CNBC-West is trumpeting this story Sunday night. And Asian markets are weaker on the news. Note: They not only propose to delist Chinese stocks on the exchange, they would also prohibit government pension funds from owning Chinese stocks.
Sounds to me like an attempt to scare investors away from China (and Asia in general) and thereby push the U.S. stock market even higher. Sure to hit a political storm if they try it. Suspect they won’t actually pull the stunt. Should they, other than rocking global equity markets near term, I doubt it would impact long range valuations or investors’ (global) returns over coming years.
Can’t help noting that T. Rowe is about to roll out a China fund. In the past they’ve gotten some flack from conservative pols who viewed them as liberal politically. Can’t recall the exact context or issue. One of their better fixed income managers, Mary Miller joined the Obama administration as an Undersecretary of Treasury in 2012.

I have been using HY Munis for years.

I don't pay attention to MM or CD and all my cash sub is usually in HY munis. In 2018-9 I have used OPTAX and ORNAX. Sure, I know the risk and volatility and still invest in HY Munis. I invested usually at 99+% in stocks+bond OEFs and none are cash,MM,CD investments. I just keep several thousand which is about 2 months of our expense in the last 30 years while I was working and now at retirement. If we need more I just sell shares.

In comparison, my three step CD Ladder has a current yield of 2.6%.

@Old_Skeet,
Where did you find CD ladder with 2.6% yield? Many brokerage such as Fidelity offers 5 years ladder (4 CDs) with 1.88%. A sizable reduction after Fed rate cut.

FYI: (This is a follow-up article.)
The $4 trillion exchange-traded fund industry has, for the last 27 years, operated via a quirk in the law. After some dramatic back-and-forth this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission has finally changed that.
The 2,273 ETFs on the market today have essentially been created via a loophole in the law that governs mutual funds and other investment products for individual investors. The much-hyped and long-awaited “ETF Rule” was supposed to change that, making it easier for companies to create new products. After canceling an open meeting scheduled for Wednesday to vote on this proposed regulation, the SEC announced on Thursday that it has in fact adopted the ETF Rule, more officially known as Rule 6c-11.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/will-the-secs-new-etf-rule-benefit-investors-51569519577?mod=djem_b_Weekly Feed for Barrons Magazine

"the people back the anti-tax pols"
@hank- Yes, here in CA we had exactly that situation. A fixed fuel sales tax as the primary funding source for our highways was steadily being eaten away over the years by ever-increasing better mileage of vehicles, transition to electric and hybrid technology, and general inflation.
Once-decent roads were really going to hell, and yet there were always anti-tax groups who refused to deal with reality, and kept hoping for the road-fairy to fix things. A few years ago we finally were able to overcome that mentality, and already we're beginning to see significant improvement, and long-delayed maintenance finally getting done.
Ignored in all of this anti-tax crusade is the fact that at least with road maintenance taxes the maintenance and improvement creates good paying jobs for lots of workers, and secondary effects for jobs in the manufacturing of all of that enormous and complex road building equipment. That stuff is really impressive, and the great majority of it is built in the US.

@Crash. Ditto on deplorable MI roads. We often remark on how much better the surfaces are when we travel to other states. The other day we returned to DTW and took the shuttle to our parking lot. The short ride was so rough that I said, "Well, we know we're home," and other shuttle passengers nodded in agreement.

I thought the roads in Arizona were terrific when I visited about 5 years ago. Wondered if McCain maybe pulled some strings in D.C. to get the funding? Problem in Michigan is the people back the anti-tax pols. And there aren’t many road builders willing to work for free.
Apologies @Puddenhead. This thread has really strayed.
Re investments
- I’ve avoided even short term bonds after the pullback at the short end, which temporarily boosted their return. Mostly MM and ultra short for me as far as the cash sleeve goes. That said, I continue my allocations to RPSIX, DODLX, and PREMX. S*** - Your fixed income $$ has to go somewhere.
- Just slightly overweight the miners. About 4-5% vrs a normal 2-3% weighting. I’m optimistic for gold. Think it will really break out one of these days, but it can be awfully painful to own shorter term. Plus, what I “think” will happen doesn’t always.
- Otherwise, normal weighting in a conservative, diversified portfolio.

It is marketing driven effort in an attempt to gather new assets. There are simply too many ETFs just like mutual funds. There must be enough demand to keep some of them afloat for several years, then survivorship of these products takes over.

I didn't have any problem. Vanguard gives you the option of going directly to the "personal investor" site, which I have not elected to do. So vanguard.com just brings me to the corporate portal, where I select "Personal Investors" to get to the familiar home page. From there, there is a login link in the upper right corner, or one can log in directly from that investor home page by scrolling down to the username/password boxes on the left.
Vanguard has provided free stock/ETF/MF trades for Flagship customers for many years. About a year ago, Vanguard terminated trading of virtually all explicitly leveraged ETFs on its platform and eliminated commissions for online trading of all non-leveraged ETFs.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/42948/vanguard-brings-unrivaled-access-to-etfs-with-launch-of-industry-s-largest-commission-free-platform
Bond trading (aside from new issues) still carries a commission ($1 or $2/bond, depending on your Vanguard level), which is not waived even for Flagship customers.
https://investor.vanguard.com/investing/transaction-fees-commissions/cds-bonds

FYI: Cumulative assets in the U.S. exchange-traded fund industry zoomed 90% during a nearly five-year period through last month and now hover around the $4 trillion mark, but this amazing growth story has a downside in that 24% of ETFs closed during that period and another 7% are rapidly declining, according to statistics from investment research firm CFRA.
CFRA last month bolstered its in-house research chops when it acquired data-and-analytics firm First Bridge Data LLC, and CFRA today held a media call that utilized First Bridge’s research muscle to provide an in-depth look at the winners and losers in the ETF space during the period from December 2014 through August 2019.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/roughly-25--of-etfs-closed-during-past-five-years-51860.html?print

"Maybe they can actually close a fund one day."
I don't think that they know about this "closing" thing. It's a fairly new concept, and they aren't noted for quick embracement of this new stuff.
That said (in jest) American has done very well for us over the years.

I too hold GFAFX and I've been asking myself, do I hold just an expensive index fund? But it's done fine so far so I'll keep it and see what happens.

What pops out immediately from JABAX's portfolio is that its equity sleeve is large cap growth, and has been at least leaning that way for the past five years or longer. See here. We've been in a long period, virtually the whole tenure of MPinto, where growth has outperformed value.
This raises the questions (1) whether its good performance has been due in part simply to this bias, and (2) whether this is where the manager is comfortable investing or whether he would shift to value (and under what conditions)?
It's hard to answer #2. To address #1, I ran a quick analysis using Portfolio Visualizer.
I ran back tests from May 2005 to the present, comparing JABAX with VWELX and with 60/40 mixes of VOOG & VBTLX (to check JABAX value add vs. index funds) and VOOV & VBTLX (for VWELX value add vs. index funds). Rebalanced quarterly.
From best to worst annualized returns:
VOOG/VBTLX: 10.43% (growth mix)
VWELX: 9.74%
JABAX: 9.32%
VOOV/VBTLX: 8.36% (value mix)

You will have slightly different results is you punch in VWENX instead of VWELX, if the admiral shares go back that far. Has a lower fee/higher yield.

The very first paragraph I wrote in this thread was:
"I generally suggest caution when evaluating a fund with recent poor performance. That recent performance distorts the longer term figures."
The same applies to funds with recent good performance. One gets a different perspective by disregarding a recent, disproportionately bad (or good) period and looking at longer periods that came before. Now three years (2017-19) is not just a very recent 6 month or one year span that can be lightly disregarded. But there was a significant management change in 2016 that justifies looking at the pre- and post-Smith periods separately.
Your mother and daughter are in fact doing half of that. They're looking at the post-Smith period exclusively (3 years) or the mostly post-Smith period (5 years). You're doing that also, with your 5/4/3/2/1/ytd figures that virtually ignore the Smith period.
Again repeating myself, all of this may suggest that Pinto is a great manager (better alone than with Smith). But it also cuts against your statement that the key to the fund's performance is the way he manages the stock sleeve. If the stock sleeve were the key, one would expect similar relative performance across consecutive multi-year periods, those with and without Smith.
Cherry picking says that the selection of time periods is made by seeking especially good (or bad) periods. That's not what I did. I selected time periods based on management. Which makes sense to do on general principle, let alone to test the hypothesis that "growth a la Pinto" was the key.

You asked for an analysis, I provided one. That's all. As I wrote before, the fact that JABAX leans consistently toward growth suggests that the pond it fishes in plays a significant role in its performance. Aside from Puritan (more on that below) the fact that you selected for comparison funds that lean toward value calls attention to its growth style.
"Growth, but growth a la Pinto, look to be the key." Are you sure that it's growth a la Pinto that's the key? Prior to the last three years, the fund was still good, but somewhat less so. Smith left three years ago. Coincidence? Pinto took over the responsibility for asset allocation and others took over the bond sleeve.
Before 2017 the fund had some fine years, but not in the top decile. Since Smith left, it's been nothing but. While that data suggests that someone is adding value now, it also suggests that Pinto's stock sleeve management skills are not the key. They haven't changed, have they?
Take the five year period ending when Smith left (3/31/11 - 3/31/16). Your mom and daughter's $10K would have grown to $14,177 with JABAX, and to $14,692 with FPURX.
See M* chart.
Or the three year period 3/31/13 - 3/31/16. There JABAX ended with $12,112 vs. FPURX's $12,722. (One can edit the start date in the M* chart to get these figures.)

Maybe.
Let us say mom or daughter, not just you or I, graphs M* $10k growth of VWELX, JABAX, and FPURX for 3 and 5 years.
(She did so because she read an article advising always to do that, not shorter terms.)
What does she see? Well, someone sure is adding value somewhere. Clearly. 3y starts in the fall of 2016. Hmm. Notable outperformance by JABAX from then.
She adds FPACX, OAKBX, and DODBX, because of another article she read. Well, forget them.
She goes ahead and, just for kicks, checks 1y and ytd. A hair of underperformance by JABAX wrt to Vanguard. Bond advantage lost? Not seeing it.
Same for 3mos.
You may have it in for Pinto because it was I who posted about JABAX, or something like that. But superior things have always taken place for as long as he has been involved w/ JABAX, to my view. Am I missing something?
Growth, but growth a la Pinto, look to be the key. If growth alone, the question remains for me, Why is FPURX not better?
So I score all this as showing at least some added value for this guy. Maybe Snowball can do an interview with him about outperformance longevity.

My apologies. While my inputs to PV were as described, that tool apparently refused to analyze more than a decade. Rather than indicate an input error, it generated returns over roughly ten years: Oct 2010 - Aug 2019. At least that's how it labeled the output.
The general point remains - MPinto may not have added value. The good performance can be explained by the Janus growth style.
(Based on the two sets of figures, what PV output for a decade and what you report from M* over roughly 15 years, we can say that Wellington has done better over the past decade; Janus Balanced was better in the five years preceding that.)
BTW, $10K in Wellington grew by $21,269, not to $21,269. See M* graph here.
Regarding Puritan, like Wellington it outperformed JABAX over the past decade. Which suggests not so much that it should have done better given its growth leanings, but rather that JABAX was the anomaly, as it outperformed by a wide margin in 2007-2008. Which in turn suggests taking a closer look at the other 40% of the portfolio, i.e. the bonds. (For example, treasuries did well around 2008, other types of bonds more poorly.)
If (and I haven't looked into this) bonds are indeed the reason for the outperformance of JABAX between 2005 and 2010, then that advantage was lost in 2016 when Smith left. That's something you might want to take a closer look at.

Greetings, Y'all.
I held FPACX in my portfolio from 2010 - or earlier - until the end of 2018.
My reasons for dumping it were:
1) fund should have been closed long ago. I got in when AUM was approx $8B. How in good conscience can a fund be kept open when the average cash stake was 20% or better most of the time? That much cash means there aren't many good deals out there, so why accept more cash?
2) For an $8B fund with 20-30% of AUM in cash, what justifies an ER >= 1.00%.?Today AUM are 50% greater, so why has the ER increased instead of decreased?
If you look at M* data, you'll see that over 15 years, FPACX is a middle-of-the-road fund. It maybe is in the second quartile on the 4-bar graph, and comes in around 50% in terms of fund rankings.
If I remember correctly, prior to 2010, this fund was hot, and it wasn't large cap performance that made it hot. I thought it might have had good defensive characteristics, which is why I bought in. Sometime around that time, money started to pour in, AUM went way up, and people didn't care that the ER was where it was because the fund was still doing well.
There are plenty of other funds out there - big and small - where I would put my money. I have both VWENX and VWIAX. If I didn't, I'd consider DODBX, ABALX - even if I had to pay the load -, and possibly MAPOX and FOBAX. I sold out my FOBAX two years ago, and have been regretting it ever since. I have not regretting selling FPACX and doubt that I ever will. YMMV.

What pops out immediately from JABAX's portfolio is that its equity sleeve is large cap growth, and has been at least leaning that way for the past five years or longer. See here. We've been in a long period, virtually the whole tenure of MPinto, where growth has outperformed value.
This raises the questions (1) whether its good performance has been due in part simply to this bias, and (2) whether this is where the manager is comfortable investing or whether he would shift to value (and under what conditions)?
It's hard to answer #2. To address #1, I ran a quick analysis using Portfolio Visualizer.
I ran back tests from May 2005 to the present, comparing JABAX with VWELX and with 60/40 mixes of VOOG & VBTLX (to check JABAX value add vs. index funds) and VOOV & VBTLX (for VWELX value add vs. index funds). Rebalanced quarterly.
From best to worst annualized returns:
VOOG/VBTLX: 10.43% (growth mix)
VWELX: 9.74%
JABAX: 9.32%
VOOV/VBTLX: 8.36% (value mix)

"Maybe they can actually close a fund one day."
I don't think that they know about this "closing" thing. It's a fairly new concept, and they aren't noted for quick embracement of this new stuff.
That said (in jest) American has done very well for us over the years.

I think there is a good argument to be made for an allocation fund as long as the "allocator" is really talented. I have never believed that a fund manger should ALWAYS be fully invested. You are paying them for their judgement and if there seems to be little that they feel is worth buying why insist they do so?
So most of my funds have allocations to cash, but the question here is should you pick one that is committed to other asset classes, and is Romick the best person to use.
The first question is personal preference. Are you more comfortable is someone else make your asset allocation decisions?
The second question has a little more data behind it. I have used FPACX for years but "past performance is no guarantee.." certainly holds here. Romick's outsized gains are almost all due to the years before 2009.
He never went off the deep end like some of the heroes in years past but I am not sure that I would buy FPACX now just for his expertise