FYI: Irving Levine and Copley Fund take first place in Winners’ Circle contest.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.wsj.com/articles/at-94-years-old-a-fund-manager-finds-himself-back-on-top-1467684241
M* Snapshot COPLX:
http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/COPLX/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot COPLX:
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Fund/COPLX
COPLX Is Unranked In The (LCV) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/large-value/copley-fund/coplx

What caught my eye was: "adjusted for inflation", which says that the figures are for 0% real returns. The recent concerns have been over 0% nominal returns. That's a less frequent occurrence (since inflation is almost always positive).
"Regression to the mean" says that since a 0% return is below the market average (mean), you're more likely to get a positive return (regress to the mean) than a negative return (diverge further from the mean) over the next time period.
It doesn't say that your cumulative returns will approach average if you wait long enough. That's the law of large numbers. And the further your returns are from mean, the larger (more years) those numbers have to be to get close.
The concern when the market underperforms (or outperforms for that matter) over a long stretch is that this time really is different, there's a new normal. Perhaps that should be a new norm (mean). I don't think anyone expects the US to ever again produce 1/4 of the world's output. Things do change. The difficulty is in recognizing when.
Still I agree that patience is essential.
https://infogr.am/Share-of-world-GDP-throughout-history
(Interesting graphs - China peaked at 1/3 of the world's GDP around 1820, and has been on a trajectory back that way this century.)

Hi @davidmoran,
I have owned both FDSAX and SVAAX for better than ten years. They were both suggested to me for purchase by my late father's broker who has now retired.
Old_Skeet

Hi @Junkster and others,
Thank you for your inquiry. I have no problem in answering your question as to why I started breaking down my performance reporting.
In reading the post of others, I discovered that some were posting investment returns only for investment positions within their portfolios and not reflecting their cash position. There were a good number of these, one being Ted as he reflected no cash being held when he reported but detailed what his investments had done. So with this, I started posting both ways with cash and without cash. In addition, since Morningstar portfolio does not take into account profit (or losses) from my trades I started including these as well. I expect you included profit and losses with your reporting; but, perhaps others did not. In addition, one very respected poster on the board made comment that changing ones allocation from time-to-time (sometimes by only a few percentage points) will not have much effect on the overall performance of ones portfolio. I felt different and wanted to point out the effect that my throttling my asset allocation from time-to-time was indeed having an impact.
Not trying to start anything, with anybody, I am just showing when reading what others say about their performance numbers that they can be derived from many varrying methods of reporting. Therefore, I felt I'd put some clarity in my reporting and make comment of things I felt might again be helpful to others. Part of my success in investing, better than forty years now, has to be able to, in part, determine when the better times are to put new money to work and when are perhaps good times to pick some of it up. For those that have followed my post on the board know that I broadcast my thinking and action. Before, I use to make comment on my success and I'd get call out by some who wanted me to declare what I was doing as I did it. Now, I am doing as some wanted which again, I feel, adds clarity. But, a good number of those that called me out, in the past, don't seem to around any more. I wonder why? I guess they were those that wanted to hit it big quickly perhaps through trading activity whereas I employ long term investing strategies and trade around the edges.
And, Junkster ... I want you to know, I by no means directed any of my comments towards you; however, I indeed appreciate you making the inquiry.
Thanks again for asking as it provided me an opportunity to write the above blurb.
Respectfully,
Old_Skeet

Hi @Mindy
@jerry noted: "U.S. Treasuries are a disaster..." My take on this quote from Mr. Snowball's July commentary is the wording stated to Mr. Snowball from Mr. Hasenstab. If I am incorrect, someone please state otherwise.
Disclosure: We were invested in Mr. Hasenstab's global bond fund for about 2.5 years, selling the holding in March, 2012.
Selected bond reference total returns, March 2012 - July 1, 2016
---TPINX, +6.6%
---IEF, +16.6%
---HYG, +20.2%
---EMB, +23.8%
---TLT, +42.5%
---EDV, +62%
As to the "Treasuries are a disaster", I would require a full explanation of the statement and to what time frame, past and/or present, from Mr. Hasenstab causes the disaster word. As Mr. Hasenstab has vastly more investment/economic studies versus my ongoing studies at Whats-a-matter U; I could only guess as to the decision making process for his investment choices. The presumption being that he is a dedicated value investor in the world of bonds. Not unlike Eric Cinnamon mentioned here recently searching for the ultimate values in the world of equity or whatever. Perhaps both managers have been sidetracked by the total dynamics of continued changes in the money flows of the global markets since the market melt. Sometimes it is difficult to deal with the "this time it is different".
Although our house is still bond slanted, I am not a fan of how this low interest rate environment is going to resolve. Money borrowing is dirt cheap, and will likely continue to temp more buyout/takeover action (whether sensible or not); as well as affects on consumer borrowing/spending.
However, until economies become more settled; I expect investment grade bonds to remain stable. The economies today are being pushed and shoved hard by politics and society in general.
Flexible and adaptable perhaps do not always fit into a managers mold of what he/she views as "what should be"; versus the real outcomes.
I suspect most here are really value investors. We want to buy cheap and sell at a higher price, yes? When the investment gears don't turn in the anticipated directions, value can become a sink hole.
Johnny Lee (Urban Cowboy movie) sang:
Lookin' for love
I've spent a lifetime looking for you
Single bars and good time lovers, never true
Playing a fools game, hoping to win
Telling those sweet lies and losing again.
I was looking for love in all the wrong places
Looking for love in too many faces
Searching your eyes, looking for traces
Of what.. I'm dreaming of...
Love/lovers being the love of an investment relative to the topic here. Sometimes folks are so in love, that they don't see and leave a bad relationship.
Regards,
Catch

Hi @Charles,
Thanks for posting how SPY & AGG has performed and split 50/50 would have performed with a return of about 5.75%. This is something that I monitor but in mutual fund form and not in etf form.
My mutual fund 50/50 portfolio that I track is up 4.4% vs. the etf 50/50 being up 4.75%. To me, this reflects that the etf is out performing due to lower cost associated with most ets today but might not reflect all investment cost if the etf's are held in a wrap account.
With some skill and luck the investment return of my portfolio (excluding cash) according to Morningstar's portfolio manager is up 5.5% year-to-date and when factoring in trading profits puts me up about another percent. With this, I am "feeling pretty good" (as Flo says in the Progressive Insurance commericals)... and, especially, when I consider the current investment climate we have all faced over the past couple of years. My engineer high school buddy, that I have reference in some previous post, is up about the same as I am as we have both at times used some adaptive allocation strategies. He uses only mutual fund of indexes within his portfolio for the S&P 500 Stock Index and the Aggerate Bond Index.
While my portfolio is more complex and offers a higher income generation his is more simplified with lower income generation with his portfolio currently slightly edging me out on a total return basis for the one, three and five year periods but not over a full market cycle of the past ten years.
We are both happy with our results as we both wear smiles on our faces. Indeed, investing has been good to both of us.

Old-Skeet I am not trying to start anything here as I have always found you legit - something that can't be said for some that post on investing and especially trading boards. But you are the only investor I have ever seen anywhere anyplace that breaks down your returns minus cash. Everyone else breaks down returns based on their total portfolio balance - cash included. I am just curious why you do this. Now you throw in "when factoring trading profits". So I guess the question is assuming no withdrawals or additions, what are you up based on 1/1/16 total balance to 7/01/16 total balance.
Edit. I guess in the spirit of full disclosure I am having a bad, a really, really bad year. After a bang up 2014 and 2015, this year I am up 5.58%. I am lagging the returns of both junk corp and junk munis. Lots of reasons for my underperformance but primarily due to a lifestyle change. The only comfort I get from my low return is my worst drawdown in 2016 has been under 0.80%. But were I to figure a YTD percentage excluding cash I would be up probably 8% to 9%, albeit it would be difficult to compute. But regardless, excluding cash seems to me to be a totally meaningless and bogus percentage.

Hi @Charles,
Thanks for posting how SPY & AGG has performed and split 50/50 would have performed with a return of about 5.75%. This is something that I monitor but in mutual fund form and not in etf form.
My mutual fund 50/50 portfolio that I track is up 4.4% vs. the etf 50/50 being up 4.75%. To me, this reflects that the etf is out performing due to lower cost associated with most ets today but might not reflect all investment cost if the etf's are held in a wrap account.
With some skill and luck the investment return of my portfolio (excluding cash) according to Morningstar's portfolio manager is up 5.5% year-to-date and when factoring in trading profits puts me up about another percent. With this, I am "feeling pretty good" (as Flo says in the Progressive Insurance commericals)... and, especially, when I consider the current investment climate we have all faced over the past couple of years. My engineer high school buddy, that I have referenced in some previous post, is up about the same as we have both at times used some adaptive allocation strategies. He uses only mutual fund of indexes within his portfolio for the S&P 500 Stock Index and the Aggerate Bond Index.
While my portfolio is more complex and offers higher income generation, his is more simplified with lower income generation with his portfolio currently slightly edging me out on a total return basis for the one, three and five year periods but not over a full market cycle of the past ten years.
We are both happy with our results as we both wear a smile on our face. Indeed, investing has been good to both of us.

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.