I see some comparisons made between ARTHX and ARTGX but realize that the short-term outperformance can be seen across the board whenever you compare a growth or garp oriented fund with a value oriented fund. Again I'm talking about the past 1, 3 and 5 years where growth/garp style has performed well relative to the value style.
In fact, for those who are already have a heavily Global value leaning portfolio and would like to inject some Global growth investing style to balance things a bit, I also like ARTRX (Artisan Global Opportunities) fund although it is a bit pricey. They are pretty much the same team of 4 Managers that runs the Artisan Midcap Fund and so they don't rely on a single Star Manager.
ARTRX is up nicely around 19% YTD. I believe ARTRX is even growthier than ARTIX but again - ARTRX isn't for everyone it's a global growth option if say you had a heavily global value and global dividend oriented exposure and wanted to add some global 'zing' to your portfolio because remember that growth and value can take turns outperforming each other.
Top 10 stocks of ARTHX & %:
=================
Nestle SA (Switzerland) 3.4
Google Inc (United States) 2.8
Mastercard Inc (United States) 2.4
AIA Group Ltd (Hong Kong) 2.3
Apple Inc (United States) 2.3
Japan Tobacco Inc (Japan) 2.3
Calbee Inc (Japan) 2.3
Anadarko Petroleum Corp (United States) 2.0
SABMiller PLC (United Kingdom) 1.9
American Express Co (United States) 1.9
Top 10 stocks of ARTRX & %:
=================
Monsanto Co 5.2
Apple Inc 5.1
Google Inc 4.5
IHS Inc 4.5
EMC Corp 3.9
eBay Inc 3.8
Starbucks Corp 3.8
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc 3.8
Discover Financial Services 3.7
Biogen Idec Inc 3.4

Vanguard fires another shot in ETF fee war
Will launch short-term TIPS fund this year at half the cost of iShares' counterpart
By Jason Kephart
July 29, 2012
The Vanguard Group Inc. will be the first to tell you that it isn't in the midst of an ETF fee war, but its competitors must feel that way.
Last Tuesday, Vanguard filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer a short-term Treasury inflation-protected securities exchange-traded fund. It will track the Barclays U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities 0-5 Years Index, which also happens to be the underlying index for the $358 million iShares Barclays 0-5 Year TIPS Bond ETF (STIP).
To no one's surprise, the Vanguard version will carry a much lower expense ratio of 0.1%; the iShares ETF has an expense ratio of 0.2%.
Vanguard's low-cost approach to investing has been a home run with investors since the financial crisis. Over the five-year period through June 30, the firm's assets grew 40% to almost $1.7 trillion. Meanwhile, overall industry assets grew just 10%.
Vanguard's dominance has been particularly vexing to BlackRock Inc.'s iShares segment, which has been losing market share for more than two years to Vanguard's ETFs. Since 2010, Vanguard's ETFs have had inflows of nearly $100 billion, while iShares, the largest ETF provider, with $482 billion in assets, has taken in $56.7 billion.
On BlackRock's second-quarter conference call this month, chief executive Laurence D. Fink acknowledged the struggles iShares is having in core U.S. equity products, which Vanguard considers its sweet spot.
“Without going into much detail, we believe we have a plan to address it over the coming months. And it is a big issue, and I have to give a lot of credit to Vanguard — they are a trustworthy brand, and they have taken market share from BlackRock in the U.S. core type of equity products,” Mr. Fink said.
A Vanguard spokesman declined to comment.
Copy & Paste from InvestmentNews.Com

Reply to @AndyJ: That is what good active management is all about. Imagine what the fund would perform if it invested heavily with financial stocks.

Hi Guys,
Ted, thank you for the fine reference. It prompted me to think more deeply about how to interpret statistical works and to consider their potential shortcomings.
The Vanguard research that Ted linked serves as an excellent illustration of the matter. It did not dwell on the limited group that was examined.
I would not be too sanguine about the results of that very restricted survey. It is heavily skewed, perhaps I should say biased, by the individual investors that formed its population draw.
The survey was restricted to Vanguard clients who only purchased four categories of Index funds. These clients are not representative of global players.
It is not a far reach to assert that this population of investors share a common financial profile. As a group, they tend to be conservative investors with infrequent trading habits. They are cost conscientious. They do not actively seek positive Alpha (excess returns above market rewards). They are a small, but admittedly growing, fraction of the investing public.
As a consequence, they are slow moving and exhibit inertia to hotly touted financial products. As a cohort, I expect that their holding period for all financial positions in general is much longer than any global average. In no way am I shocked by the conclusion that this staid cohort retains its overall investment characteristics and do not trade ETFs very actively. To do otherwise would deviate from their DNA.
But this group of Vanguard customers are definitely not fully representative of the mutual fund/ETF buyer population as a whole.
It’s like the infamous Chicago Tribune headline that reported Dewey defeated Truman in the 1948 presidential election. It reflected improper survey techniques that generated bad forecasts. In that instance, the polling was not representative of the voting population. Rather, it was biased by selection methods that favored those who owned telephones at the time, and by expert opinion that proved faulty. Biased inputs produce bad predictions.
More comprehensive and complete studies demonstrate time after time that private investors do not secure market equivalent returns (returns adjusted for risks accepted). They underperform by rather large percentages that reflect a mix of lack of knowledge, impatience, lack of persistence, poor timing, and herding instincts. Of course, MFO participants do not succumb to these wealth stealing vices. Sure we don’t. But we do tend to be overconfident and somewhat distort the past with an error prone hindsight bias.
Although the referenced article was written by a credible financial writer, you guys might be interested in the original source. Primary sources are always informative, and when honestly presented, identifies its own shortfalls.
Here is the Link to the July Vanguard study:
https://advisors.vanguard.com:443/VGApp/iip/site/advisor/researchcommentary/research/article/IWE_InvResBetter
Enjoy.
My general observation is that we are not as smart as we think. I include myself in that grouping.
Best Regards.

http://www.pimco.com/EN/Insights/Pages/Investing-off-the-Beaten-Track-in-an-Uncertain-Global-Economy.aspx
Investing off the Beaten Track in an Uncertain Global Economy
Article Introduction
- ​The global economy remains in a multiyear period of global deleveraging; it will be an uncertain and, at times, volatile process.
- The substantial uncertainty and volatility affecting interrelationships across different markets are providing relative-value opportunities.
- Alternative strategies can be enticing, but the decision to use them needs to be fully informed and weighed against all the options.
Market volatility can be unsettling, but it can also signal opportunity. So is there more volatility - and opportunity - ahead?
In the following interview, portfolio manager Dan Ivascyn [Pimco Income Fund Manager] assesses global financial markets and discusses alternative approaches to seeking compelling returns.

Barron's: Well-Timed Entrance
Portfolio manager Dan Ivascyn led the Pimco Income fund to big gains by buying mortgage-backed securities after the financial crisis started. Why he likes Hilton bank loans and Gazprom bonds.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111904346504577531080010077836.html?mod=BOL_twm_fs

Barron's: Well-Timed Entrance
Portfolio manager Dan Ivascyn led the Pimco Income fund to big gains by buying mortgage-backed securities after the financial crisis started. Why he likes Hilton bank loans and Gazprom bonds.
Picking through the rubble of a financial crisis can have its rewards.
Five years ago, Pimco tapped Dan Ivascyn to run the new Pimco Income Fund, with the aim of providing sustainable dividends, as well as generating additional total return through capital appreciation. The native of Oxford, Mass., had worked in the asset-backed securities group at Bear Stearns prior to joining Pimco in 1998. By March 2007, when the fund (ticker: PONAX) launched on the eve of the global financial meltdown, its parent already had grown wary of mortgage bonds and had begun to cut its holdings of so-called nonagency mortgage-backed securities, or those issued by banks, rather than federal agencies like Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
Despite stumbling out of the gate with a loss of 5.95% in 2008, Pimco Income was able to pick up lots of bargain-priced bonds from desperate sellers and has gone on to achieve stellar annual returns of 18.64%, 19.96% and 5.95% in subsequent years, plus a second best-in-category 10.63% this year to date, according to Morningstar. It's done that with an expense ratio of 0.80%.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111904346504577531080010077836.html?mod=BOL_twm_fs

Hey Derf,
I don't own this fund ... but, I have been keeping an eye on it for sometime ... in more ways than one. I follow it though Morningstar's report ... and, it headquartered in my hometown of Charlotte, NC. They use to be in the Bank of Commerce building but have moved, I believe, close to the Charlotte Panther Stadium ... I mean, Bank of America Stadium. Yes, I have eye balled their offices form time-to-time in the past and studied the positioning of the fund and believe that it has been written about in some financial publications.
For those interested, I have linked below Morningstar's report on the fund.
http://quote.morningstar.com/fund/f.aspx?t=QRSVX&region=USA&culture=en-us
From review of the asset allocation section of the report it seems to be cash heavy at about aprx. 23%. (Long 27%, Short 3 to 4%, Net about 23%)
Seems, more than just me is holding a gaggle of cash.
Have a great day ... and, "Good Investing."
Skeeter

Hi MikeM. Thinking there is an easy answer and tougher answer to your question.
Easy first. You would probably enjoy the article by Steve Goldberg entitled "Goldberg's Picks: 5 Best Low-Risk Stock Funds."
Here is link: http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/value/archive/goldberg-picks-best-low-risk-stock-funds.html
The five are: Sequoia Fund (symbol SEQUX), T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation (PRWCX), Forester Value (FVALX), FPA Crescent (FPACX), and First Eagle Global (SGENX).
All but FVALX have outperformed SP500 the past decade:

Honestly, Goldberg is not afraid to take a stand and explains why in simple terms. He has some similar articles on bond and allocations funds. I first became impressed with him after reading his article questioning Bruce Berkowitz's heavy move into financials in late 2010.
Here is link to that insightful article:
http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/value/archive/kiplinger-25-fairholme-funds-big-bet-on-financial-stocks.html?si=1
I like Bee's suggestion that you assess any gain/risk fund decision against a standard like PIMCO Income Fund PONDX. (Or, PIMIX, its institutional equivalent.)
I see Oakmark Equity & Income (OAKBX) and FPA Cresent (FPACX) suggested by several on the allocation side. Both have done great this difficult decade, although I believe are closed to new investors. I remember when Dodge & Cox Balanced Fund (DODBX) was in same category, until it got slammed in 2008. It still beats SP500 over the long haul, and I want to believe it learned from its mistake and will be stronger going forward. That said, Vanguard Wellington (VWELX) admirably did not stumble and remains a buy-and-hold choice open to new investors, as pointed out by JohnN.
In fact, all of these allocation funds have also beat SP500 this decade:

An under-the-radar equity fund is Auxier Focus (AUXFX), which I first read about on FundAlarm, has consistently done well and is just now starting to get recognized.
Note that all of Goldberg's picks and the ones I've mentioned above have less volatility than SP500. A couple, like Forester Value and Oakmark Equity, are substantially less volatile. So, it's easy to see why these are comfortable buy-and-hold picks.
OK, now for tougher part.
In 1974, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) lost nearly half its value...in one year! BRK.A has more than twice the volatility of SP500. But who would not have wanted to own this stock for the last 41 years, where it has gained more than 20% annually? (Granted, not a mutual fund proper, but it represents the best in equities...let's call it a surrogate mutual fund.)
Other examples of higher volatility funds that have never lost more value in any three-year period than SP500's worst...but have made substantially more money over the long term: Vanguard Health Care (VGHCX), FMI Focus (FMIOX), Fidelity Select Consumer Staples (FDFAX), Artisan Mid Cap (ARTMX), and Vanguard Energy (VGENX). All represent excellent buy-and-hold picks, but you really gotta be willing to hold after that one really bad year.
One last thing: You list good choices. But for what it is worth, I personally do not like to own more than 4-5 funds at one time. Currently, I own: RNSIX, FAAFX, FAIRX, SFGIX, and DODBX.

Hi Romroc,
From your posting, it appears that your investment frustration level is high, and perhaps even rising higher.
It seems as if you anticipated huge rewards almost immediately. Sometimes that does happen;; often it does not. But don’t allow your current disappointments to cloud your judgment and nudge you into making imprudent decisions. When investing, time is your ally. Trees do not grow to the sky. Remember that a fundamental statistical mechanism that operates in the long=term for almost all endeavors is a regression-to-the-mean.
So patience and persistence is a mandatory requisite for successful investing.
Several MFO members have already offered you some excellent and wise advice. But you need not trust either me or them. It might assuage your anxiety and uneasiness if that advice was proffered by a seasoned and highly successful money manager.
That professional general advice is readily accessible on the Internet. Jeremy Grantham is a remarkably successful and renown financial sage. In February of this year, he summarized 10 investment lessons for Jonathan Burton, a MarketWatch reporter. These were referenced by MFO participants in earlier submittals.
Grantham’s 10 lessons are rules to guide your investment decision-making and actions. They are solid stuff, come from a recognized authority, and demand attention. In late February, Barry Ritholtz, of Big Picture fame published a succinct, shortened version that I copied for retention. Here is the Link to these rules that should enhance your likelihood of achieving investment success:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/jeremy-grantham-10-lessons/print/
Please examine the lessons carefully.
Based on your posting, I feel that you have violated a few of them. By itself, that does not mean that you are doomed to fail. There are many pathways to investment wealth. The Holy Grail escapes all of us. But an honest assessment of your goals, your investment philosophy, your preferences, and your risk aversion (pain threshold) must be considered when contrasted against the Grantham standard. That critical comparison might give you some pause to entertain a realignment of your investment policy and strategy. Perhaps not, but that’s okay too.
I hope this reference is helpful. I wish you well.
Best Regards.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GWYA_enUS311US311&q=barrons+the+value+gene
The Value Gene
Paul Isaac's father helped Mutual Shares founder Max Heine find his first job on Wall Street. And his uncle, Walter Schloss, studied under Benjamin Graham and was praised by Warren Buffett. Why Isaac likes French banks and is down on Amazon.com.
This New York-based investor has value investing in his blood. His father, Irving, an arbitrageur, was instrumental in finding Max Heine his first job on the Street. Heine went on to run the legendary Mutual Shares Fund, and Irving Isaac sat on its board for three decades. And Paul Isaac's uncle, Walter Schloss, a student of Benjamin Graham, was praised by Warren Buffett and profiled in Barron's. At his former position leading a fund of funds, Paul Isaac produced high single-digit returns annually. That fund was sold after the 2008-2009 financial crisis. He continues to manage Arbiter, a hedge fund that has returned 21% a year, on average, since its 2001 inception. Isaac, 62, writes nuanced, beautifully reasoned investor letters that magnificently illuminate the financial markets. One fan is writer and investor Jim Grant, who once dedicated a book thusly: "To Paul Isaac, who knows everything." To learn Isaac's take on the world and what Irving and Walter might think, read on.

Reply to @BWG: "The Fund pursues its investment objective by allocating assets among various commodity sectors (including agricultural, energy, livestock and precious and base metals). The Fund also invests in fixed income securities and money market instruments. The Fund will obtain exposure to commodity sectors by investing in commodity-linked derivatives, directly or through investments in the Subsidiary. ***The Fund will target an annualized volatility level that is lower than that for the AQR Risk-Balanced Commodities Strategy Fund, which is described elsewhere in this Prospectus. The “LV” in the Fund’s name reflects this “lower volatility” approach. There is no guarantee that the Fund’s investment objective will be met."***
So, LV will be a more hedged and/or less aggressively positioned, etc (?) version of the other fund. LV appears to have been delayed, but Risk Balanced Commodity is available. LV was also not listed in the press release on the new funds that was released by AQR.
This appears same with both:
"Commodity Investments
The Fund intends to gain exposure to commodity sectors by investing in a portfolio of Instruments (as defined below). The Fund will generally have some level of investment in the majority of commodity sectors, which includes over 20 exposures. The Adviser targets balanced-risk weights across various commodity sectors and regularly reviews the risk in those sectors as market conditions change, rebalancing the portfolio to seek to maintain more balanced exposures among sectors. The Fund’s balanced-risk approach can be expected, under current market conditions, to result in less exposure to the energy sector than an approach that mirrors the composition of well-known commodity indices.
In allocating assets among and within commodity sectors, the Adviser follows a “risk parity” approach. The “risk parity” approach to asset allocation seeks to balance the allocation of risk across the commodity sectors (as measured by forecasted volatility, estimated potential loss, and other proprietary measures) when building the portfolio. This means that lower risk commodity sectors (such as precious metals) will generally have higher notional allocations than higher risk commodity sectors (such as energy). A “neutral” asset allocation targets an equal risk allocation among the commodity sectors. The Adviser expects to tactically vary the Fund’s allocation to the various commodity sectors depending on market conditions, which can cause the Fund to deviate from a “neutral” position. The desired overall risk level of the Fund may be increased or decreased by the Adviser. There can be no assurance that employing a “risk parity” approach will achieve any particular level or return or will, in fact, reduce volatility or potential loss.
However, the Fund is actively managed and has the flexibility to over- or underweight commodity sectors, in the Adviser’s discretion, in order to achieve the Fund’s objective. There is no stated limit on the percentage of assets the Fund can invest in a particular Instrument or the percentage of assets the Fund will allocate to any one commodity sector, and at times the Fund may focus on a small number of Instruments or commodity sectors. The Adviser will use proprietary volatility forecasting and portfolio construction methodologies to manage the Fund. The allocation among and within the different commodity sectors is based on the Adviser’s assessment of the risk associated with the commodity sector, the investment opportunity presented by each commodity sector, as well as the Adviser’s assessment of prevailing market conditions within the particular commodity sector. Shifts in allocations among and within commodity sectors or Instruments will be determined based on the Adviser’s evaluation of technical and fundamental indicators, such as trends in historical prices, seasonality, supply/demand data, momentum and macroeconomic data of commodity consuming countries.
Generally, the Fund gains exposure to the commodity sectors by investing in commodity-linked derivative instruments, such as swap agreements, commodity futures, commodity-based exchange-traded funds, commodity-linked notes and swaps on commodity futures (collectively, the “Instruments”), either by investing directly in those Instruments, or indirectly by investing in the Subsidiary (as described below) that invests in those Instruments. The Fund’s investment in the Instruments provides the Fund with exposure to the investment returns of the commodity sectors without investing directly in physical commodities. Commodities are assets that have tangible properties, such as oil, metals and agricultural products. There is no maximum or minimum exposure to any one Instrument or any one commodity sector.
Futures contracts are contractual agreements to buy or sell a particular commodity or Instrument at a pre-determined price in the future. The Fund’s use of futures contracts, swaps and certain other Instruments will have the economic effect of financial leverage. Financial leverage magnifies exposure to the swings in prices of commodities underlying an Instrument and results in increased volatility, which means the Fund will have the potential for greater gains, as well as the potential for greater losses, than if the Fund does not use Instruments that have a leveraging effect. Leveraging tends to magnify, sometimes significantly, the effect of any increase or decrease in the Fund’s exposure to a particular commodity or commodity sector and may cause the Fund’s NAV to be volatile. There is no assurance that the Fund’s use of Instruments providing enhanced exposure will enable the Fund to achieve its investment objective.
As a result of the Fund’s strategy, the Fund may have highly leveraged exposure to one or more commodity sectors at times. The 1940 Act and the rules and interpretations thereunder impose certain limitations on the Fund’s ability to use leverage; however, the Fund is not subject to any additional limitations on its exposures.
The Fund and the Subsidiary use a drawdown control approach to mitigate loss of value and reduce volatility. This approach gradually and systematically reduces exposure across all commodity sectors as commodity markets decline and volatility increases. There can be no assurance that this approach will be successful in controlling the Fund’s risk or limiting portfolio losses.
The Fund currently intends to invest up to 25% of its total assets in the Subsidiary. The Subsidiary is a wholly-owned and controlled subsidiary of the Fund, organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands as an exempted company."
Summary:
https://www.aqrfunds.com/OurFunds/AlternativeInvestmentFunds/RiskBalancedCommoditiesStrategyFund/Overview.aspx
Risk Balancing Across Sectors: In a risk-balanced portfolio, every sector contributes roughly equally to the volatility of the total portfolio and no one commodity dominates near-term returns. To achieve this, less volatile sectors are given larger notional allocations, while volatile sectors get a smaller notional allocation.
Risk Balancing Through Time: Over time, the volatility of a commodities portfolio can vary significantly. During stress periods when the volatility across commodities increases sharply, such as 2008, the riskiness of a commodities portfolio may become higher than desirable. By monitoring volatilities and correlations of each commodity, it is possible to increase or decrease portfolio-wide exposures in order to target a pre-specified risk level for the fund and keep returns smoother over time.
Drawdown Control: We believe volatility targeting should be supplemented by a systematic, pre-set drawdown control policy, dictating how portfolio risk will be reduced during a prolonged crisis to help control the size of absolute drawdowns. As soon as markets stabilize, the drawdown policy ensures that the fund returns to being fully invested. We believe that this improves investors’ odds of sticking with a long-term allocation.
Active Management: The fund is actively managed, and the fund managers will vary the fund’s positions in individual commodities and commodity sectors (even going short in some commodities at time) based on an evaluation of the attractiveness of the positions. These shifts in allocations will be determined using AQR’s proprietary models. Information that is evaluated includes the roll yield, inventory, and supply and demand relationships of each commodity, as well as the macroeconomic environment and other factors.

RBC Wealth Management
Michael D. Ruccio, AAMS
Senior Vice President -Financial Advisor
25 Hanover Road
Florham Park, NJ 07932-1407
(p) (866) 248-0096
(f) (973) 966-0309
[email protected]
michaelruccio.com
MARKET WEEK: JULY 9, 2012
The Markets
Even the small gains seen in equities early in the week fizzled after the holiday on discouraging economic news from around the globe. Only the Nasdaq and small-cap Russell 2000 were still in positive territory by Friday's close. U.S. Treasury prices benefitted once again from the bad news as the 10-year yield headed south.
Market/Index 2011 Close Prior Week As of 7/6 Week Change YTD Change
DJIA 12217.56 12880.09 12772.47 -.84% 4.54%
Nasdaq 2605.15 2935.05 2937.33 .08% 12.75%
S&P 500 1257.60 1362.16 1354.68 -.55% 7.72%
Russell 2000 740.92 798.49 807.14 1.08% 8.94%
Global Dow 1801.60 1831.63 1814.28 -.96% .70%
Fed. Funds .25% .25% .25% 0 bps 0 bps
10-year Treasuries 1.89% 1.67% 1.57% -10 bps -32 bps
Equities data reflect price changes, not total return.
Last Week's Headlines
Unemployment remained stalled at 8.2% and the U.S. economy added just 80,000 new jobs in June. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average monthly increase in new jobs during the second quarter was only 75,000 compared to the 226,000 monthly average in Q1.
Economic news abroad wasn't encouraging. Eurostat said the unemployment rate in the European Union hit a record 11.1% in May, and there also were signs of weakening manufacturing activity in Germany. The European Central Bank cut its key interest rate to a record low 0.75%, and Spanish and Italian 10-year bond yields rose above 7% and 6% respectively. China also cut its one-year rate for the second time in two months, lowering it to 6%.
According to the Institute for Supply Management, manufacturing activity in the United States fell in June for the first time in three years. The ISM's index dropped to 49.7% from 53.5% the previous month; any number below 50% is considered a contraction. The ISM said new orders and exports also contracted for the first time since mid-2009. However, the Commerce Department said factory orders were up 0.7% in May, and durable goods orders were up even more, by 1.3%.
Meanwhile, China's manufacturing sector also slowed in June to its lowest level in seven months; the National Bureau of Statistics' 50.2 reading was just barely in expansion territory. However, China's services sector saw solid expansion with a 56.7 reading by the NBS.
The U.K. Serious Fraud Office announced it will investigate possible criminal charges in connection with manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). Barclay's PLC was fined £290 million by the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority the previous week after it admitted that false LIBOR-related information had been repeatedly submitted since 2005. It also had previously been fined $160 million by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The International Monetary Fund urged the United States to reduce uncertainty about the impending "fiscal cliff." The IMF said the package of tax increases and government spending cuts scheduled to take effect in 2013, coupled with the anticipated renewed wrangling over an increase to the U.S. debt ceiling at year's end, could threaten an already tepid economic recovery.
Eye on the Week Ahead
The week kicks off with Alcoa's earnings release, which marks the unofficial start of the Q2 earnings season. Also, eurozone finance ministers will meet to try to figure out how to implement the recent agreement to tighten fiscal union among countries. Meanwhile, auctions of 10- and 30-year U.S. Treasury securities will suggest whether recent strong demand will continue.
Key dates and data releases: eurozone finance ministers' meeting (7/9); balance of trade, Federal Open Market Committee minutes (7/11); wholesale inflation (7/13).

Thanks Ted,
The Five Essentials of Financial Freedom:
"determine an appropriate asset allocation, properly diversify within asset classes, understand and control risk, keep costs low."

Reply to @kevindow:
Hi K-dow,
Thanks for your comments and list. I noticed that Invesco offers a retirement fund that has an expense ratio of .25 and invests solely in ABRIX. The fund ticker is TNEAX...looks like an even lower ER than ABRIX.
From Fundmojo:
"Invesco Balanced-Risk Retire 2050 A Fund seeks to provide total return with a low to moderate correlation to traditional financial market indices. Invesco Balanced-Risk Retire 2050 A Fund is a "fund of funds" and invests assets in other mutual funds. It has an approximate target asset allocation of 100% in the AIM Balanced-Risk Allocation Fund, as of April 30, 2010, until approximately 10 years prior to the fund's target retirement date at which time the fund will begin transitioning from an accumulation strategy to a real return strategy. Invesco Balanced-Risk Retire 2050 A Fund is designed for investors whose target retirement date is in or about the year 2050. It is non-diversified"
http://www.fundmojo.com/mutualfund/fund_report/mutualfund/TNEAX
TNEAX is available through USAA brokerage for a minimum of $250. Funny thing...this note appeared just as I placed my order...
"We are unable to process the order referenced above. This fund is not available for purchase by residents of your state."
Other comments:
Looks like Marisco manages Harbor's fund but Harbor has a higher minimum hurdle ($50K with an ER of 1%) vs MFCFX ($2500 with an ER of 1.27%).
I pay a TF fee to buys TGBAX (ER=.63). TTRZX is NTF at my brokerage with an ER=.79%. As a strategy, I buy small amounts of TTRZX often and then once a year I have a scheduled transfer to TGBAX. Because it is scheduled there is no TF fee. I assume this would work in the other direction if someone where to be in retirement and selling out of shares.
Thanks for you ER points.

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.financial-planning.com/fp_issues/2012_7/exchange-traded-funds-investors-europe-yearly-progress-2679524-1.html?zkPrintable=true

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.financial-planning.com/fp_issues/2012_7/morningstar-forward-rating-mutual-funds-2679531-1.html?zkPrintable=true

If anyone has a problem with this, then make your own financial decisions or hire an "independent" financial adviser.

Reply to @Sven: These so-called "financial advisors" are not held to the fiduciary standard and firms have been battling against the imposition of fiduciary standard for so long.
They are really brokers despite their various titles and the only requirement is that the investment is suitable at the time they are sold and suitability standard is much loosely defined. They might also be fiduciary but not to the client but to the firm.

Reply to @Mark: Where are their fiduciary responsibilities of these so called "financial advisors" or brokers?