I forgot that thread, but I must admit being fairly pleased going on 10 years with TD Ameritrade, starting back in my active futures / day trading days with ThinkorSwim.

Puddnhead , I worked for a once great company, once the darling of the DOW, that downsized every year for almost 20 years. Went from 100k+ employees world wide to now just a few thousand. At different times they offered both buy-outs that were taxed as regular pay and buy-outs that could be rolled over into the company 401k or an IRA tax free. The difference was where the company was taking the money from to make the buy-out payment. Money coming out of the pension plan was considered tax free if rolled directly into IRA or 401k. Your employer should be giving you that very important information. I'm surprised Duke didn't tell you this :)

Hi guys!
You're the best, Skeeter! It's your thread and everybody knows it but you. Keep up the good work, big guy!
Not much to say.....doing a lot of watching, but will say this: seems everybody is looking for a pullback. But....what if we don't get one? ..... really?......then, what will you do? Add more money or wait? I watched wealth track this morning......it's part 2. They seem to think things are getting better in the world. What is a good Japan fund? I haven't been over there in years. Might put a little in there. I see Josh Peters has a fund he's managing now: OARDX. Will keep an eye on it for a while. Also, at work they came out with a buyout package. Yep! They're going to pay us to leave. I feel like a politician being bribed......I like it!!! Also, where's Ted? The board seems slow without him around. Also, give me your best fund.....one you will die before selling. I want to make a list before going into an IRA and paying $2500.00 to open a fund. Now, with 401k, it's only $500.00, so I might add some before I retire. Why? Because I'm a lot like Bee. Also, is a bank loan fund or short term bond fund as good as a money market account for short term money? If so, what funds? Also, if I get lump sum (via buyout) and put into IRA, will I have to pay taxes? I assume "yes," but I had to ask. Anybody else been here before? Funny......at the meeting, about 100 people there....I might've known half of them. So many friends are gone. Didn't realize that. They leave over time and you forget. Got to stop before I cry in my beer.
God bless
the Pudd

DSEUX is an interesting fund ONLY because of the success of DSENX. In my opinion, there is absolutely no reason to jump into this fund now. Way way way to early. If it is doing better than FMIJX after 3 years I may consider it.

.....What leaps to mind here is Adam Parker of Morgan Stanley a few weeks ago, on Bloomberg, where he declared: "Europe is for vacation, not for owning stocks." I did not do very well holding PRESX, looking back a couple of years.

EFEIX shows a concentrated portfolio of just 47 stocks, and 7 "other." I compared it to TRAMX: 71 stocks, 2 bonds and 1 "other." EFEIX shows a better 1 and 3-year record, but TRAMX has a longer record, showing 5 yr. perf. at 7.23%. It seems to me that it's not worth the headache of all of the deep research you'd have to do, in order to justify owning a Frontier fund. Expense Ratios are high. If you want to buy it as a short-term trade rather than a long-term investment, it might make you happy. I made money with TRAMX years ago, but it was dumb luck.

Yes. I was hoping they'd do this. Especially since it is by any standards a tiny fund, $160 mln in AUM. This one's a keeper. Thanks, David_Snowball, for writing this up a few years back.

It's an awfully admirable decision. They've been struggling for years to get attention. They returned 54% last year, despite a contracting pool of opportunities, and got serious attention. Having concluded that there simply aren't many opportunities and reluctant to hold cash, they're closing the door to their most popular channel. It seems very principled to me.
David

DSEUX is an interesting fund ONLY because of the success of DSENX. In my opinion, there is absolutely no reason to jump into this fund now. Way way way to early. If it is doing better than FMIJX after 3 years I may consider it.

Closed out JOHAX after another disappointing year. Adding to FMIJX in foreign large cap allocation. BTW, M* still has OAKIX as gold, 5 star but FMIJX has truly clocked it for three years.

Of course, it helps to know which end of the horse is selecting the investments.
Seems I have a horse in most of these races. Should I divest if they win?

First part: (easiest to address): Let's hope that the horse is being fed and stable cleaned by some good research and analytical people underneath. (no pun intended)
Second part: Dunno. I wouldn't sell - but wouldn't be pleased either. I've worried about the "popularity effect" for several years with PRWCX. Haven't sold, but keep only a small % of assets in that fund. Lagged noticeably last year. The ingredient that's hardest to figure out when thinking about the effect of money flows on a fund is how much of the AUM is relatively stable (committed for the long term) and how much will flee when things turn south. It's the rapid flow out during hard times that can really ding a fund and damage those who remain behind.
As an aside: If you like timing, one might try to ride a fund higher as the popularity grows and than bail about the time the popularity begins to wane. I'm pretty sure I've seen evidence in the past that some big investors do follow fund flow data with precisely this intention.

I would vote for TRMCX manager Wallack for MoTY. I was able to purchase this fund in May 2009, just after it reopened to new investors. My last buys were in late January and February 2016. Later it didn't go unnoticed by me that the fund was doing quite well.. Mid year I saw the updated portfolio and saw why - Energy.
I believe that his management skills have added value in excess of the fees paid. I'm also in Primecap and have been for almost 20 years. I think they received this award in the past.

@kevindow Your point was that the fund will not close anytime soon because the manager's intention is "looking for assets like First Eagle," which the manager has stated is false.
The manager has between 50-100K in the domestic fund; he has none in the international fund. I like to see managers have some meaningful stake in their products, but at the same time I don't conclude that they "don't have confidence" in their own ability.
You are very correct in stating that it may take "5 or more years" for the fund to reach 10B at its present pace!
OTOH, I'm unconvinced that if the fund reaches that amount that "greed will overcome principle like it usually does," especially when the manager has stated that he will limit assets. What I have seen in my past investment experience is that managers who have said that they will close the cash windows do follow through, and so I'm making a judgment in the case of Mr. Deshpande that he will do the same. Based on what he has said and written publicly indicates that his goal is to produce superior returns, not accumulate assets, and so I will take him as a man of principle rather than as someone following his own selfish interests.
I have a very favorable opinion of FMIJX but do not own it.
Best.

@openice,
OK, let me be clear. The current AUM is a measly $53M for a fund which began collecting assets 8 months ago in May 2016. Like I said, this fund will not close to new investors anytime soon.
Also, Mr. Deshpande only has a paltry $100K or less invested of his own money in this fund, according to the latest SAI. Why should I have confidence in this fund if the manager doesn't ??
And if the AUM get near $10B, which may take 5 or more years at this pace, I predict that greed will overcome principle -- like it usually does -- and the fund will stay open to ALL investors.
Again, in this space, FMIJX would be my choice and not Mr. Deshpande's fund.
Kevin

Centerstone Investor Class A (CETAX) and Centerstone International Class A (CSIAX) are available no-load and NTF at Schwab for $100 and $1 additional in basic and IRA accounts. David ran a launch alert in June 2016. The fund http://centerstoneinv.com has a lengthy, detailed conference call transcript dated December 6 under News and Events that is worth your attention plus past articles / interviews that communicate very clearly the strategy of the funds and views of the manager. I own CSIAX and recommend it for consideration provided it has an appropriate place in one's portfolio.
@kevindow

Centerstone is likely looking for AUM like First Eagle, so this fund will not close to new investors anytime soon.

On the contrary, the manager has been quite clear about his intentions regarding AUM. He's stated that 10B would be an ideal size for his funds and mentions the importance of fund flows as well in keeping returns competitive. He points out that Ben Graham warned years ago about the danger of combining huge fund size with added fees making it difficult to produce superior returns. While it's probably true that the fund(s) will not close anytime soon, AUM will definitely be controlled.

Dear Old_Joe,
Thanks for you reply. This is the epoch when everyone becomes cynical, some call it "post-truth era". As for these funds, I recall now that there was a discussion of these new funds in June Commentary, in "Launch Alert: Centerstone Investors Fund (CETAX/CENTX)". Here is a part of these comments, much better said than in Morningstar:
"The argument for being excited about Centerstone Investors is pretty straightforward: it’s managed by Abhay Deshpande who worked on the singularly-splendid First Eagle Global (SGENX) fund for 14 years, the last six of them as co-manager.... Deshpande was seen as the driver of SGENX’s success in the years after Mr. Eveillard’s departure, which is reflected in the Morningstar downgrade when he left. So there’s talent on Centerstone’s side."
Then in July Commentary I read:
"The great virtue of the Morningstar conference, and one of the greatest gifts that working with the Observer affords, is the ability to talk with (heck, mostly listen to) remarkable people. That roster most recently included Rupal Bhansali, Abhay Deshpande, Andrew Foster, Teresa Kong and David Marcus. These folks aren’t just bright, they’re scary bright. More importantly, they’re the right kind of bright."
I guess this really helps me to decide:)

Here are two sites that I follow for global valuations:
Global Stock Market Valuations and Expected Future Returns
Global Stock Market Valuation Ratios
The following article demonstrates how CAPE and P/B reliably predict future market returns and market drawdowns in both domestic and foreign equity markets:
Predicting Stock Market Returns Using The Shiller Cape

Excellent excerpt from this last article:
"Existing research indicates that the cyclically adjusted Shiller CAPE has predicted long-term returns in the S&P 500 since 1881 fairly reliable for periods of more than 10 years. Furthermore, the results of this paper indicate that this was also the case for 16 other international equity markets in the period from 1979 to 2015, and in addition to this, CAPE also enabled equity market risks to be gauged. In this manner, low market valuations were not only followed by above average market returns but also lower drawdowns. On the contrary, high market valuations led to lower returns and faced higher market risks."
As far as investing, what does all this mean to me. Since CAPE matters globally, I am inclined to consider the ETF CAPE (however, average daily trading volume is too low for me), the ETF GVAL, and the mutual funds DSEEX/DSENX and DSEUX/DLEUX.
In our portfolio, I am confident in using CAPE and P/B for investment selection, and have an 18% position in DSEEX and a 10% position in PXH.
Kevin

First time purchase - MOATX.

Glad that this is your first purchase - would've been a rough go the past several years...

Well I wanted to purchase beginning of last year, but just forgot. That was a mistake.

Frontier markets have generally had a poor couple of years. I'd like to invest but it is actually fairly difficult to get information without using premium services none of which I subscribe to. Does anyone have some suggestions for frontier market (not "emerging markets", but the category below that.... frontier) funds that are open to new investors?

First time purchase - MOATX.

Glad that this is your first purchase - would've been a rough go the past several years...

A shares make sense if you hold them for long periods of time ( usually 7 years or longer) to take advantage of their generally lower ER, even factoring in the opportunity cost of not investing the 5.75% immediately. ... If you use a broker whose advice you find excellent, this is a small price to pay and probably a better deal than the 1% of all assets Merrill Lynch is reportedly going to charge their customers yearly. ... There are some brokers whose advice is excellent. Advisers, fee only or in wrap accounts or whatever, will not work for nothing. I would rather know what I was paying them than find hidden fees buried in the prospectus

John Rekenthaler, Vice President of Research at M* would seem to agree with you. He makes essentially the same point in Barron's ("The View From 30,000 Feet" - Jan. 9, 2017). Rekenthaler adds: "I think A shares, in which you pay a one time commission (known as a load) are underappreciated."
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(This is from the print edition. However, Ted's recent link, "How to Pick Great Funds", should take you to the online version.)