Because of the currency hedging, that may be an apples and oranges comparison. The dollar has been growing stronger over the past few years, so a hedged fund is likely to have done better than unhedged funds. That doesn't mean the fund will do better in the long run, as the dollar fluctuates in strength. Unless one believes that the dollar will not come down.
See my comment in another thread, which cites a Vanguard paper explaining the differences in performance between hedged and unhedged funds.
Quoting from another section of the Vanguard paper:

Over the long term, for a currency management program to produce added return in strategic asset allocations, one must believe not only in a persistent return (positive or negative) from foreign currency, but also that this return will differ substantially from the return realized by hedging.

GLDSX has all of the trappings of a friends and family fund. Golden Asset Management runs 10 strategies, including this one, through separately managed accounts. They've got about $6.5 billion in AUM. This appears to be the only one also available as a '40 Act fund.
...
David

Are you sure about that last part?
I recently ran a screen for large cap blend funds that beat the S&P 500 over the past 3,5, and 10 years (don't ask why). One of the dozen or so funds that popped out was GLDLX. I remember it because I'd never heard of Golden either.
Anyway, according to the SAI, each of these two funds "is a separate series of the Trust. The Trust is an open-end investment management company organized under Delaware law as a statutory trust on August 29, 1995." I don't see anything in the SAI that differentiates the legal status of one series (fund) from the other. They both (or neither) seem to be '40 Act funds.

Yep. The past five years have certainly been ... uhhh, golden for them. Here's their 10-year record versus their peer group:
2006: (4.2) - that is, they trailed the pack by 4.2% that year
2007: (2.1)
2008: 0.1 - that is, 0.1% better than their peers
2009: (17.7)
2010: (2.9)
2011: 5.4
2012: (1.0)
2013: (2.2)
2014: 8.5
2015: 6.4
So, they've trailed in six of the past 10 years by 1.0 - 17.7%. They've led in four years, including 2015 YTD, by 0.1 - 8.5%. Happily for them, most of the good years are appearing in the 1, 3, and 5 year windows.
David

One thing I did notice is that this fund is very tax efficient for a small cap fund. The tax cost ratio for the fund over the 1, 3 and 5 year periods is 0.06, 0.22 and 0.13, respectively. That's very low.

Hi, willmatt!
And "nuts." I wrote a response a couple hours ago, hit "post" and ran off to a meeting. Upon return, I discovered no-post. Nuts.
GLDSX has all of the trappings of a friends and family fund. Golden Asset Management runs 10 strategies, including this one, through separately managed accounts. They've got about $6.5 billion in AUM. This appears to be the only one also available as a '40 Act fund.
The small core strategy launched in 2002 and claim they're managing about $300 million in the strategy. Why "claim"? Because the performance composite for the strategy lists a composite value of $87 million. Even if you count the fund's $98 million separately, you're still under $200 million.
In any case, it's a focused, even-weight, sector-neutral portfolio. 60 stocks with a 1.67% target weighting. Over the past three and five years, it's beaten the Russell 2000 by 250-300 bps/year. That said, returns tend to be lumpy and performance strikes me as unpredictable. That's not automatically bad but since I don't know why they do what they do, it's hard to know what to make of them.
I did write Golden today and I'll happily share whatever I hear back.
As ever,
David

Hi David !
Thanks for the information ! I visited their website and found it to be lacking in some information. I could not find the Top 10 holdings, among other things. I look forward to reading any additional information they have to share !
Regards,
Will

Yep. The past five years have certainly been ... uhhh, golden for them. Here's their 10-year record versus their peer group:
2006: (4.2) - that is, they trailed the pack by 4.2% that year
2007: (2.1)
2008: 0.1 - that is, 0.1% better than their peers
2009: (17.7)
2010: (2.9)
2011: 5.4
2012: (1.0)
2013: (2.2)
2014: 8.5
2015: 6.4
So, they've trailed in six of the past 10 years by 1.0 - 17.7%. They've led in four years, including 2015 YTD, by 0.1 - 8.5%. Happily for them, most of the good years are appearing in the 1, 3, and 5 year windows.
David

Hi, willmatt!
And "nuts." I wrote a response a couple hours ago, hit "post" and ran off to a meeting. Upon return, I discovered no-post. Nuts.
GLDSX has all of the trappings of a friends and family fund. Golden Asset Management runs 10 strategies, including this one, through separately managed accounts. They've got about $6.5 billion in AUM. This appears to be the only one also available as a '40 Act fund.
The small core strategy launched in 2002 and claim they're managing about $300 million in the strategy. Why "claim"? Because the performance composite for the strategy lists a composite value of $87 million. Even if you count the fund's $98 million separately, you're still under $200 million.
In any case, it's a focused, even-weight, sector-neutral portfolio. 60 stocks with a 1.67% target weighting. Over the past three and five years, it's beaten the Russell 2000 by 250-300 bps/year. That said, returns tend to be lumpy and performance strikes me as unpredictable. That's not automatically bad but since I don't know why they do what they do, it's hard to know what to make of them.
I did write Golden today and I'll happily share whatever I hear back.
As ever,
David

Hi @hank
You noted:
"(And I haven't met any rich nurses lately.)"
From recall, the current line worker at GM in Michigan earns $22 or $25/hour ($45,800 annual gross). They have a healthcare plan and I believe had about $5,600 last year in a profit sharing scheme.
Lower peninsula, mid-state towards metro Detroit finds a nominal pay scale for an RN nurse at:
---pay at about $32/hour after 5 years of service
---health plan that includes dental/eye
RN's with union representation, in some cases are considered full time employees with only 16 hours of work/week; which allows them to qualify for full benefits...health, etc.
A full and normal work week of 40 hours arrives at $72,800 gross/year. There are RN's, of course; who have a "fair" amount of overtime, which bumps the annual gross.
You're not looking hard enough for the rich nurse. :)
Take care,
Catch

Like it or not drug pricing was bound to be an issue over the next year in the run-up to the election, at the likely expense of anything even remotely related to health care. Hillary waged war with the drug companies 20+ years ago and is doing so again.

She did?
"Health-care sector, once a critic of then-first lady's plans for reforms, now lavishing contributions on senator.
July 12 2006: 10:41 AM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The health-care industry, once a fierce critic of then-first lady Hillary Clinton's reform plans for the sector, is now lavishing campaign contributions on the U.S. senator ahead of her expected presidential bid.
According to Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that tracks campaign finance filings, Clinton has received $781,112 in contributions from the health-care sector during the current election cycle, which makes her the No. 2 recipient of funds from that sector, behind only Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who received $977,354."
http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/12/news/newsmakers/healthcare_clinton/

Like it or not drug pricing was bound to be an issue over the next year in the run-up to the election, at the likely expense of anything even remotely related to health care. Hillary waged war with the drug companies 20+ years ago and is doing so again.

Drug prices not related to health care?

LOL, this doesn't mention a very angry looking St Louis Fed president Bullard on CNBC this morning, where he went mental at Cramer for "cheerleading lower rates" and calling him "unsavory" . One of the most awkward moments on CNBC in a while.
Someone on ZH put it well, basically saying, "are we going to see FOMC members having cooking shows? Doing movie reviews? On "Dancing With the Stars?" Absurd, but the amount that they are talking and basically cancelling out one another is far more a negative than a positive in terms of the markets having any sort of clarity.
The Bullard thing this morning on CNBC was embarrassing, calling out Cramer for pushing for low rates for longer after the Fed has basically been the one to keep rates at ZIRP for several years in an attempt to create "wealth effect." Bullard also said that the "Fed can't support stocks forever" ... essentially admitting it's been one of their goals.

Like it or not drug pricing was bound to be an issue over the next year in the run-up to the election, at the likely expense of anything even remotely related to health care. Hillary waged war with the drug companies 20+ years ago and is doing so again.

I agree that this is their narrative regardless of how unlikely it is that they hike. Frankly, I think it's a good thing to not telegraph with certainty that a hike is off the table. The Fed has been very talkative in recent years. Maybe a little too talkative, IMO.

@ducrow - Thanks for the question. Following is my Buy & Hold group. Many are of the balanced and allocation variety. A lot of this evolved over the years by placing square pegs (funds already owned) into round holes (different sleeves within the plan) ... so it makes sense to me, but wouldn't be a model I'd recommend to anyone else,
Multi-Income - RPSIX 18-22%
Balanced - RPGAX and DODBX 18-22% combined
Hybrids - OAKBX, PRPFX, and TRRIX 12-15% each
Hard Assets - (currently 3 funds) about 10% combined
Global Income - (currently 2 funds) about 10% combined
Above represents approximately 75% of retirement assets. Rebalancing is minimal.
More to your specific question
Balanced funds: DODBX and RPGAX
Allocation funds: RPSIX and TRRIX
OAKBX is sometimes called balanced. I consider it "moderate allocation - equity."
PRPFX is sometimes called allocation. I'd call it a "specialty" fund.
Outside Buy & Hold, I own PRWCX. It is sometimes called balanced. I'd call it "moderate allocation-equity".

Oil News
Oil Price
FREE
WEEKLY REPORT oilprice.com Evan Kelly
News Editor, Oilprice.com
18/09/2015(excerpts)
The Fed cited strong consumer demand, solid job gains, declining unemployment – all reasons that a rate increase is likely sometime soon. When that increase does occur, it will be the first increase in almost a decade. Crude oil prices barely budged on the news, trading slightly down.
Goldman made headlines recently when it outlined a scenario in which oil prices would drop to $20 per barrel. Now the bank is outdoing itself with a prediction that oil will remain around $50 per barrel though 2030. For evidence, it points to the bust of the 1980s when oil prices did not rebound until the turn of the century.....there is a recipe for a rather strong rebound in oil prices in the coming years. Obviously, the big question is when that will happen. The glut could persist through this year and next, but calling for oil to remain near $50 per barrel for 15 years seems like a stretch.
The $70 billion takeover of BG Group (LON: BG) by Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) ran into a road block in Australia this week. Australian regulators decided to push off a decision on the merger by two months due to a wave of opposition from Australian businesses worried about higher costs of natural gas.
Statoil (NYSE: STO) brought the first subsea compression plant in the world online this week. The subsea facility, located at Asgard in the Norwegian Sea, will increase production by around 306 million barrels of oil equivalent, boosting output from the aging field. ...the closer you can get to the well, the more oil and gas can be recovered. Usually, compression is done at the sea surface on a platform. This is the first gas compression facility at the sea floor. It is illustrative of an important emerging trend in the offshore oil industry.
The U.S. House of Representatives is moving on legislation to repeal the decades-old ban on crude oil exports. After previously passing a subcommittee vote, the full House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the bill this week by a 31-19 vote. Next up is the full House vote, which could take place in late September. The White House came out against the legislation this week, arguing that the decision to allow crude oil exports should be left to the Department of Commerce. The hotly contested issue has caused a clash between the upstream energy sector and downstream refiners.
WTI and Brent benchmarks. The spread between the two is narrowing, shrinking to its lowest level in eight months. For several years WTI had traded at a discount, owing both to the crude oil export ban in the United States as well as the resulting localized glut of oil trapped within its borders. Also, pipeline shortages led to oil being diverted into storage, pushing down WTI. But with new pipelines now in place, along with declining U.S. oil production, WTI is now converging towards Brent. And as the discount vanishes, so does the opportunity for U.S. oil exports. At the current spread, exports are largely uneconomical.
The state-owned Colombian oil company Ecopetrol and Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) have announced plans to invest $2 billion over the next 10 years to boost production at the onshore oil field La Cira-Infantas.
Finally, in a bit of natural gas news, this fall could see an uptick in natural gas consumption as several nuclear power plants go offline for refueling. The EIA projects that 9 percent of the U.S.’ nuclear power capacity is currently offline, a number that could grow this fall. Between September and December, around 30 reactors could undergo refueling maintenance
http://oilprice.com/newsletters/free/opintel18092015

@LB
Yeah - I get that impression of Oppenheimer having had a small sum invested with them for 18 years. That's one thing I appreciate about the firm.
Nothing worse than having the rug pulled out from under you after investing in a depressed fund with the intent of waiting it out.

Many EM countries produce oil or raw materials - both of which which have tanked. The strong dollar is a second blow. Some of the carnage is probably due to investor flight.
I just put a little in OEMAX, Oppenheimer Emerging Market Debt (already owned Class A shares there). It was down over 15% for 1 YR.
What struck me when I looked at the AUM (after investing) is the very low 29M at last report. One wonders how they can keep the fund open with that small a pool of investors.
I think it's around 5 years old, so that explains some of the small AUM. But, I imagine there's been a stampede out as well.

Fed Keeps Rate Unchanged: What Experts Say Thomson Reuters | Last Updated: September 18, 2015 01:24 (IST)© Thomson Reuters
Scott Wren, senior global strategist for Wells Fargo Investment Institute in St. Louis, Missouri
"...wage growth not hardly doing anything, when you look at almost 10.5 per cent of the working population is either unemployed or underemployed, that is why wages aren't going up. The labour market is not tight, inflation is nowhere near their target, it totally doesn't surprise me they didn't do that. Saying that, they almost backed themselves into a corner here, our call is they do make one move this year, it is going to be in December. It is going to be a 25 basis point move and it's basically a credibility, 'let's get the normalization ball rolling' here."
Steve Gutch, senior portfolio manager, Federated Investors, Rochester, New York
"In our view, they are going to wait until it's essentially crystal clear before they raise rates."Now it's a waiting game. In our view, we don't think this is material, and I would expect a volatile market to continue."
Omer Esiner, chief market strategist at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange Inc. in Washington
...a little surprised at the dovishness of the statement. I would have expected 'no move' to be accompanied by a slightly more upbeat assessment of the economy. Instead, what we got was more focus on macroeconomic uncertainties,..
Hugh Mcguirk, head of Municipal Bonds Team, T. Rowe Price, Baltimore, Maryland
"I'm a little disappointed. We've got to rip the Band-Aid off. Clearly they're being very cautious, as they have been all along. We'll just have to wait until October."
Gene Mcgillian, senior analyst, Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut
... probably be neutral for oil, although maybe you could say it will weaken the dollar and that would be supportive to oil.
"But we've been at this level so long and this just moves the Federal Reserve watch to the next meeting. The oil market will go back to watching to see if the economic slowdown in China spreads to other economies and whether low oil prices start to lower US oil production significantly."
Bob Michele, global chief investment officer, head of global fixed income, JPMorgan Asset Management in New York,
I would have been shocked if the Fed raised rates because the market wasn't at all prepared for it. It's the first rate hike in nine years, they have to be careful. Do I think they should have raised rates? Yes I think they have had the opportunity, but they clearly decided that the international economic conditions warranted waiting for a while. I think they could have stuck to their guns. I think they need to get off the zero lower bound."
Brian Dolan, head market strategist, Drivewealth, New Jersey
"...did the right thing. There's no need to rock the boat right now. Again the disconcerting element is the downgrade to the interest rate trajectory, which could provide solace to investor sentiment overall. Given the global headwinds, the last thing we need right now was a hike in rates and any kind of hawkish projections."
http://profit.ndtv.com/news/global-economy/article-fed-keeps-rate-unchanged-what-experts-say-1218868
By James Picerno | Sep 18, 2015 at 04:45 pm EDT
The Capital Spectator
Investing, Asset Allocation, Economics & The Search For The Bottom Line
Negative US Interest Rates: A Primer (Just In Case)
The crowd is buzzing over the possibility that the Federal Reserve may be considering negative interest rates. Where did that notion come from? Well, from the horse’s mouth. As noted earlier, an unnamed FOMC member recommended—for the first time in Fed history in terms of a formal, public document—that the central bank’s policy rate be set slightly below zero for this year and in 2016, as per two dots in yesterday’s dot plot (see chart below). It’s an idea that seems to be catching on… again. The Bank of England’s Andy Haldane just outlined the case for going negative in the UK.
As for the Fed’s tentative foray into the concept of negativity, some wonder if yesterday’s below-zero advice constitutes some sort of monetary joke. Or is it an early clue that lays the groundwork for QE4 and yet another embrace of monetary stimulus that goes above and beyond the usual fare? Not so fast, said Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who was quick to dismiss the idea in yesterday’s press conference. When asked about the subject, she quickly sacked the issue: “Let me be clear that negative interest rates was not something that we considered very seriously at all today,” she insisted. “It was not one of our main policy options” under consideration. Ok, but is it under consideration going forward?
In any case, the rumor mill has been set in motion and the machinery of inquiry and analysis has been let loose on this formerly esoteric subject in the annals of US central banking. Is it ready for prime time? Maybe not, but to be fair it was the Fed that let this gnarly monetary cat out of the bag.
Lots of links on the topic.
Current News/Analysis on the Negative Rate Dots
General Research/Commentary On Negative Rates
Recent News Stories On Negative Rates
http://www.capitalspectator.com/negative-us-interest-rates-a-primer-just-in-case/

I would keep VTMFX in taxable account, and sell VWENX over several years to spread the tax burden. If you have assess to VWENX, I would use it over the rest of the balanced funds.

I understand your first point, Sven, but not your second idea about having access to VWENX and use it over the rest of the balanced funds. Can you explain? Thanks.

I would keep VTMFX in taxable account, and sell VWENX over several years to spread the tax burden. If you have assess to VWENX, I would use it over the rest of the balanced funds.

FYI: The oldest target-date funds have seen several market cycles as they've progressed from more growth-oriented portfolios to wealth-retention mode. Most have lagged the all-stock S&P 500 the past three, five, 10 and 15 years. But many are slightly outperforming the stock market benchmark this year.
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MjA0NDc1MzU=
Enlarged Graphic:
http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=WEBlv091615_1K.jpg&docId=771328&xmpSource=&width=1000&height=1111&caption=&id=771170