Came across this one today. It’s being suggested by some pundits as a hedge against your gold mining stocks falling further.
The description from Lipper:
“The Fund seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, of 200% of the inverse (or opposite) of the price performance of the NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index. The Fund creates short positions by investing at least 80% of its net assets in: futures contracts; options on securities, indices and futures.”
DUST is off -71% over the past 3 years. Think I’d rather fry along with some mining stocks than try to catch this one. Gold’s been in a see-saw all year, bouncing between $1700 and around $1850. It appears to be on its way down again after topping-out only a few weeks ago.Just below $1800 at present. But this kind of erratic behavior is pretty typical. Limit your exposure. Don’t chase on the way up or down.

My best friend of over 50 years I met as a roommate my first year at CMU in ‘65. Both in our late 70s now, we sometimes contemplate the unthinkable. “With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”

https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2021/12/
“I learned this morning that my best friend of nearly 50 years, Nicholas Burnett, professor emeritus at Sacramento State, was being removed from life support.”
Sorry to hear of your loss David.

The VIX (Volatility Index) is closing in on 30 this AM. We touched above this level one year ago (Nov. 30, 2020) when we briefly reach the 33 level.
Here's a chart of the VIX showing it's movement over the last 5 years along with the S&P 500.

Speaking of DKNG - I track it and it’s off 6.75% for the day at $32 plus change. Reports are Cathie bought a truck load at $43-$44 a few weeks ago - Whew! Here’s a stock that’s seen close to $75 within the past year. I think it was launched couple years ago as part of a a “SPACK”. Getting spanked today for whatever reason. No idea what the trouble is. But harmed by the market saturation with too many competing plus the steep taxes states are hitting them with.
Additional Thoughts - The stock has been subject to short selling pressure during past year. And now, with SARK opening, that pressure is probably even greater. Nuts. If Cathie buys a stock, it’s got a target on its back. :) Top institutional holders Vanguard and T. Rowe Price. I’d think safer to own it through a small cap fund.

I have managed to restore several of my accounts by
1) ensuring that "Schwab" is listed as the brokerage name, not "zz-Schwab" or zzz-Schwab" on the account details window ( this is in the recommendations)
But this still would not allow me to "Activate" the accounts with the "Schwab brokerage" link, but there is another Schwab.com listed in the "add account" drop down menu
"Schwab Investor-C"
This seems to work for several of the accounts but not all
I am very discouraged by this disaster. As you mention, this is the worst snafu from Quicken in the 25 years I have been using it

If I may digest from the original post on EM small caps for a moment. There are still few EM opportunities still available in larger caps. I use NWFFX for a number of years as a lower risk EM fund. The broader mandate allow companies that derive majority of their revenue from EM including Microsoft.
https://morningstar.com/articles/975441/go-active-in-emerging-markets

Article appears in today’s (November 29) Financial Times.
Link is for an alternate source which may be more accessible.
Title is taken from the FT.
Bylines: Hudson Lockett & Tabby Kinder

I'm inclined to agree with @Baseball_Fan that multi-strategy funds are generally a bunch of spaghetti.
Even if one does understand how each alternative strategy tends to work in isolation and even if one does understand how they interact, IMHO two wildly optimistic assumptions, one still does not have any sense of how they are being allocated/used. A fund saying that it "seeks to provide total return ... in both periods of strong returns and periods of market stress" tells me almost nothing about how it uses those alternative strategies.
More studying of a fund may not make it any clearer. M* gave DBLTX a "not rated" mark for two years (2014-2016) because "when ... evaluating sophisticated bond strategies like DoubleLine Total Return Bond, publicly available information often does not suffice."
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/759331/why-were-moving-doubleline-total-return-bond-funds-rating-to-neutral
Yet for most of us peons, public info is all we have to work with. And it's hard to deny that funds like BAMBX are employing sophisticated strategies, bond and other. FWIW, M* decided to change the rating of DBLTX from "not rated" to "neutral" because M* felt it was more informative to say that based on what they knew they could not recommend the fund ("neutral") than to say nothing.
With respect to the BAMBX's portfolio, Lipper is showing net allocations. According to M*, the fund is comprised of 65% short positions and 165% long, which adds up to 100% of the portfolio, net. A lot of shorting going on.
At a superficial level (i.e. just looking at the 165/65 figure), this looks like the 130/30 funds of a decade ago on steroids. Except that for BAMBX that's just a summary of its holdings and not its strategy. Here's a M* piece on the 130/30 funds of yesteryear, and the risks they carried.
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/287718/article
TMSRX is net 48% long in fixed income and net 6% short in equity, both of which should have helped its performance Friday, yet it dropped ½%. It's not so easy to figure out what these sorts of funds are doing. Even less so for BAMFX with a 500% turnover rate.

So you're going to put your monies into something like that based on one day's performance? [...]
Your money, do with it what you feel is best for you. This fund is not for me. Been burned by iqdax,. Learning my lesson.
I wish you good investing and good luck @fred495
Baseball Fan

What am I missing? There was nothing in my comment about BAMBX's performance record over the past five years that would indicate I was going to put my money into this fund. I would certainly never purchase any fund based on one day's performance.
Seems you misunderstood the purpose of my posting, Fan.
Good luck,
Fred

(Lipper* generally quotes from the manager’s description):
“The Fund seeks total return comprised of current income and capital appreciation. BlackRock will invest the Funds assets through a diversified set of strategies that seek to provide total return comprised of current income and capital appreciation in both periods of strong returns and periods of market stress.”
77% in bonds likely reason the fund was up a bit yesterday. Longer dated high quality bonds were up sharply.
Since the asset breakdown on Lipper adds up to 100%, it’s unlikely they’re doing much (if any) shorting - which generally skews the total to something over 100.
I tend to like Blackrock. Rock Rieder, one of their fixed income people, talks a good game. Bright and articulate.
No fund is a “spaghetti bowl” if one is willing to invest the time and energy into exploring the contents. In the case of TMSRX I’ve not done the due diligence I probably should have, trusting in TRP whom I’ve been with for about 30 years to run that complex fund on the straight and narrow and not put my money at excessive risk. But that’s laziness on my part - not dereliction on theirs.
@Baseball_Fan - Could you share a little about your current investment approach? What do you like in addition to near 0% cash? I recall about 6-7 months ago you were buying Home Depot and also looking for inflation hedges. The problem with those inflation hedges is that a lot of other people caught the scent in the wind 6 months ago and chased. It’s a diverse lot. Some areas (certain industrial metals) are doing fine and may not be overpriced. But it’s a rough playing field as evidenced by the more than 6% drop in oil yesterday.
*Link to BAMBX Lipper profile: http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/US/funds/overview.asp?YYY622_6m0GgCfSF7IkKdT1pfwHShuZTH3KwZb8EX/lL+8rQLcR/QKIWm+VprdhsazlKneG

POAGX is closed to new investors for several years. Count yourself lucky if you already an investor. The other two PRIMECAP funds, Odyssey Growth Fund, POGRX and Odyssey Stock fund, POSKX are still open.

@bee - Thanks.
Obviously something is screwed up there. Note that for 1 year the fund ranks 25th among its peer group, while for 3 years it ranks much better - 7th. So I’ll guess they haven’t updated their numbers on the chart you pasted to reflect the current year’s lackluster performance.
However, if the fund’s potential “worst case” downside really is 65% as they claim, I’d suggest not buying it. Such a disastrous year would leave only 35% of the fund’ value remaining. Seems to me like you’d have to earn nearly 200% on that meager sum to get back to break-even the following year.
-
Added - I didn’t intend to recommend Ferris’ site. It’s just one of several I click on from time to time for a wide variety of views. Morningstar and Lipper are also helpful for broad overviews. For specific fund holdings and year-to year-performance it’s hard to top Yahoo. I buy very few new funds. Usually put candidates on a watch list and monitor for at least a few months before buying. MaxFunds seems to be the most critical in its assessments - for whatever reason.

Good point about insurance companies in general.
But I have personally seen an insurance RUN - Mutual Benefit Life (MBL). It was a provider in my 403b. My BIG mistake was that when I first heard the news of the run, I tried to alert out HR person in-charge. I should have joined the run instead. Oh well, my money was just frozen for half-dozen years. No money lost in an absolute sense, but only in the sense of opportunity costs.
I also learned how the state insurance programs work (or don't work). They certainly don't work like the FDIC insurance for failed banks.

That’s a personal decision. For some it would be the right one.
A cold night in hell before I sell. Noticed early on that the fund often remains flat or rises on days when equities falter. So for me it balances out the load in an increasingly defensive age-appropriate portfolio. In less than 4 years of existence it’s achieved 4+% annual. That’s better than a lot of short and intermediate term bond funds and hands-down better than cash. But all of us, I think, had hoped for more.
If it’s more of a “dog” recently I hadn’t noticed. But that would likely be due to exposure to gold and other non-dollar assets along with domestic bonds. All of these have suffered of late. With gold it’s probably temporary. With bonds I fear it’s terminal.
My bias … I’ve owned TRP funds for around 30 years and believe them very good at making wise allocation decisions and strong macro-reads. However, those macro-calls are often early. I suspect a saying going around in their inner circle might be: “Investors can remain irrational longer than defensive funds can remain in existence.” Since they’ve added a slug of it to a number of their allocation and target date funds, TMSRX’s existence is probably not threatened. Many here may own it without realizing it.
FWIW - I recently unloaded 25% of PRPFX after remaining hands-off for a decade. Had grown to too large a position in the portfolio. Plus - sounds from a recent Barron’s piece (posted here) that Cuggino is beginning to toy around with the allocation more than usual - adding more equities. That will make the fund riskier than in the past. And might help answer a question @bee raised several months ago - “What’s driving PRPFX?”. Harry Browne must be tossing in his slumber.
Like I said at the onset - For less risk averse investors TMSRX is probably one to sell. But recognize you’re sacrificing some downside protection.

Agree with Crash...AFDVX is a good research idea! I currently own ASVIX and it's outperforming this year and has exceptional #'s over the past 3 years as well.
Curious how others diversify their small cap choices...I prefer starting with Style and have Growth, Blend and Value in both of our (Rollover) retirement accounts.
AFDVX could be a replacement option for ASVIX...slightly cheaper, slightly more value focused (P/E), Sector allocations are better fit (somethimes I get hungup on this)
IRA -
BCSIX
MSCFX
BRSVX
IRA (Wife) -
OSTGX
DSCPX
ASVIX

Silent consfication thru silent tax called inflation take from producers and those who work

And what do you call it when companies extract ever-increasing profits from their employees for forty years without paying them a living wage while their CEOs make over 300 times their lowest paid workers? The minimum wage has actually fallen when adjusted for inflation since the 1980s while stock profits have soared. If we are experiencing wage inflation now, so be it.

I owned MSCFX years ago. .... @JonGaltIII and @Sven. Glad for my Balanced funds, for sure. A couple of years ago, I deliberately concentrated and streamlined the portfolio, for simplicity. I do rebalancing in January, and take an estimated yearly chunk out, then. Thank you for the responses. I'll look at the linked funds, too. GGSOX looks like fun, but it's a bit of a redundancy compared to my PRIDX: 9% of portfolio.

“ … I used to subscribed to it for over quite awhile until the Great Recession where I found Barrons completely missed several signs leading to the great decline.”

I’d concur with @Sven that Barron’s is not a particularly good barometer / predictor of major changes in market direction or sentiment. Their “Commodities Corner” bear call on gold around the 2000 -2002 period stands out in particular. Within a few weeks of the very bearish call, gold took off on a tear going from under $300 to an intermediate term peak of $700-$800 in just a few short years.
But Barron’s is really a compilation of many different market assessments. A careful reading will reveal these. Their weekly “Market View” column (Formerly called “Quoth the Mavens”) pulls excerpts from an assortment of current financial newsletters. Often, these will contradict one another. Yet a perceptive reader may draw some reasonable inferences. Weekly columnist Randall Forsyth may fall short of being “profound” in assessing market direction or valuation - but provides an intriguing skeptic’s eye toward many financial issues - particularly keen on assessing retail investor sentiment I think.
I’ve purchased 3 or 4 stocks over the past year based on Barron’s recommendations. All did well. Today I sold one, NGLOY, after a quick 14% run-up since they recommended it roughly 2 months ago. Still like it - but have been trimming risk wherever I can of late. So, based on some very limited experience buying their picks, I’ll guess they’re probably right more often than wrong on those recommendations.

@Crash, you need to decide of what you risk tolerance is, and 2% small cap allocation is not unreasonable. If the forecast is correct, bond return will be subdue in the next several years. Income investors need to look beyond bonds in order to compensate the deficit, i.e. dividend producing stocks, balanced funds, and others.
As for myself, I always found smaller cap funds provide more opportunities through the market cycles. I use Queens Road Small Cap Value, QRSVX, T. Rowe Price New Horizon, PRNHX (closed to new investors), and T. Rowe Price Mid-cap Value, TRMCX. Last year PRNHX did very well but the rotation from growth to value since last fall has greatly benefited QRSVX and TRMCX. Similarly I am shifting my foreign allocation to smaller caps as well in light of EM impact and China. Grandeur Peak International Stalwarts, GISYX, is my main fund but it is closed to new investors. The global version, GGSOX, is still open.