It's a huge deal, but I guess I look at this as this industry where the majors basically have had little or no innovation over the last couple of decades. I'm not talking about the processed foods industry having to be wildly innovative, but many of the majors have the same brands they did when I was growing up (and much further back) for better or worse. They haven't tried to really freshen them up in many cases.
Merging them helps with scale and raw costs, but you look at Kraft and Conagra and the like and the brands are dated. You have these companies that I think have largely rested on their laurels for years. Additionally, not everyone is eating healthy, but you have a bit of a backlash for the very artificial nature of a lot of these products.
I think at some point these companies have to go after the Hains and Whitewaves and the "roll-up" nature of Kraft/Heinz makes me guess they will integrate more companies. It's not that nobody's going to buy Cheese Whiz anymore - nothing against it and it actually sounds kinda good right now - but it's just I think over time I think people will little-by-little move away from things that are just totally artificial. I mean, look at Jell-o, which has seen declining sales for a while now.

I have owned brk for 25 years never paid a cap gain tax yet nothing but net!!!

I guess that with respect to RPHYX, it is behaving the way that the SEC would like all mutual fund money-market accounts to behave: no suggestions, implied or otherwise, regarding "breaking the buck". No suggestions, implied or otherwise, regarding any government protection. Value can fluctuate, according to the market.
That being said, the relatively small amount that RPHYX pays is certainly better than my remaining MF MMKT accounts, which have paid NOTHING for at least five years now, but have maintained their $1.00 share value. The only thing supporting those funds is the good faith of the MF families, American Funds and American Century.

RPHYX nav dropped .1 % last year, returning 2.6 according to Old_Joe Averaging 3.7 % return over the last 3 years maybe it's time to find a greener pasture? Is the manager running out of places to invest in? Total assets 896,000,000 as of 2/28/15. FWIW ( It seems to me the manage at one time stated the amount of assets he thought the fund could handle). More digging to do.
Derf

Of course the return on cash is laughable, I've loaded up my max I-bonds for this year (which I like because of the tax-deferred nature, they make a good emergency fund.) I'm in my mid-40s and still have a ways to go until retirement - hopefully an early one - and I need a place to park cash since I'm a bit risk averse. And I have a lot of cash, way too much for an emergency fund.
So - more RPHYX? Maybe intermediate bond ETF like BIV? Switch my cash into large cap growth and transfer my 401k/IRA to be more heavily into bonds to avoid the tax on dividends (which I did with VIPSX years ago)?

I saw an interesting article recently (but unfortunately cannot locate it) which maintains that the reason active management is not performing better is that "dispersion" (a measure of how differently individual stocks perform as opposed to the average of the set) has been low in recent times. Thus the change in value of individual stocks has not varied greatly from the change in the average, making it difficult to outperform an average (index). The article charted dispersion over time and noted that dispersion has in the past been much higher than in recent years. Thus it is possible that dispersion will in the future widen out and make active management look a lot better. I thought this was an interesting and plausible argument.

Hi Guys,
I only glanced at the conclusions section and the graphs.
This Duke academic study is essentially a wash relative to the active-passive fund management debate. It only considered a 10-year period that ended 6 years ago.
The Professors concluded that they saw no active advantage over passive Indexing. Some active managers marginally outperformed their Index while about the same number failed to do so. The Profs suggested a whatever comforts you approach.
Dan Wiener, the Vanguard follower, overstated his position. I have read several of his assessments, and he does a very exhaustive job. But his incentives make him a somewhat biased judge.
You might want to scan the report. Whatever Alphas ( excess returns) existed were small and unstable. In general, active managers generated Positive Alphas in the studies earlier years, but then produced negative Alphas in the study's last years.
No decision making findings in this inconclusive study.
Best Wishes.

In the never-ending debate, "the last few years" means nothing. Too short of a time frame. I thought this was common knowledge.

FYI: John C. Bogle: “Well I don’t run Vanguard any longer, but I will take plenty of responsibility for having those active funds in all of the years I ran it. And the answer to that is really a couple of things. One, a lot of investors, no matter how persuasive the case for indexing is, and it’s overpoweringly persuasive, just don’t quite get it. They want a little more activity. They want something to watch. Index funds, as you all know, are roughly as exciting as watching paint dry or maybe watching the grass grow. They create great returns but they’re not that exciting. So what we tried to do and what I tried to do personally was pick good managers, and that’s very, very hard to do. I want to be clear on that, and I have some hits and some runs and some errors in that category, have funds with multiple managers, so you get a much broader diversification, which is not unlike an index fund. . . . [for example, take] our Windsor II fund. It’s a large cap value fund. And it has five different managers. I think that’s the number now. And so you are going to tend to have a value average return for that fund. And then, actually, make sure you have the other two big advantages of indexing, or three really, no sales commissions, very low expense ratios, because I negotiated with all those advisors and got those fees as low as I could possibly get them, and hire advisors with low portfolio turnover. An article was done by some professors at Duke University about a year ago and they showed that our active managers in the life of the index fund actually did a hair better than the index fund. [Reinker and Tower (2005)]. On the other hand if we had started the comparison a little bit later, the active managers would have done a little bit worse. But I think it’s a valid strategy. What can I do and tell you? I’m still 80% indexed.” [Bogle (2006)].
As if by reply, Dan Wiener, editor of the FFSA Independent Guide to the
Vanguard Funds, writes:
“Vanguard wants you to ‘believe’ in indexing. Your faith in indexing is the cornerstone of their business. But it’s a lie. And your trust could cost you…plenty!. … Indexing doesn’t work for you. It works for them. The big famous Index funds at
1
Vanguard have chronically underperformed over the last few years, exposing conservative investors to the worst risks of bear markets. But Vanguard knows investors who plunk money into an index become “passive.” Their money goes “dead.” And Vanguard never has to worry about these clients getting antsy. Indexing is a great business—but it’s a lousy investment
Regards,
Ted
http://public.econ.duke.edu/Papers//PDF/0419CHAPTER_12_TOWER_working_paper_version.pdf

I still say Abbott Labs (ABT) is the most enjoyably boring play on EM, with about 50% of revenues from EM and the stock is conservative to put it lightly. International Flavors and Fragrances, which has been around for 125 years or so, is also about 50% EM. (IFF). I own both. As for EM, I continue to own RIMIX and a few individual names but less EM than I used to.
EM I think remains a compelling long-term theme but it's not been a good few years. I mean look at Wintergreen's attempts to play the EM consumer, with Macau stocks (obliterated) and luxury goods (which were hurt by the crackdown in Asia on luxury gifting.)
SFGIX is probably the most interesting to me from the standpoint of the growth and income mix.

I have been aggressively allocated to International and EM for several years. I raised the issue because I feel as though I'm fighting the tape, so to speak. Ted's latest post demonstrates this. Grandeur Peak funds I hold have been disappointing for quite a while now and MACSX has hit a rough patch as well. FMs are weak since the oil price drop. I reduced GPEOX, GPGIX, GPGOX, and MFMIX, but cherry-picked by adding some INCO, thinking Indian consumer stocks will be winners long term.

GSVC (GSV Capital) was supposed to be the stock that allowed even the average person to get in early to the Twitters and Ubers of the world. It's down by half from three years ago. The Ubers of the world are looking bubble-ish to me at this point, I think partly because people are overly desperate for anything resembling growth.

"Other(BEST) factors to consider besides price include a fund’s long-term performance and whether a fund’s best years occurred long ago, or under the watch of a different manager.....
Manager is the Key, Expenses only important in relation to returns....
ie: Would you pay a manager 1% to net you 10% a year over 10 years?
wanna think about it?

@MFO Members: Question ? Where is it written that you must own a EM Fund. The average total return on EM Funds over the last five years is 1.77%. VFINX is up 14.92% during that period of time.
Regards,
Ted

@Sven, they both look like apples to me, just different. SFGIX actually has more EM exposure according to M*, 68.37% vs. 65.97% for THDIX. SFGIX is definitely more multi-cap (average market cap $3.5B vs. $13.2B) and has more of a value bias. Finally, SFGIX has higher sharpe ratios over the past 1- and 3-year periods, and a higher sortino ratio over the past 3-years. Go Heels !
Kevin

FYI: Yesterday, we sent out a report to clients looking at how the S&P 500 has traded so far this year and compared it to the index’s pattern in prior years through 3/18. With the years that started off the most similarly to 2015, we then looked to see how the market traded for the remainder of those years. In the report we also looked at the performance of the S&P 500 during the third year of the Presidential Election Cycle and how those returns compared so far to this year. Finally, we also highlighted the peculiar trend of the S&P 500 to do well in years ending in the number five.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/years-ending-in-five-and-other-patterns/

FYI: Real estate funds, attractive to investors for both capital appreciation and income-producing properties, have outperformed the average dividend mutual fund and the S&P 500 in the past 15 years.
If you had $10,000 lying around to invest on Dec. 31, 1999, and you invested it in the average real estate mutual fund, your investment would have grown to $57,241 by March 17 this year, according to Morningstar Inc. data. The same amount invested in the average dividend fund would have grown to $25,068 by St. Patrick's Day. You'd have only $18,873 sitting in an account invested in the S&P 500.
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTkxMjE4MzY=
Enlarged Graphic:
http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=webLV0319_1K.png&docId=744157&xmpSource=&width=1000&height=1063&caption=&id=744158
U.S. News & World Report Ranking Of Real Estate Funds:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/rankings/real-estate

In the diversified EM equity space, SFGIX/SIGIX continues to be my pick, with higher returns than THDIX (Kaufman's previous fund) over the trailing periods of 1M, 3M, YTD, 1 YR, 3 YR and since inception of SFGIX/SIGIX. And SFGIX/SIGIX has lower standard deviations and higher Sharpe Ratios and Sortino Ratios over the past 3 years. I would definitely pass on the new Artisan fund and invest with SFGIX/SIGIX.
Kevin

I'm interested in Bberg's small-cap rankings as I have only one holding there: Bridgeway's BRUSX. Anybody using the Vanguard VSTCX mentioned in the article? It seems to have outperformed BRUSX. BRUSX had a few outstanding years (03-04 I think) and has not repeated those numbers for some time. Any thoughts??

FYI:Albert Nicholas, who tops our annual ranking of mutual funds, defies those who say stock pickers can’t outrun indexes—or machines.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-18/fund-manager-ab-nicholas-has-been-beating-s-p-500-for-40-years
M* Snapshot Of NICSX: http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/f?t=NICSX&region=usa&culture=en-US
Lipper Snapshot Of NICSX: http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Fund/NICSX?countrycode=US
NICSX Is Ranked #3 In The (MCG) Fund Category By U. S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/mid-cap-growth/nicholas-fund/nicsx