The fact is you don't want stupid people in charge of any government agency but for obvious reasons this Fed appointment is getting the most attention. I am far more concerned about idiot Trump appointees in charge of for instance the Department of Energy which is responsible for our nuclear arsenal or the Department of Agriculture responsible for food stamp and food safety or the Department of Education: https://vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis
That said, if the U.S. were to lose its world reserve currency status I think it would be game over for us as a superpower and our markets would crash, especially the ones we often view as the safest--Treasuries.

Trump’s decision to consider close political allies for the central bank comes at a sensitive moment for the world economy and the IMF.

When isn't it a sensitive moment? The problem is having nationalists in charge of the world's most powerful country when we're now living--and have for at least 100 years-- in a global economy in which everything is intricately linked.

@jerry et al I don't disagree about a time frame chosen by Fidelity. They know better than any of us about the internals.
A couple of notes for the curious.
FSMEX and fund assets for the past few years.
2016 remained mostly around for the year for each month. I suspect, although did not check; this flatness to be the same for 2015, as that year was pretty much sideways for health funds in general.
---2016, avg. monthly assets =$2 billion
---2017, Aug. = $4 billion
---2018, Oct. = $6.3 billion
---2019, Mar./early April = $7 billion
Not a fair and fully just comparison, but FSPHX (broad-based health), which has been in place since 1981 and is very well known and respected, currently has $7.2 billion of managed assets.
Lastly, we did a test trade and for those having a position in FSMEX, all is well for purchase at this time. I suspect the same holds true for as long as access is allowed where this fund exists within 401k's, 403's, etc. Obviously, a lot of money may still flow to this fund.
ADD: Fidelity closed the FDGRX fund to new money in 2006. However, notice was provided as to a time frame. I don't recall exactly, but suggest the cut off was within a 3 month period. But, the fund remains open to adding money from existing fund holders, including where available in 401k/403b type retirement accounts.
Good evening,
Catch

FYI: Patience is usually considered to be a virtue except when it comes to investing. Investors are notoriously impatient when the funds they are in underperform the market for a few years. The magic number seems to be three. Key investment lessons from the financial crisis with Ariel Investments’ Charlie Bobrinskoy.
Regards,
Ted
https://wealthtrack.com/financial-crisis-survival-lessons-beats-market-peers-since-bottom-ariel-fund/
M* Snapshot ARFFX:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/arffx/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot ARFFX:
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/arffx
ARFFX Is Ranked #151 In The (LCV) fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
https://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/large-value/ariel-focus-fund/arffx

Gets confusing. Macquire runs a fine infrastructure investment complex. Oppenheimer, where I have a bit, apparently farms out their infrastructure fund to Macquire to manage (OQGAX). Not a great record since Oppenheimer got involved - but they’ve only had it a year or so. I have small hold in it. Me thinks Macquire may be based in Australia, as a lot of their holdings are there.
On another front, Invesco is taking over Oppenheimer. Got a bunch of paperwork + proxies on the complex deal. Looks like Invesco will continue to run the current lineup of Oppenheimer funds alongside theirs - at first anyway. Firm commitment not to exceed current ER on all the funds for 3 years.
Invesco sounds, if anything, even higher fee and lower regarded than Oppenheimer.

Ive held IHI for 3 years,and have not been sorry I chose it over FSMEX, returns exceed ytd, 1, 3, 5 and 10 year over Fidelity's fund, which I did look at when choosing, but since I have FSPHX, same manager as FSMEX, chose IHI.

FSMEX is a health care fund, but travels the technology/medical devices path.
I don't know how fresh is this close, but I don't recall seeing any notice a few weeks ago while looking at things within Fidelity. Anyway, from recall in 2018; I do believe the size of this fund moved from about $4.6 billion to almost $7 billion now, in less than 1 years time.
I'll get back here with a handy-dandy chart of this fund and related. The charting is not being cooperative right now.
Catch

@Catch22- Ask, and you shall receive. (Maybe... but don't count on it.) The following excerpts from the Wall Street Journal article, which I believe that you were interested in, were selected and edited for brevity.
"The magnitude and speed of the market’s recovery [so far this year] helped three Morgan Stanley mutual funds land in the top six in The Wall Street Journal’s first quarterly Winners’ Circle contest of 2019.
Top laurels, meanwhile, were again won by two Fidelity Investments funds that focus on growth companies. Fidelity Advisor Series Growth Opportunities Fund (FAOFX) repeated as the best-performing stock fund over the previous 12 months. (Under our contest rules, funds must be diversified U.S.-stock funds, actively managed, with at least $50 million in assets and a record of no less than three years.) The fund posted a 12-month return of 38% as of March 31. Fidelity Advisor Growth Opportunities (FAGOX), was again No. 2 with 33.5%.
Readers shouldn’t treat this as a list of recommended funds. Often, the managers recognized in our contest are reaping the fruits of investments made several years ago and have endured periods of underperformance en route to their moment in the spotlight. It is also worth noting, this month, that our top-performing fund can’t be accessed directly by investors; instead, it is an underlying investment in Fidelity Freedom Funds and certain asset-management programs. Our rankings exclude passive investment vehicles, sector funds, funds that use leverage to amplify returns or manage risk, and quantitative funds that employ screens to select their holdings."

Possibly a graduate of The Bernie Madoff School of Accounting?
Haven’t watched entire video. From the mentioned discussion point it seems he’s attempting to demonstrate that an equal probability of risk (ie loss) can be achieved by investing 8X the amount of money in 2-year T Bills as in stocks. And at the same time he seems to be suggesting that the potential gains would be 8X higher with his bond position as for stocks with only equal amounts of downside risk. Be suspicious of his claim that “everybody in the business knows this”. (Get the feeling you’re being talked down to?)
The analysis is incomplete / faulty on many levels. His 16% assumption about the “average” stock market sell-off / gain is out of thin air. He cites a 16% sell-off last December as some sort of proof. Obviously, a stock sell-off / gain can be of greater or lesser magnitude (and not necessarily equal). He claims treasury bonds were the only asset class to increase in value in December 2018. Misses completely that gold climbed 5% during the month.
He seems to imply that a half-percent cut in the fed rate would translate into a 2% increase in the value of 2 year Treasury. That might be true, I can’t find any charts or calculators that might prove or disprove the assumption. But I also doubt that the correlation is as direct as he suggests.
His case rests on the assumption that by multiplying the bond term (2 years) X 8 you come up with a risk quotient equal to that magical (probable) 16% gain or loss in equities. Somehow this is supposed to translate into 8X the gain potential in 2 year treasuries as for equities. Makes no sense (he’s comparing entirely different concepts). However, it’s impossible to analyze precisely without at least knowing how much the value of that 2-year bond would be affected by a half-percent drop in rates.
Confuse, offucsate and misdirect - Maybe no one will notice. :) Possibly Mack didn’t understand - or it’s equally possible she decided to let the idiot’s words speak for themselves.

Purchased MSCFX after it made 2018 distributions. It is a small cap core fund. Also have PRDSX being a quant fund for growth.
If you don't care about expenses, WMICX (small cap core) has been on a tear the last several years.

I think I've suggested PRDSX to you before? I'm sticking with it. If I'm not mistaken, its mandate and methodology became explicitly "quant" along the way, and I'm pretty happy with the change. Strong long-term performance: +17.72% compounded over past 10 years. In the current run-up, it's up +18.68, putting it in the middle of the pack.
But consider: "Quantitatively driven T. Rowe Price QM U.S. Small-Cap Growth Equity is an excellent option for investors seeking low-priced exposure to the MSCI U.S. Small Cap Growth Index...." So, if Morningstar's analyst is not "all wet," PRDSX is not MEANT to actually stand out from all the rest.

In addition to John Oliver’s focus on investing in mobile homes, you might also want to invest in mobile home parks. Some reasons (From Mobile Home University):
- “From the New York Times to Bloomberg, mobile home park investing is starting to be recognized as an attractive real estate sector ... Mobile home parks have the highest yields in commercial real estate, with starting cap rates often over 10%, and cash-on-cash returns of 20% standard fare.”
- “If you believe that the U.S. economy will continue to decline in the years ahead, ... then mobile home parks are virtually the only form of real estate that performs better in a recession. ... Over 20% of the U.S. population has a household income of $20,000 per year or less (which is nearly the poverty line). As America gets poorer, mobile home parks are the only form of housing devoted to this demographic ...
- “One reason that mobile home parks have long held their value is the simple fact that virtually no city or town in the U.S. will allow new parks to be built. Why? Nobody wants a mobile home park as a neighbor, and their vocal dislike for mobile home parks eliminates any chance of political approval.”
- “Another interesting barrier is the difficulty tenants have in moving their home out of a mobile home park. It costs around $5,000 to move a mobile home, so virtually no tenants can ever afford to move. As a result, the revenues of mobile home parks are unbelievably stable.”
https://www.mobilehomeuniversity.com/articles/why-invest-in-mobile-home-parks.php

@BenWP @Old_Joe
Ben, OJ was very involved with writing a user guide and sorting out bugs with testing and related during the birth of MFO.
A site search indicates the word, paramecium; had previously never been used at this site in text discussion.
ADD: I've met two politicians in Michigan over the years who were not far evolved from a paramecium.

Agreed! I'd pay up to maybe .90 for that (which I do for PRBLX) but 1.32 is too much.
Also noted this fund has only been around for 5-ish years so it's really thrived as growth funds thrived. Let's see how it handles the ext GFC before getting too excited..

If the fund has little turnover (a good thing), then what do they do that requires a 1.32% ER (not a good thing)?

Here's an ungodly long link from a M* chart, showing that MOAT's cumulative performance over DSENX is about 20% for last 3 years. The 5 year period, not shown here, is similarly favorable for MOAT. I wish I could be as cool as @catch22 with my chart.
http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/etf/chart.action?t=MOAT&region=usa&&dataParams={"zoomKey":7,"version":"US","showNav":true,"mainSettingId":"main","navSettingId":"nav","benchmarkSettingId":"benchmark","sliderBgSettingId":"sliderBg","volumeSettingId":"volume","id":"F00000O2CJ|F00000QBC0","type":"FE|FO","region":"USA","name":"ARCX:MOAT|XNAS:DSENX","qsType":"USA:MOAT|F00000QBC0","baseCurrency":"USD","defaultBenchmarks":["$FOCA$LB$$|Large Blend|CA]FE","XIUSA04G92|S&P 500 TR USD|XI"],"hideDividendMenu":false,"startDay":"04/09/2016","endDay":"04/08/2019","chartWidth":955}

I've admired this managers skills even way back when he ran FBR Focus. When I moved my retirement money to Schwab back in 2014, I think I remember AKREX had a TF to buy, so decided not to hold it.
Long story short, I noticed no TF at schwab now so I decided to do a 1 for 1 swap. Back in Feb. I bought AKREX to take the place of GTLOX, another really good large cap growth fund. So now I hold the manager I've wanted for the last 10 years.

@MikeM and @davidmoran: I did overstate the performance figures for MOAT vs. DSENX. I relied on the "chart" function on M* which has cumulative performance. 3 years +22.76% for DSENX and +41.98% for MOAT, but the 5-year difference is not huge. MOAT made a very wise modification to its methodology after a bad 2015 when the fund wound up with a slew of energy companies at the wrong time. They doubled the number of stocks and abandoned the quarterly rejiggering of the whole portfolio, producing fine results. All-in-all, it's an endorsement of the M*'s wide-moat strategy with which I'm happy. I have advocated previously for MOAT here, but my voice has been drowned out by waves of postings and complaints about their frequency. For a few years I owned BFOR and MOAT, but the latter has left the former in the dust. The so-called GAARP fund from Barron's has really disappointed.

FYI: Akre Focus Fund (AKREX) takes buy-and-hold investing to heart, often holding the same small group of stocks for years at a time.
The $9.8 billion mutual fund, which was up more than 19% in the first quarter of this year, currently has 22 holdings that the fund managers believe compound shareholder capital at above-average rates of return. Investments are made based on four criteria, says John Neff, one of the fund’s portfolio managers.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-funds-long-time-frame-forever-11554688920
M* Snapshot AKREX:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/akrex/quote.html

Yeah, the last couple years many value-ish ETFs have outperformed (hardly clocked) DSE_X and CAPE; I have posted about this a couple of times as I have been seeking alternatives to CAPE, although not specifically mentioning MOAT.

@johnN: The link below will take you to a December 2015 post that I made about my asset allocation. It seems, I was at this time just moving to about 20% cash, 30% income, 35% growth and income and 15% growth asset allocation. Prior to that, based upon my recollection, I was at about 15% cash, 25% income, 40% growth & income and 20% growth asset allocation. Most likely, I was at an asset allocation of about 10% cash, 20% income, 40% growth & income and 30% growth during the time span you inquired about (2009-2010).
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/24926/old-skeet-s-new-portfolio-asset-allocations-2016#latest
I'll keep looking and if I come up with something else I'll post it.
And, here is something else that I came up with that dates back to March of 2012 as how I went about adjusting my asset allocation. Perhaps, it will be of some interest.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/2501/a-system-i-use-to-adjust-my-asset-allocation#latest
As you can see through the years; and, as I have aged, I have reduced my allocation to equities and raised my allocation to income while cash has stayed about the same except when I was positioned for the 2009-2010 stock market rebound. Back then cash was at about 10%. One reason that I hold excess cash is that it provides me the opportunity to open special equity spiff positions form time-to-time should I feel this is warranted. This is something that I have done for a good number of years ... and, I still do form time-to-time. However, I did not put a spiff in play during the last market swoon (4th Quarter of 2018) as I was in the process of rebalancing and reconfiguring my portfolio. Howerver, I did leave myself +5% equity heavy during this last rebalance process to tactically overweighting equities from my newely established asset allocation of 20% Cash, 40% Income, 30% Gr & Inc and 10% Growth. With this, my Growth Area is now +5% heavy while my Cash Area is -5% light from their neutral positions due to this tactical overweight positioning in equities.

...
(With nonretirement-account losses able to 'detax' any gains for years to come, I have been pondering recently, as I raise cashflow from both rollovers and Roths per ORP, whether the taxfree future of my Roths really matters.)

Different ways of viewing it for sure. In pure dollars and cents the linked article probably makes sense. Did 3 conversions. First & biggest in March ‘09. Motivation was primarily to reduce by at least 50% the RMDs that would be coming down the road in a few more years. (And there are years when the only distribution comes from the traditional.)
While they’re invested conservatively (like the traditional IRAs) I vowed never to keep a cash position in any of the Roths. That has probaby made the biggest difference in their outperformance. Also, I avoid holding newer untested funds in the Roths. Deserve a bit extra care.