He certainly seems to have lost his touch, but I think he's enjoyed periods of great success not necessarily linked to BRK.

Was some periods of 'great success' lucky or brilliant? I would say the definition of a brilliant investor is one with more wins than losses over his career, hardly the case for this guy. I don't have past portfolio data, but my recollection is he was invested 20-30% in BRK throughout his good years. Another 20% range in cash. That's likely where stability and steady growth came from. I think he may have sold BRK and replaced it with another holding company, Leucadia(?) rings a bell. In any case, that was the down turn I saw along with his 'brilliant' investments in St. Joe's, Sears and Fannie mae.
@ Charles, we'll have to disagree. In my perception and in retrospect he never has had "a touch".
By the way, I never owned FAIRX, but I did buy into the FAAFX fund, thinking this guy did have a magic touch and was a special investor. I'll admit now I was duped. Bought at inception and held for a just couple years. Sold when his "persistence" just seemed to be the inability to admit mistakes.

@MFO Members: In my opinion, Royce has never been the same since joining forces with Legg Mason about twenty years ago:
Regards,
Ted
History Of Royce Funds:
https://www.roycefunds.com/about/history/

FYI: Below is a look at the percentage of total world stock market cap that each country’s stock market makes up. For each country, we show its percentage of world market cap as of today, as it stood on 9/20 when the S&P 500 made its last all-time high, as it stood on election day 2016, and as it stood 10 years ago.
The US currently makes up 39.81% of world stock market cap, which is more than 30 percentage points more than the next closest country — Japan — at 7.76%.
Note that Japan has moved into second place after being well behind China in November 2016. While the US has gained more than 3 percentage points of global market cap share since Trump was elected, China has lost a significant amount — falling from 10.21% down to 7.54%. At least based on this measure, Trump’s trade fight with China has benefited the US at the expense of China.
Hong Kong remarkably makes up 6.75% of world stock market cap, which is well ahead of the UK (4.41%), France (3.14%), Germany (2.83%), and Canada (2.74%).
Since the 9/20 peak for the S&P 500, the US has lost 0.49 percentage points of share, while China, Hong Kong, and Brazil have seen the biggest gains, so things have tightened a little bit between the US and China during the recent sell-off here in the US.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/country-stock-markets-as-a-percent-of-world/

@MikeM. He certainly seems to have lost his touch, but I think he's enjoyed periods of great success not necessarily linked to BRK.
FAIRX got me through the 2000's. Invested heavy and fairly early with BAC on his strong recommendation. But I also invested heavy in FAAFX, which I believe was mismanaged never really delivered ... not yet anyway.
I was a fan. And I had some good company.
Here's a great article from Fortune 2010 ...
Bruce Berkowitz: The megamind of Miami
But he clearly misunderstood what his early investors were attracted too ... excess performance with lower volatility. Super concentrated in banks early and the fund has been extremely volatile ever since.
Yes @Shostakovich, overtime the Fairholme shop seemed mismanaged, with lots of personnel changes. (Fernandez I think ... "my Charlie Munger," BB called him.) And there were others.
Closed and re-opened several times. BB became active in take-overs, like St Joe.
Clearly seduced by EL and the entire Sears thesis.
Perhaps skills and experiences of money managers are better suited for some market periods than others and the flashes of insight one may have in one decade may not carry into next?
“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”
― George Patton

Anyway, I came to the conclusion that Bruce might be a brilliant investor, but was a poor manager of his own company.

@Shostakovich, when was he a brilliant investor? Brilliant investors, ala Buffett, have sustained growth over many years. More wins than losses. I don't see that with Berkowitz. I do see he did well early on when he hitched his wagon to Buffet/BRK, but then totally went south when he thought he could invest on his own.

Royce funds have been a train wreck the past few years.
The fund thats closing ROIMX has attracted just 6.5 million dollars of assets in its 8 year existence , And is down 18.6% YTD.
Matter of fact, 16 of the 17 Royce Mutual Funds are down YTD.

Interesting. DODFX (down 13%+ YTD) has cranked out better than 10% average annual returns over the past 10 years. And over that longer period ranks in the top 5% (5th percentile) of its peers according to Lipper. Gets back to what I said earlier about needing a long time horizon and a lot of patience to invest with these guys. I’d be loath to give up on it.

FYI: The failure of so many investment strategies is viewed by some as a warning of what could come following years of above-average returns.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-refuge-for-investors-as-2018-rout-sends-stocks-bonds-oil-lower-1543155033?mod=hp_lead_pos5

@Derf. What's that got to do with anything???
How do good (sic) large cap growth funds perform in bear markets? Causeway is respected and CEMVX has over $4B in assets. Clearly someone believes it should be used for Emerging Market Value investing.
We are trying to find EM value fund to invest for next 7 years. And we want to look at YTD performance to decide what makes the list? And very conveniently we laud Causeway as an international value manager, but not it would seem we can't mention CEMVX because we are worried people will think its YTD is so bad people will not like it?
Classic.

Howdy @PBKCM
I've asked here and have looked about on the wonderful net over the years; as to where does the very large amounts of monies from equity sells travel during the very large sell downs. Hedge funds and some related futures funds, etc. likely park the money internally.
During the large sell at the end of January and the current sell down, one does not find much evidence of hot money buying investment grade bonds with equity sell monies.
Might you be aware of some of the current paths for the very large money flows for those organizations who have bailed on the equity sectors?
Thank you.
Catch

Hi @catch22
There is a baseline range of trading activity regardless of market direction, as people sell stocks they think will go down and buy stocks they think will go up. At panic sell offs, volume can spike above normal range. I assume that's what you are asking about.
During these times, some institutions and funds are raising money to meet investor redemptions. The money from these sales leaves the market and goes back to the investor, who may re-invest or sit on his cash awhile. You may have heard the phrase "cash on the sidelines."
Some institutions and funds shift the money from equities to other asset classes. This will usually be evidenced by rising prices in those asset classes during the stock sell off.
Some institutions and funds simply hold the cash raised from equity sales until the panic subsides.
And some institutions and funds need to meet margin calls in their leveraged investments, so they sell their good investments to raise money for the margin calls. We saw this in late January as many VIX products blew up.

@Mark,
Here is the earlier post about Harbor's large CG forthcoming.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/43072/m-taking-a-bath-lessons-from-a-big-fund-s-9-billion-capital-gains-distribution-hainx
Also check Principal and Transamerica Funds links above for extremely large CGs. Even BRAGX paid a $5 per share CG this year after all of the years it had carry forward losses.

Howdy @PBKCM
I've asked here and have looked about on the wonderful net over the years; as to where does the very large amounts of monies from equity sells travel during the very large sell downs. Hedge funds and some related futures funds, etc. likely park the money internally.
During the large sell at the end of January and the current sell down, one does not find much evidence of hot money buying investment grade bonds with equity sell monies.
Might you be aware of some of the current paths for the very large money flows for those organizations who have bailed on the equity sectors?
Thank you.
Catch

Thanks to David for doing all the leg-work on researching these EM value funds. I find the performance comparisons among the several funds surprising in that Seafarer seems to be a laggard. This is surprising to me, a former shareholder, and maybe to MFO participants who have voiced quite steadfast support for Mr. Foster. Over the last 25 years, when I have been a market participant, I haven't made much money in EM and I certainly have not been compensated for the risks. Grandeur Peaks's latest letter to shareholders, a "mea culpa," says they had too much exposure to EMs. Granted, there's no place to hide these days; EMs seem to offer the least protection, but never fail to attract the soothsayers who prod the unwary to catch the next wave up. The TRP EM value fund does have a good, though short, record.

GMO forecasts have had little relationship to reality — that is, actual returns— for many years. But sooner or later they might be right.

GMO monthly issues their "7‐Year Asset Class Real Return Forecasts" for 10 - and, beginning this month, 11 - asset classes. Their method is fairly simple: assume that things - P/E ratio, profit margin, sales growth and dividend yield - will revert to "normal" over the next 5-7 years and sketch the line from here to there. The "real" part is that you deduct the effect of inflation from the resulting "nominal" returns.
Several scholars have examined their predictive validity and found it to be pretty robust. One, examining projections from 2000-2010 then comparing them with Vanguard index funds concluded:

The correlation between the GMO predicted returns and the Vanguard realized returns for equities, bonds, and all assets taken together are 0.954, 0.959 and 0.677 respectively. (Tower, 2010)

Others found that even when the absolute values are off (i.e., GMO was too pessimistic during the frothier parts of bull markets), the relative values are right: GMO's top-ranked asset class tends to outperform its second-ranked class, and so on. Ben Inker, their chief strategist, claimed a 94.5% accuracy (2012).
As recently as September, the real return projections were negative for every asset class except cash. They were least negative about the emerging markets. The newest projection released today begins to factor-in the effect of the recent market turbulence. Bad news: cash remains the most promising US asset class, with US equities in the red over the next 5-7 years and US fixed income breaking even. Good news: there is one asset class now poised for historically exceptional returns, emerging market value equity. GMO projects a 7.7% annualized real return for EM value, well above the historic 6.5% real return in the US stock market. Emerging equity, as a whole, is the second-highest asset class (4.4% real) and emerging debt (2.8%) is third. The one caveat: these asset class return projections are not risk-adjusted; that is, there's no suggestion about how much volatility you'll need to accept in return for your hoped-for 7.7% real.
Traditionally value investing in the emerging markets has been painful and, mostly, unprofitable. Managers at Seafarer and elsewhere argue that structural changes in the emerging markets - largely marked by local investor activism - has fundamentally changed that equation and that long-ignored value plays offer ... well, exceptional value. As a result, there are relatively few EM value funds though their ranks are growing.
Based on YTD performance (as of 11/21/18), here are the top 10 EM value funds available to domestic investors:

• BlackRock EM Equity Strategy
  
• American Beacon Acadian EM Managed Volatility
  
• ICON EM
  
• T. Rowe Price EM Value
  
• Schwab Fundamental EM Large Company Index Fund
  
• Pzena EM Value
  
• Dreyfus Strategic Beta EM Equity
  
• State Street Disciplined EM
  
• SA EM Value
  
• Seafarer Overseas Value

Pzena, T Rowe and Dreyfus sport five-star ratings from Morningstar. Dreyfus and T Rowe have also earned Great Owl designations from MFO for their consistently top-tier risk-adjusted returns. State Street and SA (for Strategic Advisers, a set of funds offered to certain Fidelity clients) trail with two-star ratings. BlackRock and Seafarer are relatively new funds.
On the your choices in the upcoming December issue of Mutual Fund Observer.
Take care,
David

This forecast may be of interest. Its my recollection it is the first time in a few years any of the asset classes in one of their 7-year forecasts has exceeded the 6.5% Long‐term Historical U.S. Equity Return base line used for comparative purposes. And, the October 2018 timing means the forecast precedes the November market declines.
Stocks
US Large -3.9%
US Small -0.4%
Intl Large 0.8%
Intl Small 1.2%
Emerging 4.7%
Emerging Value 7.7%
Bonds
US Bonds 0.1%
Intl Bonds Hedged -1.9%
Emerging Debt 2.8%
US Inflation Linked Bonds 0.1%
US Cash 1.0%
Here is a link to their pretty chart. It may be necessary to register to see it.
https://gmo.com/docs/default-source/research-and-commentary/strategies/asset-class-forecasts/gmo-7-year-asset-class-forecast-(oct2018).pdf?sfvrsn=2

Investing over time tends to humble all of us. Sometimes I think we need a thread about our dumbest investments or decisions over the years.
@Ted - Your 1-2 minute clip seemed so tantalizing I located the full 10-minute Utube video of Mr. Cordier speaking to the camera. Hope that's OK. Here's the full 10-minutes worth.

---
And, in keeping with the spirit of contriteness, here's a video of Louis Rukeyser back in 1987 trying to make sense of a disastrous week in the markets. Interestingly, both videos run about 10 minutes.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XFn1G2goDQw

FYI: With the S&P 500 falling 9.08% QTD, it has been the sixth-worst start to the fourth quarter in the history of the S&P 500. The only worse Q4s (through 37 trading days) came during some of the worst years for the stock market (1929, the 1930s, 1973, 1987, and 2008).
Below is a table showing the worst starts to Q4 for the S&P 500 through 37 trading days. Any drop of more than 2% at this point in the quarter made the list. As shown in the table, the average change for the S&P for the remainder of these years has been a gain of 2.77% with positive returns 78.26% of the time. For all other Q4s in the S&P’s history, the average change for the remainder of the year has been +1.61%.
Of course, it’s not all good news. If you look at the window of Q4s that were down between 8% and 12% like we are this year, the S&P actually declined for the remainder of those four years.
And in case you don’t remember, at this point in Q4 2008, the S&P was down 35.5%! In that year, the S&P ended up rallying 20% for the remainder of the year before plummeting to new lows again in the first quarter of 2009.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/a-historically-bad-q4-so-far/

October = worst month for market in 7 years.

FYI: The booming loan market for highly indebted companies has faced a lot of scrutiny in recent months. The IMF has repeatedly aired its grievances. Multiple central banks, as well as the banker of central banks, the Bank for International Settlements, have chimed in with their concerns as well. And last week, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren called for tighter regulation on what she believes is “a significant risk to the financial system and the American economy.”
Beyond deteriorating protections for lenders, critics have grown wary of just who is buying these loans. In recent years, it has increasingly been retail investors.
Regards,
Ted
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/11/20/1542706123000/Who-s-buying-leveraged-loans-anyways-/