Hi @Ted,
Thanks for posting this article.
I most always enjoy reading about a fund(s) that I own. This article is no exception. The two largest of six positions that I hold in my domestic equity sleeve found in the growth & income area of my portfolio are FDSAX (Sun America Focused Dividend Strategy) and SVAAX (Federated Strategic Value). Both, are indeed having great years and combined account for half of the sleeve. The other members found in this sleeve are ANCFX, INUTX, NBHAX and SPQAX.
Old_Skeet

Reminds me of a younger fund manager who decided to liquidate his fund as he could not find any investments that met his requirements. He went onto to do pretty good with a rather small company at the time, called Berkshire Hathaway. Eric, good luck to you and I will wait for you to get back into this in the next few years.

FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search)
It isn’t hard to understand the appeal of dividend funds. Low interest rates in the U.S. and negative rates abroad have, for years now, pushed bond prices higher and yields lower, making income from stable, blue-chip companies all the more appealing. Investors have poured $33 billion into equity-income funds this year, according to Morningstar. The last time inflows were that high was in 2007, when they totaled $47 billion
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=Finding+Quality+at+Columbia+Dividend+Income+Barron's
M* Snapshot LBSAX:
http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/LBSAX/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot LBSAX:
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Fund/LBSAX
LBSAX Ranks #43 In The (LCV) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/large-value/columbia-dividend-income-fund/lbsax

@Ted- re "the huge volume of information" I have a lot of respect for your aggregating work. Some years ago during a period when when you were not posting I tried to fill in for your links by similar aggregating, and it was one hell of a lot of work. I was quite happy to see you return!
Regards- OJ

Hello fellow MFO members,
I am , and have been, an investor in the capital markets for a good number of years now (better than forty). Through this time I have seen many periods of time when the market moved side ways (within certain trading ranges). This fits into part of my overall investment strategy as use an adaptive allocation and do some buying during times of pull backs when the stock market has become oversold and then sell some off as the market advances becoming overbought and richly priced. During the time bought to the time sold I collect dividends as I invest in stocks and mutual funds that pay dividends as part of this strategy. This is not to say that this is the only strategy that I employ within my portfolio but one that certaintly has its place within my investment tool kit.
I have written about this in the past as I put this strategy in play back during the January/February pullback and March/April rebound.
I also did a little buying recently during the most recent downdraft. Thinking there will be more downdrfts this summer I have a great deal of dry powder left to do more buying. After the fall elections I am looking for stocks to rally. In the meantime I am collecting dividends while I await my anticipated capital appreciation that should come during the fall. If so, then I'll trim my equity positions booking profits collecting dividens along the way.
If you are looking for a mutual fund that plays stock market pullbacks automatically you might wish to study CTFAX to see if its strategy might interest you and it might be a strategy to incorporate within one's own portfolio to take advantage of stock market movement.
I wish all good investing.

I cited M* for S&P 500 TR from 12/31/14 close (aka New Year's Day, 2015) to 6/29/15 as 2.79%. Agreed it's not nothing, but it's not 3.73% either.
Since SPY is a unit investment trust that can only reinvest dividends quarterly, it suffers from cash drag, which can actually improve performance when the market dips. (It reinvests dividends later, after the market has gone done for the quarter.) That's one reason why I wouldn't use SPY as a benchmark.
In any case, it appears you're using Yahoo's adjusted close figures for 6/29/16 and 1/2/15. (266.66/199.21) That's a common off-by-one error. Somewhat like saying that we're in the 20th century because our years begin 20xx. It's forgetting that the first century started with a 0, not with 1(000).
One needs to start with the final price before the period begins (i.e. 12/31/14). Then, the closing price on 1/2/15 (relative to the 12/31/14 close) tells you how much you made by holding your stock for the first trading day of the year.

No yahoo to it. I was looking at M* to see what happened if I bought $10k worth of SPY the first day of 2015. That's all.
If you no likee SPY, that's cool.
If I bought FUSVX the day before, right, I have made $275, actually a hair under. (SPY made $266, a hair under, as you note; some intervals it does better, as cash drag works both ways sometimes.)
This is for yesterday close; not including today's nice runup.
I know about birthday math, yes.
Don't know where your figs come from, but for idiot-resistant simplicity I just go to M* and use either SPY or FUSVX, sometimes both, and do it from pretend purchase day with settlement at market close. No 'needs to start with'.

I'd also like to thank Junkster for previous favorable comments about PRHYX (its global counterpart RPIHX is also excellent) and PREMX; both have been great this year, and also long-term.

Got into PREMX in '10. Still a large holding for me, though I hold much less than I once did. Rates are nuts, around the world--- and currencies! Jay-zus. PREMX up 11.88 YTD. But the value is in the long-term. I originally bought at $13.26. We'll never see THAT again, but in the meantime, I can't even count the total monthly divs. that fund has paid me over 6 years.

Hi David. I bought the fund when it opened with high expectations and sold it, I think towards the end of 2013 or early 2014. I haven't paid much attention to it since, but my memory for selling was because of it's early and very high stake in mining stocks. That hasn't changed. A quick look at ARIVX portfolio in M* still shows it's 3 top holdings as AGI, PAA, NGD. M* says ARIVX has 11.4% in stocks. The 3 PM stocks I show are 6.6% of the portfolio.
These 3 stocks are on a tear this year and likely are the reason for good YTD and 1 year returns. But the previous 3 years, PM stocks under performed the general small cap value index by a large margin, AGI down -25% in '13, -34% in 14' -45% in '15. PAA -31%, -9%, -13%. NGD -50%, -10%, -35%. If Cinnamond held PM stocks, which I'm guessing he did, through those years he bet wrong. He picked poorly - at least his timing was poor.
Like I said, I have not followed the fund in quite a while. My memory 3 years ago is the manager was heavily weighted miners and sat on heavy losses because of that. This look at his portfolio through M* shows that hasn't changed. The difference now, 4-5 years later is those stocks are finely having their day. But that was way to early a bet in my book.
As far as the funds coloration to PMs, isn't that just an effect of cash having a low coloration to PMs. His stocks being over 50% PMs on the other hand...

Stocks have declined / made little upward progress when certain elements signal overvaluation / deterioration and coordination.
Since 1924, mean reversion statistically has occurred when there have been consecutive years of S&P 500 performance over the fixed "valuation baseline" * ( recent consecutive string 2012, 2013, 2014, ). Quantitative price based variable # 1 https://stockmarketmap.wordpress.com/2015/11/14/market-map-model-tactical-asset-allocation-using-low-expense-index-etfs-2015/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hsBqvv3SUmHKBV5G0SUcFQpGaSf9nNlzDbT3W8hXGo8/edit
Economic conditions index falling below threshold removes "economic" market support
( conditions still positive ): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IqXuggnKY7fDH-i_96uMIOlmhzS7ei-dreUZ_8dpatc/edit?usp=sharing
An inversion of the yield curve can correlate to larger forward market declines vs. declines during normal yield curve structure ( during model cash signals ):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QkFJRNjd3TTEwDPUwXcCjd7toGaN_mxix5-nSN-kdig/edit?usp=sharing
*

Hi, Ted.
Sorry, no. I wasn't addressing the question of the fund's total return. Mike's arguments were that the stocks in the portfolio were weak performers and that the fund was both cursed and blessed (depending on time frame) by Mr. Cinnamond's precious metal investments.
I'm certainly aware that the fund's absolute returns substantially trail its peers over the past five years. On the other hand, looking at raw returns without looking at volatility is delusional since we know that volatility is a key determinant of investor behavior (mostly self-destructive). On that basis, the fund captured about 40% of its peers' annualized five-year returns and experienced 41% of their volatility.
Back to writing!
David

I cited M* for S&P 500 TR from 12/31/14 close (aka New Year's Day, 2015) to 6/29/15 as 2.79%. Agreed it's not nothing, but it's not 3.73% either.
Since SPY is a unit investment trust that can only reinvest dividends quarterly, it suffers from cash drag, which can actually improve performance when the market dips. (It reinvests dividends later, after the market has gone done for the quarter.) That's one reason why I wouldn't use SPY as a benchmark.
In any case, it appears you're using Yahoo's adjusted close figures for 6/29/16 and 1/2/15. (266.66/199.21) That's a common off-by-one error. Somewhat like saying that we're in the 20th century because our years begin 20xx. It's forgetting that the first century started with a 0, not with 1(000).
One needs to start with the final price before the period begins (i.e. 12/31/14). Then, the closing price on 1/2/15 (relative to the 12/31/14 close) tells you how much you made by holding your stock for the first trading day of the year.

Hi, Mike.
I was curious about your observation so went back to check the numbers. The stocks in ARIVX have returned approximately 92% YTD, 50% over the trailing twelve months and 13% over the past three years. For comparison, the Vanguard SCV index returned 5.3, -1.7 and 9.4%. That assumes cash levels of 90, 80 and 75% for those three time periods. I don't have a firm grasp on the 5-year cash average - it looks to be in the mid60s - so I didn't want to venture an estimate there. If you accept mid60s, then the stocks have returned about 10%/year, about in-line with the index. At one level, it seems that his stocks have substantially and pretty consistently outperformed.
I hadn't thought much about precious metals. Mr. Cinnamond's argument when we last discussed it was that he wasn't particularly thrilled by gold but the mining stocks were getting hit so badly that they were among the few passing his value screen. He suggested that he actually could have justified a bigger position but wasn't comfortable with it. At the end of 2014, gold and silver stocks represented about 8% of the portfolio and about 33% of the stocks in the portfolio. There were four stocks, two of which remain in the portfolio and he subsequently added two more. They represent about 7.5% of the portfolio and about 70% of his stock holdings. The fund has a really low correlation to precious metals (0.34 to DBP, the PowerShares Precious Metals ETF) so I'm reluctant to praise or blame the fund's stake in such stocks.
David

I don't mind the idea of a manager going to cash if he sees fit. What I didn't like about ARIVX was that the manager allowed himself to be caught in a value trap. And in a Hussman-esk way, he couldn't admit it or change it. His bet on commodities and PM stocks was early, way-way to early, multiple years early, and his investors took a huge beating for it. So in my book, he is a manager with poor sector decision making abilities. The funds poor performance has nothing to do with cash. It has to do with his stock picking.

Sometimes in all these discussions about stocks the big picture gets lost.
Stocks haven't gone anywhere for 1 1/2 years
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^GSPC+Interactive#{"range":"2y","allowChartStacking":true}

Remember to include dividends. In real terms, even including dividends, it's true that stocks have returned nothing. But in nominal terms, stocks have provided small gains. See, e.g.
Yahoo S&P 500 Total Return chart (2 Year, interactive), or
M* interactive chart - Total Stock Market (VTSMX) and S&P 500 TR, Dec 31, 2014 to June 29, 2014
VTSMX has gone up 1.45%, and the S&P 500 has gone up 2.79%.
Given recent volatility, a single day's movement could wipe all this out. So the cumulative returns are indeed positive, but not necessarily meaningful.

FYI: Battered investors are looking for light at the end of the tunnel. Here is at least a small glimmer: The most bullish day of the year is here. According to Stock Traders Almanac, July 1 (or which day is the first trading day of July) is the most bullish day of the year.
Over the past 21 years, the S&P 500 has advanced 85.7% of the time on the first trading day of July. The average gain is 0.46%.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-you-ready-for-the-most-bullish-day-of-the-year-2016-06-29/print
CXO Advisory July Trading Calandar:
http://www.cxoadvisory.com/trading-calendar/july/

For what interest it holds, I've been talking with Mr. Cinnamond about the decision. Two quick takeaways: (1) he's sympathetic with critics of the fund who decry a stock fund that's at 90% cash and climbing. (2) Given recent developments, he doesn't know when we'll next see a "normal" investing environment. Central banks are almost certain to follow free money policies, which only reward speculators, for the foreseeable future.
I'll try to flesh that out in our July edition but the fuller story will appear in August. Mr. Cinnamond remains employed at River Road, and behold to Aston, until July 6. After July 6, his reflections won't implicate Aston or River Road which are both constrained by FINRA rules about communicating with the public. So we'll chat in mid-July and I'll share what I learned.
I'll discuss in July's issue my own decision. When Artisan SCV was to be liquidated, I took the cash rather than allow a rollover to Artisan MCV. After spending a lot of time working with the numbers through our premium screener, the choice came down to ARIVX or Intrepid Endurance. I chose Endurance for a couple reasons: same discipline, slightly more flexible approach. Mr. Cinnamond is up 9.2% YTD, 6.2% over the TTM and 3.3% over the past five years; Intrepid is up 6.2%, 1.2% and 4.2% in those same periods. Both have had marginal volatility.
More soon,
David

Sometimes in all these discussions about stocks the big picture gets lost.
Stocks haven't gone anywhere for 1 1/2 years
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^GSPC+Interactive#{"range":"2y","allowChartStacking":true}
Or they lost money.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^RUT+Interactive#{"range":"5y","allowChartStacking":true}
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^IXIC+Interactive#{"range":"2y","allowChartStacking":true}
They still don't look appealing to me.

Only a handful of geopolitical events have led to / accompanied major market corrections. One factor that has repeated over time has been the slowing of market activity / dry up of liquidity, the increase in market volatility because of exogenous events during the summer / fall months, and favorability of earnings reports, pick up of volume/liquidity and institutional allocations into equities in the fall / winter / spring months. If an investor utilizes an empirically derived, systematically based, risk managed process with a diversification over varied asset classes, then long term results and investment decisions are less affected by geopolitical events and emotionally driven financial news.
For example, investing in a blend of small cap value and emerging small cap from Nov 1 to Apr 30 and then switching to utilities sector or cash equivalents ( depending on "high risk" signaling instruction from risk profile variable * ) from May 1 to Oct 31 of each year, forward 5 year total returns periods after 10 major geopolitical events over the last 60 years have produced: > 100% in 7 periods and 50% - 100% in 2 periods with no losing periods.
A higher confidence of an investment process' returns involves a review of 5 year total returns after market peaks and then subsequent market corrections of > 5%.
Since 1954, forward 5 year total returns periods for the small cap value / emerging small / utilities / cash process after the "peaks" have produced > 100% in 11 of 24 occurrences, between 50% and 100% in 8 out of 24, with no losing periods with median 5 year return = 87% vs. 43% for S&P500 buy & hold. Median 5 year return periods outside of correction occurrences = 114%.
In summary, market corrections and geopolitical events are temporary. An investor who has utilized a robust tactical investment process combined with superior asset class selection, and has been disciplined and patient for at least 5 years has been well rewarded.
* quantitative price based variable # 2 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u5PjMjpeLICy8fa-34c89oHqV6bghPTipGO_0IY3VRc/edit?usp=sharing

I'm now 34 years young and I can't remember when times were not interesting! : )

I fear we will not know the full impact of the Brexit decision for many years, and that this impact may be much more that stock market fluctuations.
Putin has been consolidating power recently, and a less united Europe plays into his hands. This is probably my biggest fear. I think the folks arguing to leave were sold a bill of goods, and are suffering near term buyers remorse. The larger impact may indeed be down the road with a destabilized Europe.

That is true. Look at the middle east. The world is reaping what was decided in WWI!
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25299553
But as I posted in another thread the EU was going against the historical trends. We can expect more countries to leave the EU in favor of localized government.
Longer term Europe will build stronger ties with Russia and it will not be a bad thing for them. And it will be going back to what it was historically - Russia, just another western European country. Russia is not the USSR, it is facing the same problems as the western European countries.