SPY beat CWS for 1 and 3 years + since inception with lower SD.
ER needs to fluctuate between 0.3 to 0.5 and not 0.65% to 0.85%...and maybe they will have a chance.
I have a better idea if I make the rules :-)
Every fund must follow an index and it must stay within it. It can't say I follow a bond index and invest in stocks. We can work on the specific rules later but I like the idea.
At the end of each year is must beat the index to keep its ER. If the performance is lower, ER goes to 0.3% max for the year (=12 months). It must beat the index the next year in order to have a higher ER than 0.3% for the next year.
This above will eliminate so many funds :-)

I don't see any reason to own BRK.A
SPY beat it easily for 1-3-5-10 years and with lower voltility.

I'm totally changing the subject here, I admit. Just to say something interesting. Well, interesting to me anyway.
There is an old concept in accounting of a "sinking fund". The value sinks as payments are made out, and eventually its value is totally "sunk" down to zero. This is what Lincoln was referring to in his second inaugural address:
To wit:
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Before I learned this, I had always pictured treasure piled onto a sinking ship or something.

The cap gains in 2018 and 2019 (there were no dividend distributions) did average 6%+, but over four years I can't see how, even after adding income divs and cap gains together, one could average 6%.
My data source is Fidelity's distribution page for the fund. I've verified the total distribution figures at the source: https://knowledgeleadersfunds.com/

Thank you, @msf
I looked at your sources, and something is not right on the SA GAVIX Dividend TAB.
Regards, Lynn

Wow -- I lock down my computer so only it can login. Today it asked me to get a text "code" message so I could login which I did. I just tried to login and it won't let me. There is no longer phone numbe to call. Only the fraud phone number. Not a good sign... maybe time to dump Vanguard. I've been with them for many years but this sucks to put it bluntly.

Could you explain that?

Insurance companies are essentially financial institutions: They take in money and dole out money, just like a bank does. (Many insurance companies are even branches of large banking conglomerates.) Also, like a bank, they invest the money of its customers and policyholders in interest-earning investments. While the shared risk approach allows for large sums of cash on hand for claims payouts, investments are a long-term financial strategy, to make sure that the insurance company will have cash on hand for payouts years down the line.

https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/auto-insurance/auto-insurance-company2.htm
Also like banks, insurance companies are subject to reserve requirements.
https://www.finweb.com/insurance/how-are-insurance-company-reserve-amounts-determined.html
Financial institutions are not really much different from other kinds of companies, except that they make money on spread (the difference between their payout rate and their investment earnings rate) rather than on real products.
That distinction means financial institutions are swimming in cash. However, it doesn't seem that shareholders, even majority shareholders, can access that cash directly. At best, ISTM that (subject to regulatory guards) Buffett might direct a subsidiary to invest some of its cash in loans to Berkshire Hathaway. But then Berkshire would be borrowing money in much the same way as CEFs (or any other business) borrows money.
In short, premiums are paid to the insurance subsidiary, not to its owner, Berkshire Hathaway.

Some of those subsidiaries--Geico, Duracell, See's Candies--

Just as Berkshire owns and controls entire businesses, so does See's in turn:

See's Candies owns and operates all of our own retail shops. We do not sell franchises, but we do offer a Licensee Program that allows businesses who meet our selling profile to offer See's products in their stores.

https://www.sees.com/help/faqs/
There's one exception to that. A See's retail shop opened three years ago in Greenwich Village in NY. Unlike all its other stores, this is a joint venture between Buffett and the NY owner.
https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/03/21/sample-ready-sees-candies-finally-arrives-in-nyc/
A bit of trivia on this trivia: I believe the corner that the store is near is the corner Joni Mitchell wrote about in her song "For Free". I caught an old video where Ms. Mitchell said it happened at 6th and 8th. There is no 6th St and 8th Ave intersection, so it must have been 8th St and 6th Ave.

Not like a fund or a stock but a hybrid between the two. Because it owns businesses in their entirety and controls their cash flows in their entirety as operating subsidiaries, one cannot analyze its share price relative to the value of its underlying holdings like a CEF. Some of those subsidiaries--Geico, Duracell, See's Candies-- it has owned for many years so there really is no public market value for them to give Berkshire an "NAV." Yet it also has a portfolio of publicly traded securities that you could see as like a mutual fund or CEF. Here is a list of Berkshire's various businesses and investments:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Berkshire_Hathaway

Winter will be grim but the pandemic's end is in sight, and all sorts of economic data is looking promising (housing starts, car sales, plus lots of money in savings accounts). I've been steadily buying and am now up to 80% equities. I mostly bought VDIGX and GPRIX, but that has to do with gaps in my portfolio than with any bets on what part of the market will do best.
Lots can go wrong, and the market can always drop 10-15% for no particular reason, but I think a bad winter is the base assumption now, already priced in.
Then again, I'm also at least hopefully 15 years from retirement and just got a raise, so I can sock away about a third of my salary going forward. If I were retired, as many posters here are, I would be more conservative.

I attended “investment school” only sporadically between 21 and my mid-40s. Getting burned by the bear market in gold post-1980 taught me a lot as I watched the coins I’d bought at the heights of the euphoria steadily loose value while bullion fell more than 50% over a decade or longer. That’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten.
With a fee-based “advisor” managing my workplace plan from around 1971 until the mid-90s I was largely “in the dark“ - as an underlying principal of that profession is to keep clients uneducated about investments and, hence, dependent on them. That said, at least he had me in what was a pretty good fund in those days, TEMWX.
My serious schooling began in the mid 90s after reading in the WSJ how 403B investors, seemingly locked-in at one fiduciary, could easily and legally transfer assets in any amount from that custodian to virtually anyone they wanted to due to an existing legislation loophole. The loophole was in later years plugged, but gave me the opportunity during my final 5-10 years of working and contributing to transfer funds periodically out of Franklin Templeton to other houses and, at the same time, “cut the cord” between myself and the fee-based advisor. Also, around than our workplace plan broadened to allow fee-exempt contributions to T Rowe Price.
Now that I had control over those investments, reading and learning became somewhat of a passion. I found I enjoyed the process. I won’t recount all the newspapers, magazines, books I read back than, as they’re pretty much standard mill and others here have I’m sure also so self indulged. One source stands out. I’d begun reading The Street.com in the late 90s. Bill Fleckenstein published a column on that site and was screaming loudly that something bad was about to happen. So in the late 90 I moved most of my 403B holdings into cash and bonds. The warnings were correct and the tech sector lost something like 75% of its value over the next few years. Broader markets followed suit - to a lesser degree. Likely, it was a case of listening to the right voice at the right time. I’ve learned, however, in subsequent years to take all “expert“ advice with a large grain of salt. If you can’t confirm their bias with your own independent analysis, stand clear of unsolicited financial advice.
On any given day one’s acquired learning may not seem all that momentous or remarkable. But when you put it all together and reflect over whatever your learning period has been it’s remarkable how much each of us has learned. This board is often a source of that learning. Frequently it works indirectly, however, as something discussed here provokes me to dig deeper into a subject on my own.

MWTRX is a good fund but GIBLX has a better record for 1-3-5 years.
Both are not funds I use since I'm mainly a bond investor in the last several years and their past performance (6% average for 3 years) will not happen in the future.
I'm also not impressed by LT record, DODGX had a great record years ago but now it trails the "stupid" index SPY for 10 years already
BTW, I used to be at 80-90% equities until several years prior to retirement where I change gradually to more bonds.

Can you please explain your comment? Are you saying that you won't buy a fund with good performance because it can't keep up? Not sure how you can be confident that a newer fund will outperform established winners. I have substantial positions in both MWTRX and GIBLX, a very big fan of the latter.

For the average Joe investor: KISS investing
1) I believe in using up to 5 (maybe 7) funds
2) The core portion should be about 70% and use very cheap indexes, the rest may be in managed funds that have something special.
3) Hardly trade which means looking at your portfolio 1-2 times annually and make small adjustments of 1-2 funds.
With that in mind:
1) Core: I would use SPY/VTI for most of my stocks. BIV as my generic bond fund.
Explore: PRWCX, VWIAX, PIMIX.
2) Let's check MWTRX and GIBLX in the last 5 years. I don't see MWTRX as anything more/special beyond BIV but GIBLX is different enough which is why I may use it in my explore portion. See 5 year

chart.
1) I'm a flexible investor with specific goals. Making over 6% annually using mainly bond funds, be positive every year, SD < 3, never lose 3% from any last top.
2) I mainly hold very concentrated portfolio of 2-3 funds. I may own a fund, weeks or years. I held PIMIX for 6-7 years, PHMIX for 3 years, IOFIX easily over 50% in the last 3 years.
3) Even if I own a fund for years, I may sell it for days to several weeks when market conditions are extreme which is one of my goals. This is not your usual trader as someone who buys 10 stocks and keep changing them.

Well, BIV and MWTRX will get you to the same place over time...but MWTRX has an SD of 3.53 (Sharpe 1.29) versus 5.19/.89 for BIV (still a big fan of BIV when I don't want to get locked into a mutual fund). I must say FD you are quite impressive in your trading skill, no doubt about that but I do question whether you might also get to the same place just holding quality bond funds like these two and say PIMIX. You say you've had very large positions in IOFAX and I recall you jumping out before it cratered, but had you guessed wrong you would have lost significant life savings in a matter of days. I could not live with that possibility...so I'd rather make my 5% to 6% by combining PIMIX with MWTRX, which is what PV say I would have made on average since 2008.

This gentleman opines:
"The "great rotation" doesn't have to be all that great. In other words, when investors do see a rotation, it may not necessarily mean that all large-cap growth or the "Big 5," i.e. FAAMG, need to be sold.
It could simply mean that large-cap growth and Tech and many of the names seeing multiple expansion with the COVID-19 lockdown spend a year consolidating the gains of the last 4-5 years, as the underperforming styles and sector laggards like Financials and Energy play a little catch-up."
Style-Box Strategy Update: The Great Rotation Begins

With Biden on fire (expectations), daggers from the left and daggers from the right, conservative Supreme court on the head and Trump breathing fire on his neck - interesting time - how you plan to re-position your investment?
My plan -> set automatic investment to PHSKX Virtus KAR Mid-Cap Growth A & VLAAX Value Line Asset Allocation Investor with target allocation to 10%, will sell DSEEX & PARMX to fund.

FD said: "With that in mind:
1) Core: I would use SPY/VTI for most of my stocks. BIV as my generic bond fund.
Explore: PRWCX, VWIAX, PIMIX."
Since PRWCX in your above "Explore" category is closed to new investors, and has been for many years, shouldn't you replace it with another comparable fund for those of us who are not current shareholders? May I suggest you look at VLAAX/VLAIX, for example, a balanced fund that has very similar risk/reward attributes. Of course, any other suggestions are welcome, too.
Fred

MWTRX is a good fund but GIBLX has a better record for 1-3-5 years.
Both are not funds I use since I'm mainly a bond investor in the last several years and their past performance (6% average for 3 years) will not happen in the future.
I'm also not impressed by LT record, DODGX had a great record years ago but now it trails the "stupid" index SPY for 10 years already
BTW, I used to be at 80-90% equities until several years prior to retirement where I change gradually to more bonds.

Can you please explain your comment? Are you saying that you won't buy a fund with good performance because it can't keep up? Not sure how you can be confident that a newer fund will outperform established winners. I have substantial positions in both MWTRX and GIBLX, a very big fan of the latter.

For the average Joe investor: KISS investing
1) I believe in using up to 5 (maybe 7) funds
2) The core portion should be about 70% and use very cheap indexes, the rest may be in managed funds that have something special.
3) Hardly trade which means looking at your portfolio 1-2 times annually and make small adjustments of 1-2 funds.
With that in mind:
1) Core: I would use SPY/VTI for most of my stocks. BIV as my generic bond fund.
Explore: PRWCX, VWIAX, PIMIX.
2) Let's check MWTRX and GIBLX in the last 5 years. I don't see MWTRX as anything more/special beyond BIV but GIBLX is different enough which is why I may use it in my explore portion. See 5 year chart.
My style isn't recommended to anybody.
1) I'm a flexible investor with specific goals. Making over 6% annually using mainly bond funds, be positive every year, SD < 3, never lose 3% from any last top.
2) I mainly hold very concentrated portfolio of 2-3 funds. I may own a fund, weeks or years. I held PIMIX for 6-7 years, PHMIX for 3 years, IOFIX easily over 50% in the last 3 years.
3) Even if I own a fund for years, I may sell it for days to several weeks when market conditions are extreme which is one of my goals. This is not your usual trader as someone who buys 10 stocks and keep changing them.

MWTRX is a good fund but GIBLX has a better record for 1-3-5 years.
Both are not funds I use since I'm mainly a bond investor in the last several years and their past performance (6% average for 3 years) will not happen in the future.
I'm also not impressed by LT record, DODGX had a great record years ago but now it trails the "stupid" index SPY for 10 years already
BTW, I used to be at 80-90% equities until several years prior to retirement where I change gradually to more bonds.

Can you please explain your comment? Are you saying that you won't buy a fund with good performance because it can't keep up? Not sure how you can be confident that a newer fund will outperform established winners. I have substantial positions in both MWTRX and GIBLX, a very big fan of the latter.

Had a long talk with Ms. Geritz last week. Wonderfully grounded person. Ms. So will join her on the four-star New World fund, which is primarily emerging markets. She made two arguments about the hire: (1) she's brilliant, why on earth wouldn't I ask her to join us? And (2) she has strengths distinctly complementary to my own.
There is no immediate plan to launch a smaller company / smaller country EM strategy but, five to ten years out, it would be nice. For now, they'll continue hunting for the highest quality businesses with market caps over $1.5 billion that they can find.
Assets are coming in, though slowly. Ms. Geritz still hasn't paid herself and won't until the firm is financially self-sustaining. I should imagine that that contributed to Mr. Engelmann's hiring.
We'll profile the smaller of her two funds, Rondure Overseas, in December.
For what that's worth,
David

From an email I received today from Rondure Global Advisors:
Dear Investor,
We are pleased to announce Rondure Global Advisors recently added two industry veterans to the team. Lydia So, CFA joins Rondure as a portfolio manager for the Rondure New World Fund (RNWOX) after having spent the past 15 years with Matthews Asia, managing portfolios since 2008. She will have a secondary focus on developed markets outside the US. Karl R.S. Engelmann, a 27-year industry veteran, also recently joined the Rondure Global team as a Senior Vice President of Client Service and Business Development after having spent the past 18 years with Cambiar Investors. He will be responsible for maintaining client relationships and building new relationships in the institutional, bank trust, and retail channels for Rondure.
Said Rondure Global Founder and CEO, Laura Geritz, CFA, “We are thrilled to have two incredibly talented industry veterans join Rondure at such an exciting time in our growth as a firm. Lydia brings tremendous depth of experience in international and emerging markets and shares a similar investment approach that will greatly enhance our quality of research and strengthen our team. Likewise, Karl brings similar depth to the business side of the firm with significant experience in building lasting relationships across all channels. Both Lydia and Karl will be an integral part of the continued growth of the firm and I am excited to work alongside both of them.”
Ms. Lydia So shared, “I am thrilled to join this great organization alongside high caliber people in such a collegial environment. Laura and I share the same investment philosophy and passion for uncovering opportunities anywhere in the world. I believe that an active, all-cap, unconstrained approach is to key to generating long-term success. I look forward to contributing to Rondure and driving long-term results for our clients.”
Mr. Engelmann stated, “I have a great admiration for Rondure’s long-term and disciplined investment approach in finding quality compounders and in the firm's unwavering commitment to clients to deliver a consistent strategy over time. I look forward to helping with Rondure’s continued growth and developing great long-term relationships with our clients.”​
Please click here to read the full release. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
https://www.rondureglobal.com/documents/rondureglobal-pr-20201112.pdf
Sincerely,​
Crystal Gourley
Head of Sales and Client Relations
Rondure Global Advisors
136 S. Main Street, Suite 720
Salt Lake City, Utah 84101
801.736.8555
[email protected]
The objective of both the Rondure New World Fund and Rondure Overseas Fund is long-term growth of capital. ​
RISKS: Mutual fund investing involves risks and loss of principal is possible. Investing in foreign securities entails special risks, such as currency fluctuations and political uncertainties, which are described in more detail in the prospectus. Investments in emerging markets are subject to the same risks as other foreign securities and may be subject to greater risks than investments in foreign countries with more established economies and securities markets. ​
An investment in the Rondure Funds involves risk, including loss of principal. An investor should consider objectives, risks, charges, and expenses carefully before investing. To obtain a prospectus containing this and other information, visit www.rondurefunds.com or call 1-855-755-3337. Please read it carefully before investing.
​Wasatch Advisors is not affiliated with Rondure Global Advisors.
​
Rondure Global Advisors and Wasatch Advisors are not affiliated with ALPS Distributors, Inc. Rondure Funds are distributed by ALPS Distributors, Inc. ("ADI"). Crystal Gourley and Karl Engelmann are registered representatives of ADI.
​RON000339 exp. 11/12/2022

I never promote must have of anything. Each investor should do whatever they feel comfortable about. I'm a trader for 20 years with a great track record. I'm not your typical trader, I'm trading mutual funds based on momentum and good risk/reward. My trading habits are a lot faster now than 10-15 years ago.
MWTRX is a good fund but GIBLX has a better record for 1-3-5 years.
Both are not funds I use since I'm mainly a bond investor in the last several years and their past performance (6% average for 3 years) will not happen in the future.
I'm also not impressed by LT record, DODGX had a great record years ago but now it trails the "stupid" index SPY for 10 years already
BTW, I used to be at 80-90% equities until several years prior to retirement where I change gradually to more bonds.

@FD1000

I'm not a long term holder but a trader and avoided the big losses of March 2020.

Were they really big losses?
If you had instead, not sold and just held your positions the draw down for JASVX was 6% in March of 2020. By May of 2020 you would have recovered from that loss without timing the market.
Had you been taking monthly withdrawals, those withdrawals would have been impacted slightly over 2 months. Having a 3-6 month cash position for withdrawals would solve that problem.
To be fair, IOFIX and SEMMX have yet to recover. Owning these two funds (that exhibit deep draw downs and slow recovers) may not the best choice for those seeking "yield with safety". I learn this the hard way owning THOPX.

JASVX - Hindsight is a great thing when you can look back until today :-)
I have used PIMIX until 01/2018, SEMMX for most of 2018 and then IOFIX in 2019+2020. HOBIX,JASVX are funds I started using in 2020.
The above are all mentioned on my thread (link)
JASVX - at least one of the managers came from SEMMX but it did much better than SEMMX. I love fresh new funds where the managers can do better.
These funds can have very good risk/reward for months, even years, until markets are volatile and why I exit. VIX > 35-40 is a good indicator of that.