We have gotten used to crossover SUVs.
There are 2 kinds of SUVs - the original rugged ones (like Jeep Wrangler - basically, a flimsy cabin slapped on a powerful engine) and crossovers.
The rugged SUVs are based on pickup/truck chassis/platforms that are rough and possibly unsafe.
Crossover SUVs are just based on car chassis/platforms. For example, Honda CRV is based on Honda Civic chassis/platform, and Honda Pilot is based on Honda Accord chassis/platform. In mechanical, drivability and safety aspects, the crossover SUVs are very similar to their related car-chassis/platforms. The only difference is the outer shape/shell.
Initially, my wife was hesitant to drive Honda CRV, but I explained to her that it is really "smaller" and "lighter" than Honda Accord that she drove for years. Now, it is "her" car.
For me, CRV was sort of underpowered, so I got Acura RDX with V6. Just a year later, Honda came out of Honda Passport with V6. I like to think that it was in response to my complaints to dealers and Honda about the lack of a bigger V6 in Honda mid-SUV line (I was told just to go with RDX). But Honda listened (my wishful thinking!), and came out with Honda Passport, a mid-SUV with V6.
So, what is the difference between 4WD and AWD? Well, that is for some future post.

@hank, @caerw388, if you don't have a SUV, where do you keep your golf clubs?
Seriously, after driving small Dakota and Ranger pickup trucks for over 20 years, I decided to lease a Toyota Camry. A sedan. Hated it. Not because it was a bad car, but you couldn't carry anything in that little trunk. Convenience is why people buy SUV's and why sedans are becoming obsolete. After that sedan lease, I bought a Subaru Outback. Love it. Now my golf clubs and pull cart have a summer home.

We long-term investors all know that what we really need is for a fund company to lock up our money, throw way the key, issue no quarterly or annual reports, and tell us after 10 years or so how we made out. We just don’t recognize when someone has our best interests at heart.

No offense to Russ Kinnel, but he's been writing "news" pieces like this for 20 years, and I have yet to read anything that did not make me feel dumber after having read it.

Several people have commented in other posts about cumulative performance figures being distorted by a recent year's hot performance ("what have you done for me lately"), including Prof. Snowball, me, and others.
In Prof. Snowball's piece (linked to above, and here), he praises BRUFX by looking at "three metrics across more meaningful stretches: multiple decades, full market cycles and the last two market crashes." BRSVX hasn't been around nearly as long as BRUFX; it started in Oct 2003. With this limitation in mind, here are the data for AVALX, PVFIX, BRSVX. I included IJS (S&P 600 value ETF) as a benchmark in the Portfolio Visualizer link for each period but did not transcribe its figures below.

Period		CAGR				Std Dev			    Sharpe Ratio
AVALX	PVFIX	BRSVX		AVALX	PVFIX	BRSVX		AVALX	PVFIX	BRSVX
15 yr	11.02%	5.54%	9.51%		28.77%	10.78%	22.81%		0.75	0.69	0.72
Full Cycle 2007-2020
6.81%	4.59%	5.24%		28.18%	10.20%	21.97%		0.35	0.41	0.30
Down Cycle 2007-2009
-5.09%	2.65%	-9.59%		36.83%	11.35%	28.03%		-0.01	0.11	-0.37

Looking at these broader picture numbers, it seems not so much that BRSVX benefited from one hot year, but rather that it doesn't do quite so well in down years. Comparing the BRSVX with AVALX not by a calendar year (i.e. 2020), but trough to peak (roughly 3/19/20 - 6/4/21), one sees similar performance though following different paths.
http://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=BRSVX&compare=AVALX&id=p85687049134
It's in the latter half of 2021, when the market turned and AVALX's greater volatility worked to its detriment that the funds diverged radically.
https://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=BRSVX&compare=AVALX,IJS&id=p37670197904
PVFIX is certainly a steady performer. But at a cost of way underperforming in good years. From its chart (see the 15 year performance link above), it almost looks like a SCV cousin of RPHYX - ridiculously steady relative to peers. Something I value in a "near cash" fund. But in an equity fund, my personal risk tolerance is a bit higher than that.
If you like AVALX, did you look into DFFVX? A clone of it is available in variable annuities, e.g. TIAA. So unlike the Fidelity fund that is used only internally by Fidelity, some investors could access this fund (sort of).

I'm still learning to navigate in a world in which the Morningstar fund screener is ... well, worthless. A once-useful tool has been reduced to being able to answer a single question: "what does Morningstar think about this fund?" Star rating, analyst rating, ESG rating: yes, yes, yes. Comparisons of absolute and risk-adjusted returns over meaningful periods? Go 'way, kid, ya bother me!
Today's adventure sought to answer the question: what are the most consistently solid small cap value funds around? I used MFO Premium to look at domestic and global funds, checked Sharpe and APR for the past 3-, 5-, 7-, 9- and 11-year periods. I found two disappointments: two Great Owl funds were consistently in or around the top five, but one was only available to Fidelity fund managers (Fido Series Intrinsic Opps) and the other (Kinetic Small Cap Opps) had a 41% stake in a single stock, Texas Land & Power.
Pinnacle Value and Aegis Value were frequently, but not always, top five funds. They're both rock solid, distinctive, tiny one-man operations.
The surprise was Bridgeway Small Cap Value, the fund that was in the top five more often that any other. Small- to micro-cap. 130 names. Quant. Five star.
All of which I was going to share until I scanned its Morningstar profile and noticed that its success was entirely driven by one year: 2021. The fund made north of 67% and left everyone in the dust. That number then elevated all of the trailing comparisons. It otherwise trailed more than two-thirds of its peers in five of the past 11 years. It's trailed its index six times but I have no idea of what to make of it since it's a custom Morningstar index which apparently cannot be entered into their charting tool to generate a detailed comparison ... though I can get the index denominated in Euros, pounds, Canadian dollars...). Overall, 2020-2022 was a solid stretch for the fund. 2013-19 and 2023, not so much.
All of which I share as a cautionary tale: look carefully, then look again, differently.

Excellent interview, and I agree with a lot of what he says -- especially with his investing style and comments about utilities. The last question is precisely why I like being along for the ride in PRWCX (and potentially TCAP) because it suggests he still has his priorities right.
"People who know me, just know I’m not wired to rest on my laurels or take it easy. I’m just not wired that way. I think we talked about last time when I was on the podcast, I had won couple of Morningstar Manager of the Year awards, trophies. I gave one away to my APM, Steven Krichbaum, and one is in a bag somewhere down in the basement that I don’t know where it is, honestly. And then, I’ve won 18 or 19 awards from Lipper. I’ve never asked for a plaque. I’ve never received a plaque. I don’t want a plaque. I don’t want reminders of past performance making me soft. That’s really important for me. I want to look forward, not backward. That’s really, really important."
< - >
"The last thing I would say is—and it puts a little pressure on me, honestly—is there are so many people that are counting on me: clients, friends, family, my mother, my colleagues, my colleagues’ families, people I grew up with, advisors, and they’ve kind of become accustomed, they’ve come used to generating incredible returns over time. You do it for 15 to 16 years in a row, they expect you to do it next 15 to 16 years. And I have this horrible fear of letting them down. And I’m going to do everything in my power every day that I’m doing this job to make sure that I never let them down. I think if I underperform, my mom is going to be pissed. So, I got to make sure I keep delivering for my clients and my family. And we’re going to continue to work as hard as we possibly can as a team to continue to do that."

GMO released a research note today, arguing in favor of (a) Japan equities and (b) value investing therein. Here's their bottom line:

• Investors have been chronically underweight Japan for the past three decades, and rightly so given Japan’s weaker relative fundamentals and underwhelming commitment to corporate reform through much of the 1990s and 2000s.
• But conditions on the ground have changed meaningfully. Improving fundamentals and governance reforms are increasingly evident to investors speaking directly with companies and policymakers in Japan, as our Usonian Japan Equity team does. EPS growth has been relatively strong in Japan for years, distributions of excess capital have increased, and policymakers continue to push for more competitive and capital-efficient companies.
• Nonetheless, most international equity strategies remain materially underweight Japanese equities. Of 225 actively managed strategies in the eVestment database that list the MSCI EAFE index as their preferred benchmark, 84% are underweight Japan by an average of 7.5%. (GMO, "Japan Equities Are Compelling…" 10/4/2023)

GMO runs a couple Japan-value strategies.
Japan is rockin' this year. The New York Times agrees that changes in corporate governance are driving the strong returns ("

Investors Are Putting Big Money Into Japan Again. Here’s Why," 6/14/2023). The counterargument, at least according to my newsfeed, to GMO is that the gains are all driven by currency fluctuations. (Not my argument, and I haven't looked at the evidence behind it. I'm just reporting a headline I read yesterday). That said, the top three Japan-oriented funds over the past 10 are all ETFs, all hedged and all doing fine this year. Per MFO Premium:

1. WisdomTree Japan Hedged SmallCap: 14.4% APR for 10 years, 26% YTD, five star, Bronze analyst rating, highest Sharpe ratio, smallest drawdown,
2. WisdomTree Japan Hedged: 11.1% APR, 33% YTD, Great Owl, five star, Bronze analyst rating, tied for #2 in Sharpe
3. Xtrackers MSCI Japan Hedged Equity ETF: 10.3% APR, Great Owl, four star, Silver analyst rating, tied for #2 in Sharpe

Hennessy Japan Small Cap is the first actively managed fund on the 10-year list, at #4.
For what interest it holds, David

Have a heart, Your Honor!
Perhaps the judge did and may have offered parole in say just under 10,000 years :-)
Several countries have introduced CBDCs. The Fed is still evaluating digital-dollar.
Cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies may share much of the same technology, but they are substantially different entities with different characteristics and objectives.
From the IMF:

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are digital versions of cash that are issued and regulated by central banks. As such, they are more secure and inherently not volatile, unlike crypto assets. ...
In 1993, the Bank of Finland launched the Avant smart card, an electronic form of cash. ... it can be considered the world’s first CBDC.

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/09/Picture-this-The-ascent-of-CBDCs
The main objectives I've seen put forth for CBDCs are: (1) to serve the unbanked and under-banked, and (2) to facilitate secure, speedy transactions.
(Here's the full White House list of objectives.)
Those are fine objectives. Though I don't see what CBDC could offer that banks could not if they offered a form of "universal service" (with outreach programs) and perhaps made some technological upgrades. For example some transit systems now accept bank cards in addition to their own payment cards. Does it really matter whether the form of payment is a digital bank card or a government issued digital currency card?
Most of the benefits arise from "digital" not from "central bank". Much as securities transactions have become easier and faster with (digital) book entry instead of physical paper stock certificates.
Cryptocurrency is different and was promulgated on the objective of decentralization (no controlling authority). While the cryptocurrencies are not controlled by governments (clearly differentiating them from CBDCs), they have still tended toward centralized control.

[Decentralization] was the premise of the initial Bitcoin white paper, which offered a cryptographic solution intended to allow payments to be sent without involving any financial institution or other trusted intermediary. However, Bitcoin became centralized very quickly and now depends on a small group of software developers and mining pools to function. As internet pioneer and publisher Tim O’Reilly observed, “Blockchain turned out to be the most rapid recentralization of a decentralized technology that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/09/Point-of-View-the-superficial-allure-of-crypto-Hilary-Allen
So, there is something there that may not be obvious to all.
Sizzle?
Or as Clara Peller put it, where's the beef?

@MikeM : Main point , after many years in the wrong category it went from 1* to 3* !
I'm not complaining as I do own a small slice of RPHYX.
I see Buffalo kicked the snot out of Miami ! Maybe , just maybe it's their year to take the Lombardi trophy home ?!
A star is just a star, Derf

@BenWP, prosecutors had asked for 40,562 years. That is about 20 years per victim, and there were 2,027+ known.
Judge showed leniency and REDUCED that to 11,196 years.
Turkish judges have become wild with sentences after the death penalty was eliminated.

I can see a sentence of 11,000 years, but the 196/7 years tacked on seems really excessive. Have a heart, Your Honor!

The Wall Street Journal (10/03/2023) reports:

While the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s has lagged behind prior generations when it comes to homeownership and earnings, new data suggests they are saving more for retirement. By the time older millennials now earning a median salary reach retirement, Vanguard estimates, they will be able to replace almost 60% of their preretirement income with Social Security and savings from sources including their 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts.
Gen Xers and the youngest baby boomers with median earnings are, by contrast, likely to replace about half of their paychecks in retirement. ("Millennials on Better Track for Retirement Than Boomers and Gen X")

The reason they give is at employers now automatically enroll new employees in a 401(k) with a default target-date fund. The plans are often crappy and overpriced, but a mile better than the previous plan: let them figure it out on their own.
Three quick notes:
1. "better" is still not "good" - the same Vanguard study estimates at the median income should target replacing 83% of their pre-retirement income with investments + Social Security.
2. relatively few can anticipate the life path that we or our parents had: home ownership is out of reach in and around the megacities, though remarkably affordable in likely "climate havens" in the Upper Midwest, around the Great Lakes ex-Chicago, and parts of New England, and half of young folks in their 20s are living at home with their parents.

I grew up in a multi-generational home - nine of us, representing three generations, shared the same 900 square foot, 1890s brick house for a long time - so "living with family" isn't something I see as automatically negative.

3. if anyone cared to notice, this might go down in Augustana history as "Snowball's good deed." Ten or 15 years ago I was called upon to help rebuild the college's retirement plan, which had a generous employer contribution (10% of base salary) but almost no employee contributions. We also had over 1200 fund and annuity options. Depending on the department (faculty, facilities, admin, food services ...), participation was in the low teens as a percentage of eligible folks contributing and the average contribution was around 3% a year.
I helped engineer four moves: a far smaller array of fund choices, automatic enrollment in the plan, automatic escalation of the employee's contribution from 6% (year one) to 10% (year five and beyond, unless the opted out) and a shift in the college's contribution from a straight percentage to a 5% guaranteed contribution plus up to 6% more in a matching contribution.
When I last checked, we had something like 94% participation and an average contribution around 9%.
Which no one but you knows.
Cheers!

Recently we received a T. Rowe Price newsletter about their uses of AI in their investment process. Article below indicated they have been using AI for the last 6 years on several levels of their investment process.
https://troweprice.com/personal-investing/resources/insights/using-artificial-intelligence-to-enhance-our-investment-processes.html#:~:text=Through%20our%20New%20York%20Technology,insights%20of%20our%20investment%20professionals.

Before-hours limit order in for a handful more of TS Tenaris ADR.
Buy-Sell-WHY:
I recently posted about the newly authorized and opened Rosebank oilfield in the North of Scotland. A "Talking Head" on Bloomberg asserted only a few days ago that it's not so very big, and it will hardly move the needle to alleviate fuel costs for Britain--- once it starts to produce in a few YEARS from now... In fact, maybe that oil will get exported?
Nevertheless, oil tubing will still be needed all over the world. In all sorts of places. And TS is the world's LARGEST provider of OCTG. The share price is down by a couple of dollars. As ever, I'm dollar-cost-averaging into it, like everything else in my stable.

Make Me Smart did a good show today, Tuesday, 10/3, centered entirely on cryptocurrency and the SBF trial. They had a long interview with Zeke Faux, a Bloomberg reporter who's spent two years trying to track crypto and author of the new book, Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall (Sept 2023).
The short version: cryptocurrency is speculation, pure and simple. It's a form of gambling, and the casinos are almost all crooked or scammy. They have no demonstrated utility beyond what your Visa card provides.
As of this evening, 110 cryptocurrencies (of 230 tracked by CoinDesk) are underwater of the trailing 12 months. Six coins are down by more than 75%, one year after "the great housecleaning." In 2022, the crypto market went from $3 trillion to $800 billion, representing the disappearance of 74% of its investors' gains. Dozens of exchanges collapsed. (The founder of one failed Turkish exchange, Faruk Fatih Özer, was just sentenced to 11,196 years in jail for his activities.)
One side note was that the African-American community has been especially victimized by crypto marketers promising them the ability to build "generational wealth" that will bequeath a better life to their kids and grandkids.
The second side note is that most of the crypto bros are praying that SBF receives a sentence of at least 11,197 years since that allows them to dismiss him as "the one bad apple" and relaunch their hype-train.
- - - - -
All of which becomes pressing because fund advisers are piled like the bulls of Pamplona, ready for a wild charge. Starting in August I saw new crypto fund and ETF filings almost daily, with as many at a half dozen new funds filed in a single day. Hedged, leveraged, unhedged, inverse, one currency, multi-currency ... it's all in the queue and the marketing push is going to be deafening.
If they get by the SEC.
The show is, I think, worth the listen for folks trying to keep up. It's non-technical and smart, with two hosts who are just slightly appalled.

Devesh and I, separately, chose to think through the implications of "higher for longer" as a Fed mantra.
Lynn began poking at the new TRP Capital Appreciation ETF and wrote a really nice reflection on Retirement: Year One.
I made some portfolio shifts, which is rare for me. I cut Matthews Asian Growth & Income (MACSX) after a long time. I booked a substantial gain, but mostly in the early years of the holding. What ultimately got me to act was reading the fund's own webpage (their pretty straightforward in reporting performance) and the apparent turmoil / turnover at Matthews. It strikes me as hard to do your job when other people are losing theirs. I added Leuthold Core (LCORX), because I don't have the energy just now to worry about how to reallocate assets when the picture (goodbye, Speaker McCarthy) changes daily. And I had already added RiverPark Strategic Income, which I'd written about this summer in tandem with Osterweis Strategic Income. OSTIX is leading in absolute returns but has more short-term volatility, and I'm just not into that. It's up 5.9% YTD / 5.8% APR over three years.
All of which moves me back closer to my "neutral" position of 50/50 stocks/bonds-cash-alts.

The 20y is a pretty interesting outlier at 5%. Bought at that rate, could be a future cap gain opportunity.

I doubt if I will live 20 more years, but it’s good to be optimistic.

20y is almost for sure past my expiry date, but I wouldn't be buying it to hold to maturity. That's what I meant by a capital gain opp. I doubt I'll buy in, tho, unless it moves even higher.

focus only on bonds that are very close to maturity
That seems a bit excessive. Even MMFs can have debt that doesn't mature for 397 days. One only needs enough liquidity to meet redemptions. The SEC is increasing liquidity requirements for MMFs from 10% to 25% for daily liquidity and from 30% to 50% for weekly liquidity. MMFs are not entirely liquid; they don't have to be.
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-15124/p-453
Average effective maturity of RPHYX is around 5 months. This is significantly longer than MMFs. I'm not suggesting otherwise, just that the portfolio has adequate assets close enough to maturity to address concerns. Probably :-)
FWIW, ZEOIX has an "average life" of 2.34 years. Quite a difference.
https://riverparkfunds.com/assets/pdfs/rpsthyf/RiverPark_Short_Term_High_Yield_Fund_Fact_Sheet.pdf
https://www.osterweis.com/mutual_funds/short_duration_credit/portfolio
RPHIX has an additional out - it can reopen the fund. Currently it is soft closed - a new investor can open an account only directly with the fund.

“@carew388 also had it right back in March ”
Thanks @MikeM
Was just responding to the last poster on the thread who happened to be Sven. Probably several got it right. I didn’t. Never saw 10-year rates reaching near 5% in less than 3 years.
To @Seven’s above point … The Fed was keeping rates artificially low by its massive bond buying - a form of manipulation to use @Sven’s words. And, @Sven saw inflation back than. I’m not sure the Fed had figured that part out yet.