Hi, ff!
Sorry, but I left after about 25 minutes. At that point, the focus of the talk still wasn't clear. I think, based on the teaser, that he was going to endorse investing in the EMs but that hadn't yet been mentioned. My departure was mostly occasioned by matters of style.
The one argument he made appeared to be that asset allocation is irrelevant, only expenses matter. He attempted to substantiate that with a reference to a series of "guru" portfolios that he constructed and modeled over (I believe) a quarter century. Before expenses, differences in returns were negligible (I believe he said 2%) and after imposing a uniform 1.25% expense ratio on the portfolios, the differences collapsed to nothing.
I hedge with "I believe" because this wasn't an argument being carefully laid out, it appeared to be a sort of fly-by of a talk he'd given in Las Vegas. Because I'm not a member of AAII, I don't have the ability to download conference presentations. Sorry.
I found the method suspect (why 1.25% on Buffett's rec to buy the S&P500 index or on the Permanent Portfolio, which charges 0.88?) and the conclusions unpersuasive (since they didn't, for example, take into account risk which influences an investor's willingness to hold on to portfolio). A real-world test of this claim is available by looking at the long-term performance of a family's target date funds, which differ only by asset allocation. In the case, for example, of the Wells Fargo funds, the most long-dated fund has returned 7.5% APR for 25 years and the most short-dated one has return 4.6%. On an initial investment of $10,000, that's the difference between a $30,000 portfolio and a $60,000 portfolio.
The longest-dated fund has also had a 50% max drawdown against 10% for the shortest-dated one.
I have no opinion about the Cambria ETFs themselves, since I haven't had occasion to study them closely though I believe Charles has. In broad terms, there are twelve with a 13th in registration. Eight of the 12 have trailed their Lipper peers on a total return basis since inception, four have led them. Six have trailed by more than a percentage point a year, one has led by more than a percentage point a year. Eight of 11 rated funds have MFO ratings in one of the bottom two tiers, one has a rating in the top tier and one is too new to be rated. Expenses range from 0.34 (GAA) - 1.23% (CCOR).
David

I was interested to see David endorse Homestead Value, or more specifically the firm behind the fund. HOLVX seems to be doing fine at this point, having survived a total management changeover in 2017. At that time, Mark Ashton and his team all stepped down from that fund and also from another former good fund, HSCSX. The small company fund had shot the lights out up until the changes. Both the value fund and the SC fund declared massive distributions for two years, as is often the case when new managers take over and start selling. I would tread cautiously given the disastrous (-26%) 2018 that HSCSX posted under new managers Prabha Carpenter and James Polk, as they are the two running the value fund also. I know Homestead because I used to own HSCSX and now own Homestead Growth, a fine find that is managed by T. Rowe Price.

Although I have never owned LEXCX I have owned, in the past, a fund which is the modern day version of LEXCX. It is IACLX (Corporate Leaders 100). It holds and equally weights the top S&P 100 companies and has a value approach as it rebalances quarterly. And, over the past five years IACLX has out performed LEXCX.
In reducing the number of funds that I owned, several years back, I discarded IACLX. However, I did keep it in my son's (age 33) Roth account which I have oversight over. Although it has not been one of his top producers it is one of his steady Eddie equity funds and carries three stars from M*. It's ten year average total return is better than ten percent which, in gereral and on average, are what stocks are suppose to do.

Agree with @MikeM (assuming he means “Better safe than sorry” here).
You don’t know until it’s you out of your life’s work with ongoing expenses and at the mercy of what we collectively term “the markets”. Guess wrong and you might find yourself out looking for a job on your 95th birthday.
I’’m atypical in that I have a DB pension. Wish everybody did. So with that I went 6-7 years into retirement without having to touch the IRA. If you can do that, it’s a great way to build up that nest egg. But 4% yearly? I’ve been able to take a bit more than that over the past 10-12 years and not really “ding” the balance. In fact it’s grown. But I’ve been lucky. Most years I pull 5-7% out. But a couple years, for new car purchases, it’s been a bit higher than 7%.
I doubt the linked OP article even addresses the traditional vs Roth issue. If you’re pulling $$ from a Roth IRA, it’s quite likely that $10 withdrawn from that Roth will buy you as much as $12-$15 pulled from a traditional IRA would (after taxes are accounted for). So, with a Roth, you need to pull out a significantly smaller percentage to maintain the same lifestyle.
The markets are a real wild card. I’d be loath to try and draw too many conclusions from the past 10 or even 20 years. That’s too short of time. History has a much longer memory. Final comment - It seems as if the bond market is hooked on “downers” today while the equity markets are doing steroids. One wonders how long that dichotomy can persist.

A lot of optimism in this collection of reports. The tricky question is, is this one of those Christmas rally years? I'm thinking so, but I tend to be wrong 50% of the time, same as a flip of the coin. I may play the game this year.

"They know best." And they don't care how long it takes to fix things.
They're taking features from Premium and making them part of more expensive institutional packages, IIRC. And the site redesign is catering toward (allegedly) a younger crowd ... their badge-worthy forum, which I quit after many years this summer, certainly is - but not getting much traction.

This sounds like a rhetorical question, but it's not. I would truly like to know:
How can the people running the Morningstar website be so stupid? They can read. They have had plenty of honest feedback from their users. What are they doing? They could easily fix it. What is going on?

Hi Catch,
Thanks for the info. Since I'm slowly going into energy, this post is of importance. Have heard from several reads they expect oil to rise in 2 to 3 years.....due to lack of investment by companies because of price. And we all know how oil prices fluctuate over time. Thanks, bro.
God bless
the Pudd
p.s.
A few years back when oil crashed and fracking went bust for a while, there was a cat dealer whose place was overrun with equipment for months because of fracking from upstate PA. Have started to see it again.
......also......
Ted, go to bed!

This topic could affect some of your holdings that are more focused in this sector.
Frackers scrap field equipment
Real estate prices and development went wacko several years ago when the Bakken fields were put into production. I've not checked prices for years, but those first in and first out made some serious cash. This area may not be affected by fracking downturn. Oklahoma and Texas, perhaps more so. Williston, ND prices still look pricey to me.
Williston ND real estate Zillow

Thanks Ted. The third British general election in four years (!!!) is now underway. I think the Conservatives will win again, but they may have to form an alliance with Nigel Farage's Brexit Party to gain overall control and finally push through Brexit. The Labour Party's policies of mass renationalization and tax increases for the middle classes are probably unpalitable to a great many voters.
Following the Fed cut yesterday a couple of my low duration bond funds dropped a tick or two, and a couple rose a tick (including DLSNX). My ultrashort funds (TRBUX, SEMRX) were on best behavior as always and slept through it all.

Retirement accounts are prevented from buying or exchanging into tax-free mutual funds through the electronic channels.

Wow, that seems very strange to me that a fund company would decide what is acceptable in your portfolio. I don't believe Schwab does that. I've owned a municipal bond ETF for the last couple years, PZA, in my IRA with pretty good results in total return and a nice 4.7% yield. I could be fooling myself but I think of it as lower risk than say corporate bonds.

I was a paid M* user for years but quit 2 years ago given the neverending site woes, bad data, redesign, etc.
I've found much of the data points I need for stock or fund analysis are on SeekingAlpha, for free, and in a much more usable format. And of course, MFO Premium is a rock-solid resource, too!

@hank and others.
I like to find favor in folks for the good they bring to the board rather than hit on them for their short comings.
For sure, I don't read everything that Ted puts up. But, once in a while I find a real gem among his many postings that offers me some meaningful information.
I'm thinking we are better off letting Ted have some latitude. I remember when he was sick and away from the board a few years back and the board suffered for his lack of posting daily reading material.
And, yes ... Ted's many rapid fire post has bothered me, at times, especially when I've made a post in the morning just to have Ted cover mine up with his onslaught of many rapid fire post. Please know, though, I'm also thankful for those that have made comment on my post bummping it back to the front of the stack. Even with this, I also feel, Ted is within his rights to put up as many post as he wishes as long as they are germaine to the board.
So ... Why don't we let David decide if he wishes to take Ted to the woodshed over this?
Respectfully,
Old_Skeet

I was a subscriber for a few years after the financial crash and agree that the changes are lamentable. When looking for new funds to buy the 'Purchase' tab was so helpful viewing the different share classes and expenses etc.
Dryflower, is this what you are missing? Click on the 'Equity Prices' tab at left above the list of securities and you can see daily prices. Change the ticker to the fund you want in the address bar. It's the only way to do it.
http://portfolios.morningstar.com/fund/holdings?t=DODGX&region=usa&culture=en-US

In prior years I held ADX (Adams Express) in my closedend fund sleeve along with GAM (General American Investors) and USA (LIberty All Star Investor). Another closedend fund that I held from time to time was RVT (Royce Value Trust). One of my favorite was AMO (All Market Opportunity) which is no more.
Some of the oldest open end mutual funds, that are still active, are MITTX, MFS Mass. Investors Fund and, PIODX, Pioneer Fund (1928). There are some others that date back to the Great Depression era.

The foreign dividend payers are a good place to look for yield. My sleeve of global dividend paying equity mutual funds has a higher yield than my sleeve of domestic dividend paying equity mutual funds. With this, and most likely, I'll be putting some money to work in my global dividend paying equity funds come December after my equity mutual funds have made their yearend capital gains distributions
My current investing goal is to not only to grow my principal; but, my portfolio's yield as well. With this, as mutual funds found in the growth area of my portfolio make thier yearend capital gain distributions I plan to buy (with these distributions) in the growth and income area of portfolio thus increasing my portfolio's yield while at the same time allowing for some continued capital appreciation. Over the past rolling twelve months I've increased my portfolio's income stream by 13% mostly due to it's reconfguration which I began late last fall. It will be interesting to see how 2018 yearend statement compares to 2019's. I'm thinking both income generation and valuation will be up over last years closing statement.
I'm also thinking that my asset allocation will continue to bubble somewhere around 20% cash, 40% income and 40% equity. Within the 40% equity allocation I plan to grow my dividend payers and slightly reduce my capital appreciation (growth) funds by redirecting future capital gain distributions into the dividend payers over putting them back into my growth funds.

I agree with the author on this issue. I hold 15-20% of my portfolio in foreign stocks funds for diversification purposes, but see no need for higher percentages. Foreign stocks have been a drag on my portfolio for the past 10 years, but I also remember a time when they outperformed for many years.

D.F. Dent
Father and son work together here. Daniel F. Dent runs the Premier Growth fund (DFDPX) with his son Matthew. Both have over $1m invested. Matthew also co-manages the Midcap Growth Fund (DFDMX) again with over a million of his own money invested. Daniel has been manager of Premier Growth for 18 years and Matthew manager of Midcap Growth for 8 years.
The more I read about this outfit the more I like them and their funds. However, there was a 3 year period of relative underperformance from 2014-16 in both funds but they have shined since. The expense ratios are on the high side and I wonder if this partially explains why the AUM in each fund is still so small. Then again AKREX has grown into a $12bn fund with an even higher expense ratio.

A good list that was, but I memorize only some of your posts over time, not all of them. Davidson is famously good, I shoulda thought of him. GMiller I do not know, but good to be aware of such outstanding work.
Yes, Tilllinghast's penchant for non-US equities, almost 38% as of a few months ago, has often been a drag, especially the last few years, and this has been much commented on. I wonder why FLPSX had less of a drawdown a year ago.
Miller's notable Victory Sycamore has the lowest 15y UI in MFOP, moreover, again probably in part because its mandate excludes foreign equities. A value fund triumph.

I don't look for managers who "rule", just ones whom I reasonably believe will turn in an above average performance over time. However, since we're talking about a MCV fund manager, why not look at my 2012 list of MCV funds?
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/3176/thoughts-on-mid-cap-value-watch-list
Two of those five funds no longer have the same lead manager. NSEIX (hardly a surprise, longevity was a risk back then), and MSAIX (a fund that promptly dropped into the bottom half each year after my mention, except for its 47th percentile showing in 2018).
But the other three have had the same lead managers for 15+ years. They're all fine; I don't see FLPSX standing out.

Fund    15 year     2008 (Q4)          3Q2015   4Q2018  
FLPSX   9.14%    -36.17% (-20.73%)     -6.20%   -13.54%
ACMVX  10.45%    -24.49% (-18.96%)     -6.34%   -14.96%
JAMCX   8.95%    -33.24% (-21.70%)     -7.38%   -14.88%
VETAX  10.84%    -33.10% (aprox-19%)   -4.44%   -15.29%

JAMCX https://connect.rightprospectus.com/JPMorgan/TADF/339128308/P?site=JPMorgan
ACMVX https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/908186/000090818609000024/pea44-2009.htm
VETAX https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/802716/000110465909013154/a09-4636_1485bpos.htm
These four alone constitute 4% of MCV funds according to M*. They can't all be the rare 3% :-)

I was just looking at 15y return, as LB mentioned, of the rare individual managers I am aware of (I am missing some, I am positive) who have worked that long nonstop, compared w various indexes.
(FLPSX is not easy to compare fairly, prospectus notwithstanding, because of its usual large foreign slug, in some periods thought to be a good thing.)
Tillinghast is only 61yo, so if I were going to invest for 15 more years I would consider his work seriously.
Puglia is a bit younger.
Did not say it screams 'buy me'. Whose work does that for you? 'Absolutely rule' meant outperforms almost all others over that long haul. Whom do you have in mind for top rankings over the long hauyl?
am reading now about DCohen and Scherschmidt, at
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkam/2019/02/08/investing-with-the-greatest-mutual-fund-managers-2/#2c08d7db2a71
also these guys. Fried is sometimes mentioned in such articles.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkam/2018/06/08/greatest-fund-managers-redux-4-that-are-keepers/#496a96a3554f
Puglia is not commonly mentioned anywhere that I can see. His big runup is recent, looks like.
All three of the POAGX guys' stints hit 15y end of this week.
Should also do a search of these names on MFO and MFOP.