Although my time frames are fuzzy, I held this fund around ten years ago and sold it a year or two later based on similar performance deterioration. Then, I watched AKREX recover and outperform and got back in several years ago, and now plan on maintaining my position, monitor, and reassess in a few months. At only 1% of my portfolio not a major impact.

I held AKREX from 7/2016, eventually it was my number 1 holing. By early 2020, I detected weakness in this fund. Started selling in April 2020 and nothing left on 6/29/2020. I know Mr. Charles Akre since the time he managed a small cap fund specialize in Finance sector and was # 1 for many years. he sold it to other mutual fund. Made lots of money from that fund. Then AKREX was formed. In my post dated 7/27/2020, I suggested to dump this fund for several reasons....Now, Mr Akre has retired.

Thanks for the clarification. My condolences to his family and friends.
Just received an email from GP concerning him:
February 1, 2021
Dear Fellow Investors,
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our dear friend and colleague, Keefer Babbitt. Keefer was not only a great partner and friend, he also set the bar extremely high as it relates to his work. His character, work ethic, depth of thought and the quality of his output were greatly admired by all of us at Grandeur Peak. Keefer joined Grandeur Peak in 2012 as one of our first interns, and over the past 8+ years he has been a true builder of our firm. He made an enormous difference here and he will be greatly missed.
Keefer's current roles included co-managing the Global Contrarian Fund alongside Mark Madsen and Robert Gardiner, co-managing the Global Reach Fund with six other portfolio managers, contributing on our Industrials team, and of course first and foremost serving as a global research analyst. Given our unique team-based approach, we do not anticipate making any immediate changes to the portfolio management of either fund.
If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me or a member of our Client Relations Team.
Best Regards,
Eric

@rsorden
.......Type the name of the pieces you own in the search box at the top of the Ebay link below to discover current pricing of your pieces; IF they are listed for sale at Ebay. The link is active for your use for whatever else at Ebay.
If silver bullion pricing moves a lot above and beyond its "normal" range for the past 10 years, then, IMHO; the bullion price will overwhelm the collectible price, with the exception of truly collectible pieces; which would likely reside in the rare coin area.
Folks will again start to unload "melt silver" coins and related items. The jewelry stores and pawn shops will have a lot of traffic. This was the pattern that persisted for about 6 months in the late '70's.
I've used Ebay for many years to determine what the general public is willing to pay for item "x" to have and hold in their hand, not an etf or other investment market device. The below link is for "closed auctions/bids" for silver bullion related items. This list will continue to update as auctions/bids close. This is a long list that one may scroll through to older dates.
Closed auction prices, Ebay.
ADD: Silver retail sites freeze from demand

If you evaluate these funds through the full market in 2020, the list may get considerable smaller. FMI funds, for example, was 3 alarm funds last years as noted on this discussion board

I saw this list in the M* article. Pretty hard to create a more obvious list than this for suggested core holdings.
Lemme get this straight: Buy a Total Stock Market index and/or S&P 500 Index for your core holding? Duh.
Moving past the obvious, if you remove ALL of the (unbelievable number of) Total Stock Market Index and S&P 500 Index, what do you really have?
One that you have is OAKMX, a 2-star, dog of a fund that's been mired in 3+ consecutive years of horrific underperformance, that you couldn't pay me to own. Pretty much ditto on FMIHX which is already DOWN 3+% YTD.
The author should have just stuck with the obvious.

Hi Old Joe,
It's good to hear from you. As you likely know I retired almost 25 years ago. At that time no Monte Carlo-like codes were available to me so I wrote my own simple version of that tool. It served me well but was not all inclusive.
Today's versions of that tool are much more complete and powerful. They will aid potential retirees in making good decisions. I will always take the opportunity to encourage their application for that purpose.
That 's surely a far distant application from their original use which was to help design the atomic bomb. The current applications are a tiny bit more sedate but more widely applied. The investment industry is a most frequent user to help in the retirement decision making process. But you knew that already.
Added comment: If a professional advisor does not make use of a sophisticated Monte Carlo tool, he or she is short changing his client. Monte Carlo is certainly not the total picture but can be a significant input. It is available so it should be exercised.
Best Wishes

Grantham and GMO usually makes predictions over the next seven years. This is different in that he’s saying the downturn could happen in the coming months, that we are near the top. Also, the extremity of the collapse he’s predicting is new.

OK...MSSMX UP 150% in 2020. UP 30% YTD.
Read it again slowly and try to understand it.
On the short squeeze question, speaking generally to all readers/posters...
I would caution limiting one's concerns about this issue to just SCs and/or any specific fund, e.g., MSSMX. This is potentially a very large, diverse problem that could affect investors in many ways, yet TBD, and may be affecting some/sevral of your holdings unbeknownst to you right now. That said...
Most recent portfolio data, even on the MS site, is from 09/30/20. It does NOT appear any of the short squeeze companies*** are held by MSSMX, at least not in the top ~50%-60% of its holdings. Invite others to look for some as well - could have missed one.
***UPDATE: SFIX is on both the Fido holdings and Short Squeeze company lists below (as a 5.21% holding per Fido list) but not sure if it's a problem child short.
Also note:
(1) These are dated holdings lists and much could have changed in the 4th Qtr and/or Jan 2021. Unless there were significant changes, does NOT appear to be a problem. (If it is, it's currently a GOOD problem to have. Just sayin'.)
(2) Keep in mind this is Morgan Stanley we're talking about here. If anybody stands a chance of being on the right side of how these squeezes turn out, I like my chances teaming up with them.
(3) I am NOT recommending that any readers/posters BUY/HOLD this fund. If you are considering doing so, do so after your own DD and at your own risk/peril. Like all MFs, it does NOT come with a warning label and "Nobody rings a bell" when it's time to consider getting out. (Thanks Art Cashin!)
(4) If you do BUY it, note that Dramamine is not included with your purchase.
(5) Lastly, and FWIW, it is an (intended, at least) LT hold for me and like they say, I'm "Enjoy(ing) the ride!"
https://www.morganstanley.com/im/en-us/registered-investment-advisor/product-and-performance/mutual-funds/us-equity/inception-portfolio.shareClass.I.html
https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/composition/61744J614?type=o-NavBar
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-are-the-biggest-short-squeezes-in-the-stock-market-including-gamestop-and-amc-11611842270
@Graust I recall you helping me several times over the years. Happy to have reciprocated at least in part. Be sure to Buckle Up on this one.

Grantham. Excellent reputation. But my own "cup of meat" is more along the lines of Barry Ritholtz and the ones connected to his firm. I know you cannot just OPINE your way into making things true, the way you want them to be. (Cue the QAnons in this slot, here.) But Ritholtz is refreshingly direct, savvy and with wisdom gained from a lot of experience:
• "And in the End . . . How does this spasm of speculation conclude? I have a high degree of confidence in my answer: The same way it always does.
There will be tears, massive losses by some and big gains by others. There will be lives ruined and lessons learned among the claims of a rigged market, insider trading, and fraud. Maybe even people go to jail (maybe not). As Wall Street runs red with proverbial blood, a few clever bastards will notice the “generational buying opportunity” — the fourth such rare entry point over the past 20 years."
https://ritholtz.com/

What really concerns me is that this similar to the Madoff investors...hear me out...they were all "ok" with it as long as they were making money.
We were all "ok" with this "artificial", central bank driven, ponzi scheme market as long as we were making money and our portfolio grew over the past dozen years.
Now, we are ok with the Hedgie Big Shots getting hammered by the Reddit "Bro" crowd.
Just like folks kinda, maybe, shoulda, ya, sure, obvious knew Madoff was total fraud as who the heck could generate consistent returns like that over time...in hindsight...we'll say, ya, we kinda, maybe, shoulda, ya, sure the market has been total fake BS the past dozen years.
Now...the hedgies get clocked and we are ok with it but wait this thing turns systemic real quick and our portfolio's get drawn down by 50%-60%...then and only then we are going to have a problem with the Reddit/WSB approach, no?
Open your eyes! Be careful!
Best Luck and Good Health to All,
Baseball Fan

Very interesting...goes against the Wall Street idiom, "if the VIX is high, it's time to buy"..."be greedy when others are fearful"...
Of course FD1K appears to have done very well timing the market over the years, not being sarcastic, I've seen some of his posts where he backs up his statements.
Good Luck to All,
Baseball Fan

@FD1000 said:

I have several criteria but the easiest one is the VIX, when...VIX>30 get ready...VIX>35 start selling...VIX>40 rapid selling. The catch of course is not to stay out for longer term. I have been out of the market about 3% of the times in the last 10 years.

This week seems to be one of those moments to watch the VIX.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EVIX?p=%5EVIX

That’s very helpful @Baseball_Fan. When Professor Snowball profiled ARTTX in its first set of clothing he pointed out that there was no measurable management record for Mr. Smith. As you rightly say, he now has a record at Artisan and it is plausible to attribute some of his skills to having learned on several jobs. The bogey for the Focus fund is the S&P 500 according to Artisan materials, while M* has it in the LG category. There are few LG funds that haven’t done well in the past 3 years. I wonder if the risk control measures will serve shareholders well once we get into a period when LG is not the only game in town. I’ll keep an eye on this fund, now that you have piqued my curiosity. Longs and shorts got nailed today, making me wonder if there’s anywhere to hide. I put some $ in EM ESG and SCV. Best of luck.
.

I just took a flying leap into MSAUX (pj) to “compliment” MGGPX and augment my Minuscule foreign investment.
I still believe the US is where to invest, but a little International might be advantageous and a provide a smidgen of “diversification”.
I chose it over FSEAX because of the tax efficiency. Outside of FSEAX this ms fund beats just about all peers in metrics and returns.
My major trepidation is 2019 & 2020 were very good years. Is 2021 and beyond going to be sub-par, if not negative?
Of course, this is a planned long-term investment, but ........
Any thoughts, suggestions or opinions?
Thx. Matt

@BenWP
I don't believe ARTTX and VLSAX have similar strat's. I like ARTTX as it is a "risk-aware, not specifically L/S" fund and the way I understand it is there is an associate on board whose role in managing the portfolio is focused on risk management thru use of options or other, etc. The fund is run using a very process oriented approach and has out performed the SP500 by a substantial margin since inception. I like his pedigree from where he used to work at a couple hedge funds, likely learned quite a bit and took away "best practices" experience.
VLSAX, run by KAR investments out of LA focuses long high quality, high ROIC, history of resilient earnings growth, minimal debt stock, short, low quality, high leverage, poor cash flow, declining financial metrics stocks
per July 2020 Value Investor (apologies to you and the board as I can't seem to get the linking thing down, argh, I kept looking for a post on how to do that from the past, can't find it). Another good article about ARTTX if you Google, morningstar, an up and comer from top notch fund group, July 2019
Lineage
While each successive manager typically customizes along the way, it’s not
uncommon in the investment business
for strategies to be passed from generation to generation. Christopher Smith of
Artisan Partners provides a representative case in point. The founding portfolio manager of the firm’s Focus Fund –
which was launched in 2017 and now
manages $1.3 billion in assets – Smith
takes an “industry-first” approach to
identifying attractive equity opportunities, looking initially for industries with
what he believes are accelerating profit
cycles and then for the companies that
are priced right and best positioned to
profit from them. He learned the basics
of the approach from Karsch Capital's
Michael Karsch [VII, March 31, 2010],
who learned it from Duquense Capital’s
Stanley Druckenmiller.
With three years under his belt at Artisan, Smith's rendition of a thematic
approach since its April 2017 launch
has earned a net annualized 23.8%, vs.
10.9% for the S&P 500
Good Luck to All,
Baseball Fan

I think you are referring to P. 17. All GP funds out-performed their respective benchmarks by a large margin for 5+ years. Also many GP funds are Great Owl funds. What makes GP differs from other mutual fund family is close their funds at fairly low asset level (well less than $500 millions). Also they stay within their competency/expertise in the mid-small-micro cap space unlike other shops that keep on expanding just to attract new $.

Better off going to cash than investing with Hussman.

This is very good financial advice!
"Obviously, Hussman turned into a 'perma-bear,' calling for disaster constantly (and wrongly). Hussman still insists that he will be vindicated, and criticizes those who would 'declare victory at halftime.' He criticized 'declaring victory at halftime' previously six full years ago (that’s one long halftime). Hussman wants us to believe that he’s not wrong, merely right but early. However, if you keep making the same wrong call over and over, you don’t get any credit for it when you’re (eventually) right."
"Through 2019, Hussman’s Strategic Growth fund has suffered a 10-year average annual 'return' of -7.54 percent, compared to a 13.24 percent average annual gain by its benchmark, the S&P 500. Despite exceptional early returns, the fund not only badly trails the S&P since inception, it is now a money loser since inception. Notwithstanding this terrible performance, Hussman keeps charging investors 1.25 percent annually to lose their money."
Link

Yes, I'd forgotten about the $5M entry, but my wife was in that one for a few very profitable years--- but via her 403b.
That's what I was thinking, 401k or 403b.

My offering to this discussion on small-caps: VSCIX Vanguard. Index.

Excellent choice, up to a point.
VSCIX has a $5M minimum for all types of accounts. I own VSMAX with a slightly lower minimum.

Yes, I'd forgotten about the $5M entry, but my wife was in that one for a few very profitable years--- but via her 403b.