>> implying along the possibility of
>> comparing versus manager tenure.
>> If funds did not perform after changes in management,
\\\ Sentence structure and punctuation make a huge difference in reading.
No kiddin'.
>> our database does not account for category drift...or, manager drift, sad to say...past performance, numbers only.
I have an idea. How about a cell or field for manager tenure? In years. There's a number.
In fact, I may be misremembering FA HR, but did not Weitz et alia have something along those lines?
>> Of the 1800 or so surviving funds that have been around 20 years, only about 30 are top quintile across all five evaluation periods (20, 10, 5, 3, and 1 year), yes even in 2014.
>> Some of them are: ...
>> Meridian Growth Legacy (MERDX)
The current managers of this venerable fund have been on the job for like a year and a half. Gosh and golly, should I invest in it? I pray it has magical momentum. I wonder how the new guys will do. Is there any way to tell? Does the brandname confer skill? Were they trainees?
Well, no, no, and who the hell knows? It is a scandal this is an MFO Great Owl. Makes the site look ridiculous. People are always going off about Fidelity manager tenure and turnover, and here this venerable site dares to list effectively a brand-new fund as a Great Owl. Makes all the wonderful data work that goes into the effort dubious.
Here is M* from a few months ago:
\\\ This mid-growth fund's future was uncertain after Rick Aster, the lead manager since its 1984 inception, passed away in early 2012. Other investors from his team then oversaw the portfolio, but most had other funds to manage as well and Aster's eponymous firm was left rudderless. In 2013, Arrowpoint Partners (founded by three former Janus portfolio managers in 2007) agreed to purchase Aster's firm and take over the fund. Arrowpoint hired Chad Meade and Brian Schaub, who amassed a superb seven-year record at Janus Triton (JATTX), away from Janus to run the Meridian fund. They took over in September 2013 following a shareholder vote.
\\\ Meade and Schaub's early returns here are subpar; the fund trails both its typical peer and the Russell 2500 Growth Index (a mix of small- and mid-cap stocks that also served as the benchmark for Janus Triton) by 3 and 2 percentage points, respectively. But they've demonstrated an ability to pick winners among both rapid growers and more-stable fare over the longer haul. A six-person analyst team that includes several former Janus colleagues supports them, and they are working with a smaller asset base than they had in their last two years at Triton.
Seriously, is it too much to ask for a trigger or criterion screen having to do with manager tenure, so brand-new funds, whatever their name, do not get the highest designation this site has to offer? An absurd situation.

Hi David.
I love you man.
I agree.
15 years is about the most we can hope for with single manager.
But I do not know for sure...our database does not account for category drift...or, manager drift, sad to say...past performance, numbers only.
Here are some of the 10 year funds with top-quintile risk-adjusted performance across the past 10, 5, 3, and even 1 year evaluation periods through Dec 2014. (I left off most of the sector funds and munis.)
Access Capital Community Investment I (ACCSX)
American Century Mid Cap Value Inv (ACMVX)
AMG Chicago Equity Partners Bal Instl (MBEYX)
Artisan International Value Investor (ARTKX)
Buffalo Discovery (BUFTX)
First Trust Value Line Dividend ETF (FVD)
GE Instl Premier Growth Equity Inv (GEIPX)
Guinness Atkinson Global Innovators (IWIRX)
Hennessy Equity and Income Institutional (HEIIX)
Homestead Small Company Stock (HSCSX)
iShares Morningstar Large-Cap (JKD)
iShares S&P 500 Growth (IVW)
JPMorgan Mid Cap Value Instl (FLMVX)
Metropolitan West Total Return Bond M (MWTRX)
PIMCO Intl StksPLUS AR Strat (USD-Hg) A (PIPAX)
PIMCO StocksPLUS Absolute Return Instl (PSPTX)
Pinnacle Value (PVFIX)
Principal MidCap R2 (PMBNX)
RidgeWorth Conservative Allc Strat I (SCCTX)
SEI Moderate Strategy Allc A (SAAT) (SXMAX)
SEI US Managed Volatility A (SIMT) (SVOAX)
Shelton Nasdaq-100 Index Direct (NASDX)
T. Rowe Price Diversified Sm Cap Growth (PRDSX)
T. Rowe Price Global Technology (PRGTX)
T. Rowe Price Instl Mid-Cap Equity Gr (PMEGX)
T. Rowe Price Instl Small-Cap Stock (TRSSX)
Vanguard Target Retirement 2015 Inv (VTXVX)
Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 Inv (VTIVX)

During the last year, PDI was growing twice as fast as each of these funds. During the last 3 years, the difference is even much more striking.

M* has a lot of issues with not updating numbers over the years.

I own DLFNX and asked myself the same question, @JohnChisum. So, between the two, I chose the one with the smaller AUM. Thanks to @mrc70 for that breakdown. I didn't know I was getting all that exposure within DLFNX. I bought it about 2 and a half years ago. No complaints.

---- 312 posts on the MORNINGSTAR CONVERSATION FORUM --- 312 !!!!!!!
INCLUDING 44 IN AN " OPEN LETTER TO M* CIO AND CEO " as follows =
As discussed HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE, the recent crash of the Portfolio Manager is just another example of extremely poor System Testing and User-Acceptance Testing prior to deployment. M* does a lot of things right, but one thing they do VERY POORLY is follow a traditional structured IT lifecycle development and deployment process which would catch 95% of these issues before they affect their customers.
I honestly have never seen another company push out such "buggy" or error-prone code into a live customer-facing environment, and I have worked with dozens of organizations both large and small throughout my consulting career. This has been at least a quarterly, if not monthly occurence for YEARS and shows no sign of changing.
This is a leadership issue, not a technical issue, and has crossed from "mistake" to "problem."
If your IT folks have the authority to make changes to the live production environment without a sign-off first from some sort of business or marketing person, that's a problem.
A complete re-vamp of the pre-deployment QA / Testing process up to normal customer-facing marketplace standards should be underway, as measured by a sharp reduction in customer-impacting outages and post-deployment bug reports.
Ultimately, you're going to lose this Premium customer along with many others if this continues without any hope of systemic changes at the IT leadership level.
Please advise.

Just so everyone knows. His very popular chart about never 7 years of positive returns is not correct.

8 years 1982-1989 and 9 years 1991-1999. Just trying to kill the myth .

You try their 2 weeks free trial membership, and then cancel if you don't like. You can also try it a big longer as they remimurse the remaining amount on pro-rate basis. I am also of the view that it is not worth.
At one time, I used to eagerly read their Fun commentaries (Fund Spy, etc.) that normally used to come on Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays. In addition, there was a Fund Times (if I remember the name correctly) that used to have Weekly commentary about Fund Mgr changes and a commentary on significant fund industry events for that Week. It seems they stopped publishing latter now.
I just skim their articles with less enthusiam, but an avid reader and follower of their discussion forums for last 10 years. There were some great posters and still there are some. It is not as friendly forum as MFO, but depth of knowedge is much more there due to number of participants (no slight intended for MFO, as I am also follower of it since FundAlarm days). Their forums lost some great posters since Vanguard Diehards/Bogleheads moved out and started their own discussion forum/Web site.
In my personal opinion, if you are a participant of M* and MFO forums, I don't think you need paid subscription for anything. People discuss, post great links to great articles, Fund Mgr interviews/commentaries and what not. They guide you on how to learn and how to setup an investment portfolio even if you are a novice.

--- NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BEEN THERE -- DONE THAT -- and CANCELLED PREMIUM MBSHP. --- Years ago-
AND ITS GOTTEN WORSE = SEE MORNINGSTAR CONV. BOARD =
"HOW TIRESOME --PORTFOLIO AGAIN NOT UPDATED AGAIN" = OVER 250 REPLYS
from Morningstar members. !!!!!!!!!
Ralph

Hell, I STARTED that trend years ago!!!

Junkster awhile ago in a discussion I said the US 10 year will go to 1% before it goes to 3%.
It is in the 1.7% area today and with the Swiss' interest rates at 0%, it won't be too long until the US hits the 1%.
I'm still 100% in US High Yield Muni Bonds and I think they will do well this year and maybe several years in this low rate environment. I can sleep very well at night with this - thanks for pointing it out.
The way things are going - low interest rates and strong US$, there may come a time when High Yield Emerging Markets and other foreign bonds will be the investment.

It's a managed futures fund - a category that has been dismal (in the mutual fund space, not so much the hedge fund space) for a number of years now. All of the sudden Pimco comes out with another one, which has managed to be quite surprising. This fund will not be consistent (and isn't something I'd recommend a giant position in) and I'm sure it will be another MFO fund that does well for a while and then doesn't and people will flip out. Again though, I'm impressed with it so far.

Two years ago I purchased PSCH which in not all biotech, but includes a big chunk of them in the small cap health care index. Sold it after a nice runup after a year. A safer play I suspect than this new one.

FYI: Gold has absorbed its fair share of the commodities-market blows in recent years, but now is the time to move back into the precious metal, according to superbear Marc Faber.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/market-doomsayer-marc-faber-gold-will-rally-30-in-2015-2015-01-13/print

MPGFX 10 years, +8.56%, top 9th %ile in its group: Large blend.
MAPOX 10 yrs. +7.78%, in top 7th %ile. Balanced, Large Value.
MSCFX 3 years +21.26%, top 1% of group: small blend.
(There's just the three. Upper Midwest regional concentration, but maybe not exclusively, I haven't looked to be sure about that.)
Not bad. What?

Here we have a group of foreign countries, aided and abetted by the large international oil companies, publicly STATING that that is their very intention, with respect to the US shale oil suppliers. And we can do absolutely nothing about it, in any political, trade, or retaliatory manner?? The future of Ford's truck division is completely at the mercy of Saudi Arabia?? And I hear NOBODY talking about this?? The United States of America has been reduced to this???

I hope this move comes back to bite them hard!
Oil is nothing more than an energy source to power technological systems and a commodity to be traded between producers and users. Lower oil prices may rearrange or remove pieces on the oil checker board, but this may turn out to be a game changer...energy is more like chess. The old guard has chosen to orchestrate lower prices requiring larger production volumes to make up the drop in price. To me, this is unsustainable and a poor long term move for oil. In the meantime, new efficient energy sources continue to be developed.
As a Californian, hydrogen powered cars in 2015 will compete with electric, NG , and hybrid automobiles. Hydrogen's ubiquitousness and environmental friendly footprint may finally move the needle away from oil.
The old guard (oil producers) has preferred checkers to chess. Luckily the world resembles a variety of complex game pieces... much more like chess than checkers. More challenging game, but worth adopting as the new normal.
Some news:
Toyota has released 400 patents to encourage Hydrogen fuel cell technology:
iflscience.com/technology/toyota-follow-tesla-s-footsteps-releasing-its-fuel-cell-patents
Honda & Toyota quietly roll out Hydrogen Cars for 2015:
honda-motor-fuelcells
UTC has been working on Fuel Cell technology for many years:
energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f12/apu2011_7_short.pdf
Problems in Fuel Cell Development:
Fuel cells strip hydrogen atoms of their electrons and investors of their money
Fuel-Cell-Follies-ClearEdge-Going-Bankrupt

Yep, gotten tip your hat to him.
I too enjoyed his views, once again.
Particularly loved the part about jumping in too early on falling commodities and stocks versus doing so with bond. The former, "you can get killed," he says...while the latter you just underperform.
His bleak view of BitCoin, current rendition anyway.
His guidance on contagion...to always be wary of it. Like sub-prime mortgages initially downplayed by Mr. Bernanke.
He's bullish on India long term, cause of demographics.
He thinks natural gas price was more indicative of "right" price for oil than recent $100/barrel crude prices.
It's hard not to listen, since he's on a roll of getting it right lately.
All that said, he's selling bonds.
Which means that either naturally or with intent, he's always building a wall of worry.
For example, US stocks best place to be...but he can't see the gains continuing..."overextended" as he shows only growth since bull began, but not the miserable performance US stocks have suffered for the past 15 years.
For example, continued growth in US, except those regions impacted by low oil.
Wall of worry, expect when comes to raising interest rates. Then, it's more of a warning to Fed on bad consequences if they do so.
Along with a reminder that DoubleLine DBLTX may close soon...but not in 1st quarter.
c

@John. You are correct. But sounds like a "Catch-22". Producers save on production costs as energy prices drop, but this also brings on-stream smaller competitors who were unprofitable at higher energy costs. Net effect: lower aluminum prices which hurt big producers.
Article 1 http://www.wikinvest.com/commodity/Aluminum
Relevant excerpt: "Smelting alumina into aluminum requires a constant, large supply of electricity, which accounts for around 25% of the costs of the entire smelting process. ... a decrease in energy costs can allow previously closed smelters to reopen, which would increase the supply of aluminum and lower prices."
Article 2 : http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-27/aluminum-drops-after-oil-prices-slump-to-lowest-in-four-years.html
Relevant Excerpt: "While crude is not the primary source of energy for the aluminum producers, energy accounts for about 30 percent of output costs and falling oil prices may have a deflationary impact..."
-
There's much suggesting auto makers may curtail plans to use more aluminum if oil stays low. Won't bother linking all that. Something forgot to mention earlier is the role of aluminum in shipping and packing containers. Think of the savings derived from transporting aluminum soda or beer cans instead of heavier materials. Won't be immediate. But over time cheaper fuel would reduce that reliance on lighter-weight containers.

Lower fuel costs stand to hurt Alcoa. Aluminum is an expensive (lightweight) alternative to steel for transportation needs. Expensive to produce. Expensive to work with. That's why Ford's all aluminum F150 is going to struggle. Sure, they'll sell a bunch out of the gate, but it won't be the hit they envisioned until gas gets up over $3. Probably be offering big discounts about the time gas levels off at $1.50 nationwide.
The following article appeared in April, just three months before the plunge in oil began. At that time there were wildly optimistic forecasts the use of aluminum would spread rapidly among auto makers.
"Ford's New Alcoa Connection" (April 2014) http://www.post-gazette.com/auto/2014/04/17/Ford-F-150-Alcoa-Connection/stories/201404170089
It's hard to escape politics in all of this. There are mounting pressures already to ease up on mandated fuel economy standards in coming years.

Derf, I think it's stocks and derivatives such as options, mutual funds, futures, etc.
Again, it's not just the 10 basis point fee, but anyone that understands how management fees can reduce your compounded return will realize how an additional tiny fraction here and there (rebalances and monthly purchases, etc) will reduce your number over the course of years of saving.