACX – but I remember using similar logic to drive my own choice then and am, more than anything, trying to see what I might have missed. (Especially, since the rest of your fund manager appraisals resonate so well with my own.)

The difference between the value funds in my accounts and PVCMX might be the commitment to the value stocks identified. I don't see how a value oriented stock fund can make much progress if it is unwilling to back its best stock picks past 17% of holdings.
I recently realized VSMIX was available in most of our accounts. We now have toeholds, or better. They commit.

I had also taken a small position in VSMIX before closing, but I do not think a direct comparison with PVCMX was meaningful. Invesco Small Cap Value Fund (VSCAX/VSMIX) had three really good years. Even during this exceptional period they've managed a max DD of -20%, while I do not remember Cinnamond getting substantially below -20% in his entire career across 4 funds. (I do not have great fund data at that resolution, though, so please do not hesitate to correct me if this is wrong.)
If we take a more extensive view, things at VSCAX/VSMIX start looking downright dismal: max DD of -45%/-48% and alpha of -0.16/-4.74 at 5/10 y respectively. So, investing in VSCAX/VSMIX one hopes to make money now and not need them when another < -40% DD hits. I am more comfortable taking 5-10 y results and being reasonably sure that I'll have no less than 80% of max whenever I need the funds. To each his own...

I think if you have a longer-term time horizon, a fund like this can pay off nicely. He looks like a champ if/when the market corrects heavily, and a chump if we just glide higher and higher for years to come.
I can respect the patience and discipline required to wait out the cycle. Its a gamble of sorts, with opportunity risk a potential issue. I will buy some and hope for 8% to 10% returns over time.
Another ingredient to toss into the melange. At least it is unique.

Bankman Fried gets 25 years
Judge didnt buy his argument everybody has been made whole.

Interview in Bloomberg today. Active stockpickers. The first one profiled has a holding period of at least ten years, preferably forever!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-27/some-stock-pickers-show-active-can-still-beat-passive-investing?srnd=homepage-americas&sref=OzMbRRMQ
"Rajiv Jain, co-founder of GQG Partners in Florida, has taken a similar approach, making concentrated bets on just a handful of stocks. His biggest fund, a $42 billion vehicle distributed by Goldman Sachs that includes old-guard energy companies such as TotalEnergies SE and tech superstar Nvidia, has returned 13% annually since its inception in 2016, double the gain of its benchmark.
Last year, Jain scooped up shares of Adani Group companies as others fled amid a short seller’s accusation of accounting fraud. The contrarian bet paid off, with the value of his investment growing fivefold when Adani weathered the crisis. “We are a business of taking risks,” Jain says. “You have to be uncomfortable sometimes. If you look like an index all the time, guess what? You get indexlike returns.”
Jain, who moved to the US in 1990 from India, makes outsize bets on companies with strong balance sheets and decent earnings growth. Unlike Rizk, though, he is liable to change his mind quickly when market conditions shift, and he has no qualms about liquidating his position if he sours on a company’s prospects. “Our job is to make money for our clients,” Jain says. “It’s not an ideological exercise. We are not trying to change the world.”

PVCMX quacks like an allocation fund to me. The fund has never held more than 17% stocks.
The stock sleeve just happens to be in SCV. The bonds are in T-Bills, and then there is a MMF and some gold and silver. So it came through 2022 in the green. For my money, so did IYK and FSUTX.
If standard deviation is your thing, PVCMX rocks at 3.26 for the last three years. RSIVX has outperformed it with an SD of 2.72. But you would have lost money in 2022.

In the last 15 years now, US LC are dominant, why investors MUST diversify more and/or invest in lagging categories and keep missing performance and in many cases have higher risk/volatility?
US LC is the easiest, most common investment category, this is not a small unknown unique one.
BTW, if you have any good analysis where to invest please share it.

They cost $145 to $199 a year
I assume you do not have to also have a M* premium membership but I am just guessing
I have subscribed to most of them of andon over the years but never found them particularly useful
They did have model portfolios that were reasonable but I don't remember being super excited about their results

Hi, yugo.
In general, I invest with people who've earned my trust. That generally has two components: (1) this isn't their first rodeo and (2) I've talked with them and came away impressed. As you'll note from my annual portfolio review, my typical holding period is decades.
I've written often about how I define "winning" when it comes to investing. First, winning is not "beating" anyone or anything else. You made more than me? Excellent!! The next round of drinks is on you. The market made more than me? That's nice. Second, winning for me is simple: "if the sum of your resources exceeds the sum of your needs, you've won." In that world, winning is driven by steadily accumulating resources (invest regularly and prudently, avoid losing money) and minimizing needs (my home is modest, my clothes last a long time, eating out is usually a celebration rather than a routine, in 45 years of driving I've owned one new car). Those two habits frees up a lot of brainspace for things that bring me joy.
To your "who" question: Mr. Romick, Mr. Foster, Mr. Sherman, Messrs Cinnamond and Wiggins, plus some collection of low-profile professionals at T. Rowe Price and Leuthold.
In general, Artisan is entirely a collection of stars who grew dissatisfied with their old haunts and were offered support and independence as Artisan Partners. Their misses as a firm are relatively few.
David

Two years of rather dismal performance. 2023 and now well into 2024. We are moving out of BRUFX. Years ago, it soared near the top of its performance category. Respectable profit for shareholders. No more. We have a long time horizon, and a couple of middling years is OK. But nothing like the current dismal track record. So, we are moving on. Reducing risk into WBALX, and it pays twice a year, in June and December.

Different is great when your fund have better performance or at least better risk-adjusted performance, the rest are just excuses, such as diversification, SC, EM, Value looks great based on indicators that have been inaccurate for years, you can't compare a fund to any benchmark, others.

I looked at four GQG funds and they all have high turnover ratios, although not as high as 200%. Jain seems to be able to make active management work, whereas others cannot. In global growth a few years ago, Kristian Heugh could do no wrong; unfortunately results for MGGIX in 2021 and 2022 put him at the bottom of the heap during a time when Jain's GQRPX shone.