Artisan's management fee has consistently above average among actively managed funds. Many did mind as long as their performance is good. Some of their strategies over the last several years have been lagging badly. For example, Artisan Sm Cap Value has been liquidated and folded into Mid Cap Value. Artisan International, one of the oldest fund, has been lagging badly relative to Vanguard Total International Index fund.
Yes, they close their funds to protect the existing investors. At the same time they launch many new funds. Hate to see a good shop goes down the road that Janus did. Like you said, going public is a bad idea.

That's the first time I've seen it suggested that funds are more nimble if they are larger and are stuck with lots of cash that they have to invest regardless of what they can find.
If a fund owns good stocks, it shouldn't want to sell them (M&P tries to find solid stocks that it can hold for several years). If conditions change and a company's stock is no longer a good fit, the fund should sell it. Its cash flow is irrelevant.
The ability of funds to move easily in and out of securities is dominated primarily by the size of the positions being changed (relative to the size of the market for the security). Cash inflows are secondary. Often large inflows are detrimental, because they force funds to buy too much of a security (driving price up), or too fast (driving price up) in order to mitigate cash drag.
It is correct that funds are generally more tax efficient if they've got tons of cash pouring in. Their current holdings are dwarfed by the new cash, so any gains generated from the current portfolio are spread among lots and lots of new shareholders.
But if a fund is already tax efficient, either because it holds securities for years or because its securities don't spin off dividends, the tax impact of large inflows is less significant. All M&P funds invest with the intent of holding securities for years. Also small cap stocks are less likely to pay dividends. So I wouldn't be overly concerned about diminishing tax efficiency for this fund.
Many fund families that close funds do so too late. This is because they are optimizing their profits, not yours. Performance may tend to drop as funds get too large. But so long as this doesn't impact the fund family (e.g. diminished reputation harming flows into other funds), they're happy to keep money flowing to the large fund. (See Magellan.)
This is why a fund closure is often taken as a negative signal. But it depends upon the fund family. The mere fact that M&P didn't even try to go nationwide for years speaks to its lack of interest in drawing investments solely for the sake of increasing AUM.

Some Roth distributions are federally taxable (e.g. earnings if your Roths are less than five years old). "Any portion of your Roth IRA distribution that is included in your federal adjusted gross income (AGI), is subject to Michigan tax."
http://www.michigan.gov/taxes/0,4676,7-238-75545_43715-154072--,00.html
"if part of the [Roth] distribution is taxable, then Michigan pension withholding would be required on the taxable portion of the distribution."
http://www.michigan.gov/taxes/0,4676,7-238-43513_59451-263747--,00.html
As far as other fund houses go - there are a lot of wrong answers out there. My experience with front line customer reps is that some may give answers without checking details.
Sometimes it's hard to get past front line reps. I once spent six months arguing with an electric supplier because they were charging tax to residential customers, when the city law explicitly exempted residential customers from tax. (They ultimately stopped collecting the tax but said it would take awhile to compute refunds.)
I got an answer from Fidelity earlier this year that I believed was wrong (again, a tax question). It happens. I was able to work around that answer, so it wasn't worth a fight. But I did email them a link to an IRS page directly contradicting what they told me.

Hello,
A good article on rebalancing covering the why's and how to's.
For me, the best thing I did, years back, was to determine an asset allocation consisting of cash, bonds, stocks and other assets with target percentages being set for each asset class allowing for some range movement based upon market conditions, my needs and most important my risk tolerance. Over time, I developed a matrix that helps me determine just how much stocks, the most risky asset class, to hold from time-to-time based upon certain market condidtions but keeping within my asset allocation range for stocks.
Currently, my range allocations are as follows: Cash Allocation range 15% to 25% with target currently being set at 20% ... Income Allocation range 25% to 35% with target currently being set at 30% ... Growth & Income Allocation range 30% to 40% with target being set at 35% ... and Growth Allocation range 10% to 20% with target being set at 15%. In doing a recent Morningstar Instant Xray analysis on my portfolio the results were cash 25%, bonds 25%, domestic stocks 30%, foreign stocks 15% and other assets 5%. With this, I am currently light in my income allocation due to an anticipated rising interest rate environment, neutral in my stock allocation and heavy in my cash allocation. Note, some of my hybrid funds must have recently bought stocks because not too long ago I was light in stocks as well as bonds.
In general, my market valuation matrix determines how much stocks I will hold from time-to-time on the investment positions that I set the allocation on and is based, in most part, on some valuations measures I use to gague the market. These include both technical and fundamental measures along with some room for my other measure that allows for some reasoning and is known, by me, as my SWAG mythology, Scientific Wild Ass Guess, which includes some investment folklore. For the hybrid funds that I own, I let the fund manages determine what assets to hold and how much of each while I determine how much of my portfolio is to be invested in hybrid type funds. In doing this, this allows for some adaptive allocation movement, within the portfolio, through asset movement and repositioning within the hybrid funds held. Currnetly, the hybrid funds make up about 40% of the overall portfolio.
For me, rebalaning form time-to-time has indeed, I feel, been beneficial.
I really did enjoyed reading the article.
Thanks @Ted for posting.
I wish all ... "Good Investing."

Wrote out a lot about this, but not really worth starting a debate- it's MFO, we're aware of index funds, you can argue this one with the Bogleheads. Mairs and Power: long history, great track records for all 3 funds, good stewards, the outperformance is due to active share and their investment process. You can't really compare 5 years of returns, it's not realistic.

"Nothing about retail prime funds being especially prone to risk"
I believe all MM's carry risk. The possibility of losing .01c means prone to risk in my mind compared to the history of MM's (for the most part) holding the buck in past years.

msf - your point is well taken. And, had not fund managers dipped into their pockets a few times to prop-up floundering money funds over the years, many of us likely would have experienced (probably minor) losses.
A benefit I see in keeping some $$ in Price's Government Money Market Fund is that it facilitates taking IRA distributions. Should there be a mistake in the way the money is taxed (or not taxed) it would seem a lot easier to straighten it out before the money has left Price's domain.
With Michigan's confusing mandatory withholding on pensions (which Price interprets to include IRA distributions) having that extra check is really nice. Of course when needed, the distributions are shifted from the money market fund to our bank account.
As for running a conservative ship with their MM funds, it's hard to beat Price. As you know, some houses in the past took liberties with these funds in search of yield - one of the reasons, I think, why the SEC saw fit to tighten regulations.

Geez - I've never lost a dime in a money market fund, going back 40 years.
Wish I could say the same about gold funds where I once lost a third of my investment over six months or the equity market which felt like Halloween in late summer of '07. And, Oh - also lost money with Dr. Hussman years ago. (HSGFX is still running true to form.)
Cheers.

In large part thanks to what's been available over the years RIGHT HERE, and going back to the predecessor iteration, yours truly discovered MAPOX and MSCFX and bought it, and I have been a happy camper, since.

Just look at the chart. These kind of finds should be bought with timing. It starts rolling over earlier and then when the turn comes it shoots up in massive outperformance at which point everyone starts noticing. If the market goes down, I bet it goes down. It's a low turnover fund. Look at its top holdings. You think they will hold well in market downturn?
Be patient until everyone starts cursing the fund. Yes, those people who you asked if they owned it will come and tell you :-). Then buy, hold for 2-3 years and then sell. I've done this twice with MXXVX. Did I buy perfectly? No. Did I sell too soon? Absolutely. One shouldn't dream of buying perfect lows and selling at perfect highs.
Needless to say I sold SFGIX too early. I didn't think it would become the fund it has. I figured dollar would stay strong and EMs wouldn't do well. I also didn't have as much gains in WAEMX so I chose to sell SFGIX. Did I leave money on the table? Yes, I don't regret it. Now I know it is closing. I bought a fraction, and will wait patiently for the trough.
You like SMVLX, you should do the same. I'm waiting on BVAOX right now. Also waiting on WGRNX, but I'm getting worried that wait will never end, the point being it's all right if that happens.
Love is not for Mutual Funds. For everything else there is VFINX, etc.

FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search) "Investing From The Ground Up"
Bob Mitchell and Joe Monahan have visited enough companies over the years to know what gives them confidence in a potential investment—and what makes them leery.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=Investing+From+the+Ground+Up+Barron's
M* Snapshot CCASX:
http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/CCASX/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot CCASX:
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Fund/CCASX
CCASX Is Ranked #10 In The (SGC) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/small-growth/conestoga-small-cap/ccasx

Because of, or in spite of, localization?
From M, via SFGate: The main argument for regional funds is that managers gain an edge by being close to the companies they own.
But from CS Monitor (1998): Many years ago, regional investing might have made sense. ... But with the proliferation of data sources and telecommunication, I can be just as close to a company in California as I can to one down the street.
It went on to observe that out of thousands of stock funds, there were only "about two dozen [regional funds] (whose combined assets total $3.3 billion)" . At least back then I could name a handful of those two dozen - Safeco NW, Franklin Calif. Growth, M&P Growth, and Golden Gate Fund GGFDX (SF Bay Area). Name any regional fund management company today other than M&P. I can't (which doesn't mean they don't exist).
All these regional funds falling by the wayside. I think that qualifies as odds stacked against the genre. Which brings me back to my lead sentence - is M&P doing well because of, or in spite of, its regional focus?
Most might indeed agree that M&P trounced the odds decade after decade. I suppose it did in the sense that it managed to survive while most regionals didn't. But in terms of performance, it was decidedly mediocre for the three decades between 1970 and 2000. (From 1/1/70 to 12/31/99, a $10K investment in MPGFX grew to $349K, compared to $345K for the average LCBlend fund, and $513K for the S&P 500.)
This lends credibility to the thesis that it is the fund's management and not its regionality that had given it more recent success.

So I've sold part of my position in SCMFX. FWIW, I have concluded it is not better / worse than any other fund of its kind. It is indeed a bull market fund, so I've a little bit of tax loss harvesting and will wait patiently.
Now SEEDX. It seems to have loaded up on healthcare AFTER its big run up in past years, and this seems to have been its undoing. I might sell part of its position, but that's less likely. What is more likely is I conclude the manager's theory is just wrong (like I correctly did with MUHLX and got out at right time several years back), sell all and never look back.
FWIIMH

I also own SFGIX, since 2012. Very pleased. It is my only EM equity fund.

Same here. I've owned it for a few years and it's my only EM fund.

BobC and VF each highlight interesting questions, as there are at least two different perspectives on each of their issues.
What is the responsibility of a corporation? Corporations owe their legal existence (shielding shareholders from personal liability, etc.) to the state, and as such have traditionally been regarding as having some public obligations. Over the past 30 years or so, that perspective has shifted toward viewing corporations as answerable solely to their shareholders.
The two perspectives are not entirely incompatible, as VF suggests by mentioning an obligation to do right by their employees. Either because that's part of an implicit agreement with the state that grants corporations legal status, or because companies that treat their employees well tend to be more profitable and thus benefit their shareholders.
Either way, there is a third leg to this stool - the customers. Corporations have an obligation to do right by them as well.
Which brings us to spin - a question applicable to all media companies, not just Morningstar. There is one line of thinking (implicit in BobC's comment) that all publishers pander - so let's give up on any pretense of objectivity. You see this in some press internationally, and it was widespread in the US a century ago.
The pendulum may be swinging back that way. Not just Fox News, but CNN where the "talent" has to add disclaimers on air that they are still on outside payroll.
But that doesn't mean objectivity is a fool's errand. Some publishers build firewalls between content and advertising departments. Never 100% effective (IMHO), they nevertheless do (or at least can do) a good job in keeping the content fairly objective.
M*'s firewall: http://discuss.morningstar.com/NewSocialize/forums/t/251837.aspx
(I readily acknowledge that M*'s 2010 statement that it was investing in its infrastructure undermines its credibility regarding its firewall.)

Hi @jerry
I recall the choices for the TIAA Michigan 529 were limited 10+ years ago and the fees were much higher for a direct purchase (which we use, no advisor stuff).
I checked MI 529 today and find the fees are now competitive.
NOTE: Much has changed during the past 10 years in the 529 marketplace. I recall quite a few vendor changes in numerous state plans; as well as significant fee reductions.
MICH 529 TIAA This links to multi-fund choices, with single fund choices clickable on the right side page edge. The multi-funds (I read) are funds of funds. These appear to be suitable enough for most folks.
UTAH 529 plan choices, individual selections This is the "build your own" list. The recent adds of the DFA funds have "high" expenses, relative to the Vanguard choices.
'Course the bugger with any of the choices are the restrictions on changing the investment choices; which, until 2015 was limited to 1 switch per calendar year and is now 2 allocation changes each year. This is now sufficient, IMHO.
Anyhoo..........Utah's plan was more appealing to us a number of years ago, and still is; and we find no need to transfer from this into Michigan's current offering. Don't know that I implied a negative towards TIAA, just not the best choice at the time and wouldn't likely be the choice today.
K...........back to house painting here.
Regards,
Catch

Regarding bond funds - Vanguard funds will always merit consideration, because for bond funds the correlation between cost and performance is quite strong. Why another bond fund? Because one rarely gets an actively managed bond fund at this low a cost and this small a size.
What makes me queasy about the fund (at least going by the description) is that this sounds like what Vanguard did with its total bond index fund in 2002 (when it managed to underperform its benchmark by about 1%). See this old M* thread:
http://socialize.morningstar.com/NewSocialize/forums/t/69530.aspx
Regarding the equity funds - M* star ratings provide objective summaries of past (risk adjusted) past performance. 4* and 5* performances may not indicate future results, but they do say that these funds have done well relative to their peers. HRSRX (4*), MVSGX(4*), DPIEX (5*), WCMRX (5*). Likewise, these funds' returns (not risk adjusted) over 3, 5, and 10 years are all above average (4) or high (5).

Make sure to fund your Roth annually while working (as noted by Bee). If you are going to give money to (lucky) relatives you can bequeath the Roth IRA to them and their withdrawals will be tax free; they will have to pay taxes on Traditional IRA distribuitons. I also own sfgix/mainx and some of the VG funds mentioned but in IRAs.
BTW push back SS as late as possible. I think every year of delay adds 8%ish to the SS money annually. There is much literature on this; Sam Lee laid this out in a M* article several years ago but it might only be available to newsletter subscribers.

Thanks for the question. It made me rethink and remind myself of the importance of having a plan when it comes to the use of discretionary money.
If the goal is to meet future retirement needs (income) I suggest the following:
Year one:
-Consider using some of this money to "treating" yourself and others with a "gift". You would be amazed at how great it feels to give to a charity or a loved one.
-If you haven't yet funded an emergency fund:
Determine what 6-12 months of living expenses would be and create an emergency fund (cash/near cash).
-If you have earned income, fund retirement accounts:
1st - Match employer contribution (401K/403b/457/etc)
2nd - Fully fund a Roth IRA (Roth IRA)
3rd - Max out employer offered retirement plans or, if self employed, max out SDIRA
-Health insurance wise, Are you eligible to contribute to an H.S.A (Health Savings Account). If so. use some of the money to max out your contribution?
Make it a point to continue funding the above accounts until you are no longer eligible. The remaining balance could be divided in three investment pools.
1-3 years
-The goal with this money is to meet the needs of what was laid out in year one each year going forward, but could also serve as a good plan for supplementing retirement income needs. It should be invested conservatively and replenished (re-balanced) using funds from the other two pools once a year. ST bond, IT bond, and MS bond funds work well here. Maybe even conservative allocation funds like VWINX.
4-10 years
Find a few good Balance funds...CBALX, VTMFX, VWELX, FBALX, etc. Re-balance once a year by redeeming some of these shares and replenishing your 1-3 year pool funds.
10 years +
This pool is home Moderate Allocation funds like (PRWCX), Aggressive Allocation funds like (POAGX) and well as any Alternative Allocation (RE, Utility, PM, HY Bonds, etc) funds. It will serve the purpose of long term growth as well as the occasional place to re-balance with the other two pools.
What is the purpose of your goal of achieving dividend and interest?
Good Luck!

PCI can still be had at a discount.

Thank you, I will look into PCI
I also agree that dividend and interest instruments have gotten ahead of themselves. And with the FED talking a raise I can wait for a pull back to the end of the year. But, I still feel that over the next 5 years at least they will be a good investment.
"From 1945 to 2001, and 10 cycles, recessions lasted an average 10 months and expansions an average of 57 "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States
The Great Recession ended June 2009, so maybe we are due for a recession when interest rates will fall again. This is something I have not read about anywhere - that this expansion is getting old. That could be because most do not feel like a robust expansion.
From reading some of the posts on this board I've become less fearful of general inflation. The factors just don't seem to be there; except for an oil embargo or war.