Oh, of course. It is that time of the month again. They have to mention American funds.
Personally I've been looking at FTEMX for years, but somehow never pulled the trigger. I got back into SFGIX after they announced closing but hardly have anything. I'm going to keep patient. If I lose, I lose.

@VintageFreak, I would give them a bit of time to get organized but eventually I'd call customer service and ask them to grandfather Scottrade's pricing for you or whatever you'd like to keep. I did that successfully many years ago during another combination but I'm pretty sure I waited until the merger was complete before I made my request.

In response to BobC's above question.
Below is my best guess, thoughts and comments.
Not speaking for American Funds but from the perspective of one of their mutual fund investors I am thinking it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for them to move to only a one share class fund firm due to, the no doubt, many revenue sharing agreements they have in place with the many other financial firms they have developed relationships with through the years. Thus the large number of fund share classes necessary to serve this large and broad base of investors that they now serve through many venues.
I am an A fund share holder that paid a one time front load commission (through the years) and, with this, I received nva exchange prividledges among their A share funds without having to pay another sales charge. These sales charges, from my memory, ranged form 3.5% to 5.75% depending on the fund I was buying without applying other discounts. I'm thinking the brokerage wrap accounts that many firms have moved to that have on going fees associated with these type accounts and that I have the better deal. I have seen annual wrap fee schedules of better than 1.5% for some wrap accounts with most being around the 1.0% range and a few back of that.
I have owned some American Funds for better than thiry years with some funds that I now own were owned for years by my parents before being passed to me through gift and inheritance transfers. When you consider the number of years these funds have been owned the sales load spread over the years owned is very small. Now an on going annual account wrap and/or advisor retainer fee paid over these same years would be very, very large.
I'm thinking long term investors need to determine which route will be the best for them while I can undestand some short term investors might find more favor in the wrap fee account who wish to move in and out of their positions and trade a lot. There are some restrictions on how many nav transfers I can make over a given time span. These restrictions are designed to prevent a lot of in and out trading but do allow for repositioning my portfolio from time-to-time.
Also, know American Funds is not the only family of funds that I am invested with as they are mostly a large cap value shop. Some of the other fund families are Alger, Alps, Blackrock, Columbia, Delaware, Dreyfus, Eaton Vance, Federated, Fidelity, First Investors, Franklin, Guggenheim, Invesco, Hotchkis & Wiley, J P Morgan, Loomis Sayles, Lord Abbett, Neuberger & Berman, Principal, Prudential, Sun America, Thornburg, Virtus and perhaps a few others that I missed. All of these fund families allow for nav exchanges within their family of funds so my cost to move around within their family of funds and reposition my portfolio from time-to-time is at no cost to me.
From my thinking there are no ongoing annual wrap account fees and/or advisor sales commissions, for me, as my sales charges have already been paid except for the small 12b-1 fee that applies on some of the funds I own.
Yep, I'm thining I've got the better deal over wrap fee based accounts and fee based advisors who charge annual retainer fees.
Old_Skeet

But remember that most public employees also have a pretty generous pension plan that is far better than Social Security. Why else would the politicians not be a part of SS? Our experience has been that public employees who also have contributed to 403b (yes, most have hideous fee structures) plans are often in financially strong shape at retirement. Most mutual fund companies opted out of 403b plans years ago, so that left only those funds run by insurance companies as options for many plan participants. Interesting that a number of quality fund companies (T.R. Price, for example) remained in the 457 business, which is a plus for those folks who qualify.

Davidmoran, could you provide more information on the "subpar performance" of the low-vol funds? I am not challenging your comment, but the ones we follow, specifically SPHD and SPLV, have out-performed their benchmarks rather nicely. Although SPLV is a bit under the S&P 500 YTD, it has done better over 2 & 3 years. Over five it is a bit lower, but it has done so with much less volatility. SPHD has run rings around the index. Understand that I do not expect it to continue its blazing path, as it has shown signs of weakening the last 1-3 months. But it is hard to argue with its overall performance. The same could be said for XMLV versus MDY. Some have suggested this is a fad. Perhaps. But so far, at least, when the index swoons, these have held up pretty well.

Don Yacktman is no longer of part of management.
His son, Steve, and co-manager, Jason Subotky have been running Yacktman funds for last several years. Both Yacktman and Yacktman Focus funds are concentrated that focus on few sectors.

I agree the ever-expanding # of AF share classes is an exercise in excessive extremes.
However, I do appreciate their multi-manager approach, and it's served me well over the years.

Hi. Hank,
I certainly do agree with much of what has been posted on this exchange, especially your last posting. On this topic, with the same prime time players (Jaffe, Natixis), this is the second time around the horn for you. I'll provide a Link a little later.
Just like no financial advisor is created equal, no financial writers are created equal either. And separate columns composed by each writer are not equal. Brilliance is hard to maintain on any timescale.
This Jaffe column might not belong on the brilliant side of the scoring, but it is not a dud either. Jaffe has been using the Natixis work for a long time. For example, you commented on a similar column about two years ago. Here is the internal Link to the column and your comments:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/13442/chuck-jaffe-proof-most-investors-are-clueless-david-giunta-pres-natixis-global-asset-management
It is not surprising that Natixis uses a hired firm to conduct their surveys. That's a common practice. We do the same when we hire mutual fund managers to fill our portfolios with companies of their choosing. Nothing unusual about interpreting results generated by an outfit that you hired. Natixis uses Core Data to do their survey legwork. Here is a Link that describes the Core Data organization and some of their talent:
http://www.coredataresearch.com/about/our-approach/
Core Data seems to have the capabilities to do worldwide surveys. It doesn't disturb me one whit that Natixis does its own interpretation of the data collected.
I certainly agree with you that the summary conclusions you listed are mundane if they were the only conclusions or stats presented. But they were not. Just about each page of the white paper provided some detailed statistics associated with both advisors and their clients.
I also agree that the referenced white paper was designed for financial advisors, and not for private investors. That does not diminish the value of the surveys. These surveys still identify shortfalls in both advisor and individual investor thinking and planning.
This takes us back to the Jaffe article that prompted this hot exchange: investors "are Probably Way Too Optimistic About Your Investment Returns". Most of the postings don't argue this assertion. In any final analyses, that's what it is all about. A casual charge that Jaffe and Natixis are BSers is far too extreme. Certainly any analysis or article has shortfalls. Exceptions simply do not exist.
Sorry for the delay in my response. My wife and I are celebrating her 77th birthday. It's been a grand day.
Best Wishes.

Dear S. Disturber, (aka, @Old_Joe )
Could be either or both, depending upon how well the advisors surveyed actually performed for their customer base; as the Natixis whitepaper is apparently directed at a captive crowd of company connected advisors.
I did read that "alternative investments" seem to be on the "next or current" hot plate of places for money to travel; if the client is in the $1-4 million dollar portfolio arena.
If and when an investment advisor can provide a true document to me of how they performed for portfolio type "x", over the past 10, 5 and 1year time frames, that would have been or is suitable for me today, I'll listen.
The most simple baseline would be to compare against the inexpensive VWINX.
Below in bold, from the 2015 whitepaper linked prior:
Investment Pragmatist: More than three-quarters of advisors believe that a
traditional stock and bond portfolio is no longer enough to effectively manage
risk and pursue returns. Fortunately, continual innovation has provided access
to new asset classes, new pricing structure and new portfolio tools, allowing
advisors to make practical decisions about which tool will best fit client goals
and investment objectives.
I wish these folks (advisors and clients) well with the alternative path.
The below fund link at about 40/60, equity/bond over the long term. Pick your own equity/bond mix, a built your own, eh? My own caution note for such a mix is that some bond types may blow up at any time, and I would always advise to be observant. 'Course, folks here are always paying attention, yes? And don't forget that the death of the 30+ year bond market bull continues to be issued by someone, somewhere; one would suspect. I recall its imminent death announcement here several years ago (the thread exists somewhere, eh?), but I don't have time for search; although I recall Mr. Snowball was involved in the discussion).
VWINX performance
VWINX composition
Lastly, I have had several pre-Halloween treats today; in order to sample the quality of what we will distribute to the young ones. Hopefully, this has not affected, greatly, my ability to think or write. 'Course, in reading this before posting; I sound a bit arrogant, eh?
Well, I know I am as smart and do as well as some financial advisors on this planet.
Sincerely and respectfully,
Mr. Catch

@Old_Joe I'm glad to see Paul Katzoff of IBD join the ranks of many financial writers who over the years have monitored FundAlarm and now MFO.
Regards,
Ted

There's probably less of a story here than what it appears. I bet the survey is skewed towards people who are saving for a retirement that is years away. Retirees likely would not give the same answer if they have shifted to a lower risk profile because they couldn't square such a high real return forecast with the reality of today's interest rate regime.
Nick de Peyster
http://undervaluedstocks.info

Who exactly are these "investors" who expect inflation + 8.5%? None around here, for sure. Sounds like more typical BS from Jaffe.
Who exactly are these "advisors" who expect inflation +"5.9%"? I just love pseudo-exact numbers like that in a context like this one. Not roughly 5.5%, not roughly 6%, but exactly 5.9%. Sorry MJG- just more BS.
Every responsible advisor that I've noticed in the last couple of years is using 4%, and that with some caution.

@hank You can upgrade that to IntelliSafe Autopilot if you wish .
Germany Says ‘Nein’ to Tesla Calling Its Tech ‘Autopilot’
In the next few years, shopping for a luxury car will mean parsing terms like Drive Pilot (Mercedes), Traffic Jam Assist (Ford and Audi), Driving Assistant Plus (BMW), Supercruise (Cadillac), Automated Highway Driving Assist (Lexus), and IntelliSafe Autopilot (Volvo). These terms describe roughly the same thing: a car that can hold its lane and maintain a safe distance from other vehicles.
As automakers develop cars that drive themselves for real, you can bet those terms will become more common—and more confusing, which explains why regulators are stepping in.
No one said progress is easy.
https://www.wired.com/2016/10/germany-tesla-autopilot

One of the reasons that I own the number of mutual funds within my portfolio that I do (currently forty seven) ... (emphasis mine)

Nice number 'Ol Skeet. 47 turns out to be both a safe prime an Einstein prime and is of considerable importance to mathematicians, astronomers, film makers, and many others.
--- Forty-seven has been the favorite number of Pomona College, California, USA, since 1964. A mathematical proof, written in 1964 by Professor Donald Bentley, supposedly demonstrates that all numbers are equal to 47.
--- The 47-year cycle of Mars: after 47 years - 22 synodic periods of 780 days each - Mars returns to the same position among the stars and is in the same relationship to the Earth and Sun. The ancient Mesopotamians discovered this cycle.
--- In the 2009 film Star Trek, the Enterprise was built in Sector 47 of the Riverside Shipyards, and 47 Klingon ships are said to have been destroyed by Nero's ship, the Narada.
--- During the 2012 election, Republican candidate Mitt Romney made a comment claiming that 47 percent of Americans do not pay any income tax.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_ (On line 1, click related link. "This article is about the year 47. For the number, see 47 (number).")

FYI: (This is a follow-up article)
A nightmare scenario has haunted asset managers for years: What if the flood of cash that's poured into debt mutual funds since 2008 suddenly reverses, leaving a field of financial-market carnage behind?
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-10-18/mutual-funds-get-surge-pricing-for-costly-bond-flight

Hi Hank, Hi msf,
Thanks for your comments, especially those most recently made.
The active vs. passive management debate will remain a hot topic. While the overwhelming academic research concludes that passive is the winner on average and in the long haul, limited evidence suggests that active management can deliver superior returns and/or reduced risk over some periods. The secret sauce is to discover the right manager for the right timeframe.
That's not an easy task; what worked in the past need not work in the future. Fund manager Bill Miller is a great example. He outperformed his benchmark for 15 consecutive years and just a few years later scored in the bottom 1% of all active managers. Things change.
A successful active manager wins over some timeframe using a specific methodology that reflects his knowledge and his biases. Once again things like macroeconomic conditions change and the active manager is not flexible enough to either recognize the changes or to adjust his methods. That was Bill Miller.
If you favor active fund management, you must actively evaluate active managers. That's tough work, but necessary to capture the small percentage of fund managers who do beat their benchmarks. It's a changing group since persistence is not one of their basic characteristics.
Benchmarks are needed to challenge and test the quality of active fund management. For lhose funds that specialize in large companies, the S&P 500 Index seems to provide a respectable, albeit an imperfect measure.
I did know that a committee controlled the firms represented by the Index, and that a few changes were made annually based on rules and judgments. I am not aware of the weightings given to the formulaic portion of the decision process and the heuristic portion.
I am not adverse to having a human heuristic segment. For something as uncertain as company assessment and the stock markets, equations alone will never be perfect. But too much emotional heuristics can ruin a useful market tool. The balance is a difficult target, but the S&P 500 committee seems to have done an acceptable job. By rule, they must maintain a proper weighting in the 11 major sector categories. Nothing is ever perfect in the marketplace; a satisficing strategy must do.
Best Wishes.

This is a bit of a sidetrack, but is spurred by jstr's use of S&P as a prototypical index provider.
S&P's "indexes" do not have "systematic selection criteria", at least the way I would use that phrase: "entirely rules-based and containing no judgment".
See, e.g. "What Is an Index" http://alo.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/index_5.pdf
Unlike other index providers such as Russell, Wilshire, etc., Standard and Poor's has a human index committee that applies judgment in selecting securities for index inclusion. Notable is its criterion for removal: "lack of representation". This potential for subjective tinkering was out in full force at the peak of the dot com bubble:

The S&P 500 is often mischaracterized as a passively managed index of large stocks, but in 2000, its managers became seriously aggressive -- adding (and subtracting) four new stocks each month, on average. In the process, the index was systematically stripped of small and mid-sized value stocks from Jan. 28 to Dec. 11 in favor of large-cap growth stocks -- largely from the technology sector, and at exactly the wrong moment.

https://www.thestreet.com/story/1305526/1/make-a-bundle-on-the-sps-rejects.html
More recently, S&P made rule changes not to improve how well its index represented the market or the index's investability, but to improve S&P's bottom line:

In 2008 and 2009, S&P . . . tossed nine companies off the 500 for inverting. But four years ago [June 2010], S&P changed course, for business reasons. Companies were angry at being excluded, and index investors wanted to own some of the excluded companies. Moreover, S&P feared that a competitor would set up a more inclusive, rival index.

http://fortune.com/2015/11/23/pfizer-dow-jones/
Systematic selection criteria? Yeah, right.

Hi Guys,
Wow!!! You folks have terrific memories. You remembered a rather modest MFO exchange about a Warren Buffett recommendation that was made over 2 years ago. That's remarkable; especially when contrasted against my many memory shortfalls.
I went to the internal referenced link and was relieved to discover that I did not participate in the exchange. If I had, that would have been doubly embarrassing.
The most interesting thing I learned from reading your historical posts was that our intrepid linkster Ted possess a walk on water capability. Only a few of us share that talent.
Memory plays many tricks on us, mostly impacting our behavior and decision making in a negative way. Abraham Lincoln captured a proper perspective when he said " No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."
Thank you all for contributing to this honest and friendly discussion.
Best Wishes.

Nice catch, Catch! :)
I hope folks take a look at that thread from March 2014. (In particular, Ted hasn't aged a bit over those two and a half years!)
Thanks.

Hi Guys,
"My advice to the trustee couldn't be more simple: Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard's.) I believe the trust's long-term results from this policy will be superior to those attained by most investors — whether pension funds, institutions or individuals — who employ high-fee managers."
That is a recent quote from Warren Buffett. Over many years he remains consistent in his investment recommendations. Here is a quote from his 1996 Shareholder Letter:
"Most institutional and individual investors will find the best way to own common stock is through an index fund that charges minimal fees. Those following this path are sure to beat the net results [after fees and expenses] delivered by the great majority of investment professionals."
I recently discovered a fine set of investment videos from an outfit in England. They practice what Buffett has been saying for decades for most investors. The presentation material is not very sophisticated, especially for most of MFO participants, but it includes many brief segments from famous US researchers. It's all about sensible investing which is the name of the firm that produced the video. Your enjoyment will most likely be tied to your preference for active or passive investing strategies. Here is a Link to one of their 1 hour videos:
https://www.sensibleinvesting.tv/passive-investing-the-evidence
Enjoy. Since I do a mix of both actively and passively managed mutual funds, I did enjoy it. I am slowly moving more of my funds in the passive direction.
Best Regards.