Hi, Mo.
No problem. As I say in the recap of our conversation with Bernie Horn, a lot comes down to how you weigh 2008 and how you assess their response to it. It's a strategy that's worked exceptionally well in 15 of 17 years and really poorly in two. How important those two are (is worrying about 2008 the equivalent of fighting the last war? are we building Maginot-like portfolios) and how intelligently you think they've handled it strike me as major drivers of whether the Polaris products make it in.
In general, I'm agnostic on the first question and pretty pleased with the answers to the second but that's not necessarily definitive.
As ever,
David

We’d be delighted if you’d join us on Monday, February 9th, from noon to 1:00 p.m. Eastern, for a conversation with Matthew Page and Ian Mortimer, managers of Guinness Atkinson Global Innovators (IWIRX) and Guinness Atkinson Dividend Builder (GAINX).
Register
These are both small, concentrated, distinctive, disciplined funds with top-tier performance. Guinness reports:

Guinness Atkinson Global Innovators is the #1 Global Multi-Cap Growth Fund across all time periods (1,3,5,& 10 years) this quarter ending 12/31/14 based on fund total returns. They are ranked 1 of 500 for 1 year, 1 of 466 for 3 years, 1 of 399 for 5 years and 1 of 278 for 10 years in the Lipper category Global Multi-Cap Growth.

Why? Good academic research, stretching back more than a decade, shows that firms with a strong commitment to ongoing innovation outperform the market. Firms with a minimal commitment to innovation trail the market, at least over longer periods.
The challenge is finding such firms and resisting the temptation to overpay for them. The fund initially (1998-2003) tracked an index of 40 stocks chosen by the editors of Wired magazine “to mirror the arc of the new economy as it emerges from the heart of the late industrial age.” In 2003, Guinness concluded that a more focused portfolio and more active selection process would do better, and they were right. In 2010, the new team inherited the fund. They maintained its historic philosophy and construction but broadened its investable universe. Ten years ago there were only about 80 stocks that qualified for consideration; today it’s closer to 350 than their “slightly more robust identification process” has them track.
This is not a collection of “story stocks.” The managers note that whenever they travel to meet potential US investors, the first thing they hear is “Oh, you’re going to buy Facebook and Twitter.” (That would be “no” to both.) They look for firms that are continually reinventing themselves and looking for better ways to address the opportunities and challenges in their industry.
Matt volunteered the following plan for their slice of the call:

I think we would like to address some of the following points in our soliloquy.

• Why are innovative companies an interesting investment opportunity?
  
• How do we define an innovative company?
  
• Aren’t innovative companies just expensive?
  
• Are the most innovative companies the best investments?

I suppose you could sum all this up in the phrase: Why Innovation Matters.

In deference to the fact that Matt and Ian are based in London, we have moved our call to noon Eastern. While they were willing to hang around the office until midnight, asking them to do it struck me as both rude and unproductive (how much would you really get from talking to two severely sleep-deprived Brits?).
HOW CAN YOU JOIN IN?
Register
If you can't join but have questions for the guys, share them here. In general, either the managers will read them or folks from the adviser follow these discussions then brief them.
Hope you're all safe and warm,
David

I think what concerns me is the idea that a mutual fund owns more than half of a country's foreign debt. There have been a number of examples in recent years or funds holding much of an emerging market country or company's debt. Seems like a recipe for problems, in particular liquidity. If Hasenstab (apparently) owns more than half of Ukraine's foreign debt, how difficult would it be to sell if need be?
Hasenstab is one of the best bond managers around, but again, I've read a number of stories in recent years of a fund or funds taking up much of a debt issue or debt from a certain entity.

"Investors last year pulled a record $14 billion from the U.S. and European versions of the Templeton Global Bond Fund and Templeton Global Total Return Fund, which have a combined $150 billion in assets ..."
Same old. Same old. Money pours in. Money pours out.
If these "in-and-out" investors are making a lot of money in the process, that's fine. I'm all for making a fast buck any way you can as long as you can keep reinvesting it for greater and greater returns. However, all the evidence I've read or viewed on this forum indicates just the opposite. That average fund investors who move in and out of their funds fail to achieve the returns those funds themselves achieve over time. So, in all this coming and going, something doesn't add up. Investors do worse than the funds they own. And, where did these investors get the idea that investing outside the U.S., especially in emerging markets, is NOT risky?
Not sure what my main point is here. But, hate to see mutual funds designed for "longer-term investors" (as almost every prospectus reads) subjected to rapid inflows and outflows. Hurts the funds and probably doesn't do much for 90% of those who are running in and out. In the end, all of us pay a bit more in the form of added operating costs the funds experience in aggregate. Old school I guess. Back in the 70s and 80s you needed to wait until next morning to learn the % of change & NAV of a fund, and maybe 3 months to learn how it was performing relative to so-called "peers". Time to reflect and take a deep breath. People were much more long-term focused. We expected our funds would experience both good and bad years. Nowdays, we sit at computer screens watching green and red numbers flashing.
Fund disappointed? How dare it? .... Shoot the ##**!!**
---
*Slightly edited, mainly to delete an incorrect reference to Russian securities (not pertinent)

FYI: In terms of the AFC vs. NFC breakdown, of the 48 prior Super Bowls played, the NFC has the upper hand in championships with 26 compared to 22 for the AFC. Thankfully for the bulls, the S&P 500 has historically performed much better for the remainder of the year when the NFC wins. Following the 26 prior NFC victories, the S&P 500 has averaged a gain of 10.6% with positive returns over 80% of the time. That is more than twice the return of the S&P 500 following the 22 AFC victories. In those years, the S&P 500 averaged a gain of just 4.3% with positive returns less than two-thirds of the time. The AFC hasn't been a total slouch, though. The last six times an AFC team won the Super Bowl, the S&P 500 has been up for the remainder of the year every time for an average gain of 13.6%.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bespokeinvest.com/thinkbig/2015/2/1/super-bowl-and-the-market.html?printerFriendly=true

I guess I don't have a particular fixed income product I could call my favorite at the moment. For years I enjoyed good returns from GNMAs via BGNMX. With the possibility of rising rates hanging over us for a couple of years now, I pulled out of that fund that I had owned since the early 90's. It is still producing decent returns despite the Sword of Damocles ready to drop.
I am spread out all over with a bit of bias towards high yield as of now. All of my funds are active managed. I'll let the fund managers decide what is best, as long as they don't muck it up too badly.

I don't know how low yields will go ... but, they are now low enough for me to start to make some changes within my portfolio's overall asset allocation. Some of my past favorite fixed income investments are now becoming suspect.

From a capital appreciation point of view you might have captured a large part of it.
From an income point of view, yields could remain low for several years and you might miss those yields.

@Dex
I do believe this is part of what you are witnessing with global yields on gov't. debt issues. A race to the bottom, eh?
Sadly, I also feel that some gov't. debt is also "junk".
ECB will reportly buy 10% of public Spanish debt
Two that I have linked in the past years; but are still valid today.
QE, Clarke and Dawe
European Debt Crisis, Clarke and Dawe
Catch

LOL - Non-productive exercise trying to pick a favorite fixed income fund I think. Sorta like picking a favorite color or rock star. They come in many different shades tailored to various needs.
I'm hopeful the good performance of junk munis is telling us something positive about the prospects for the economy and risk markets in general over the next several years. When the economy slumps, state and municipal governments really take it on the chin. Tax receipts fall as social welfare expenses rise. Those underfunded pension funds will fare much better too with rising stock and real-asset prices.
Fees are extremely important in choosing fixed income funds. Essentially, because potential returns after fees aren't as great as for equities. Don't know how the money market and short term bond funds are staying alive. Operating costs must be greater than meager returns from investment. Perhaps they're willing to subsidize these in hopes their investors will move the money into other funds,
I find the whole fixed-income picture so confusing, I've largely abdicated my responsibilities. Let the guy or gal running Spectrum Income (RPSIX), Dodge & Cox Income (DODIX) or similar diversified income funds decide how to invest it. At .43%, another reason to like the second.
Re: MFLDX- I feel for them. Off 13.3% year over year. Largely a victim of circumstance I think. (crashing energy and commodities prices and an investor stampede) But that's another story. Obviously, their mandate was to make money for investors and they failed miserably.

Hold for the long run has been the conventional pablum shoved down investors throats since the beginning of time. I don't know about you, but in the long run I am dead.

"The stock market teaches you to lose." Dex
That is what has been happening since 1999. Fewer people have been putting their money into stocks. The ups and downs have scared them away, and, the lack of disposable income.
http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/22365-stock-market-participation-has-dropped-most-among-small-investors
But, if you are a contrary investor, you might want to read this:
http://fortune.com/2014/10/23/retail-investors/
Similar to what happened in the 1930s, if there is another large decline, investors will not go back into stocks for many years. This also might lower bond yields.
Investing has been and always will be a war between love(greed?) and fear.
Due to Junkster pointing out HY muni bonds I am sleeping very well. And as a byproduct, my tax forms will be very easy to file this year.
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/18699/how-far-down-will-yields-go-usa-10year-1-64#latest

"Faber: If I could find a way to short central banks, that is what I would do."
In a technical, round about way; shorting central banks for the past 6 or so years would amount to investing (being long) in the areas that central banks were/are trying to stimulate, yes?
That would be one's choice of equity and bond sectors to suit their risk/reward.
Or is it that I'm really not very smart about investments? Are these things really harder than this to understand or do some make them to difficult for their own well being?
Regards,
Catch

Hi Davidrmoran,
I am familiar with several money management firms that assert investment policies and strategies that promise downside protection. Some do so by using a multi-asset strategy that suggests a reduced return (like 80% of the S&P 500 Index) for reduced volatility. I’m not especially impressed.
We accomplish a similar wealth projection outcome by deploying an equity/bond mixed holdings strategy. Diversification works. The multi-asset strategy is simply exploiting that truism.
Some mutual fund managers seem to have Hedge Fund envy. Usually a gap exists between promises and the reality.
But much depends on the current environment. At times, like in an upward trending market, it must be extremely challenging to outdistance a nicely assembled Index portfolio. That task might be easier when the market is trending downward.
The data strongly suggests that active managers play a long-term losing game under most circumstances, but there are exceptional periods that are decades long. But these guys are few in number.
Notwithstanding the accumulated evidence, I still hire active managers for about 30% of the equity portion of my portfolio. That has decreased significantly over the last few years.
Thank you for your question. It is not universally answered. That's why the passive-active debate continues.
Best Wishes.

Hi @ron
Just my opinion at this time. We have held active managed TlPs funds, including LTPZ.
These funds have their periods of in and out of favor, not unlike equity funds. I have not performed a chart study recently, but one will likely discover more swings with the TIPs funds area than with corporate bond holdings. Obviously, these two bond types are supposed to provide somewhat different functions.
I have noted here several times in the past years that the greatest impact in pricing for TIPs that remains in place is the yield of other gov't. issues and that these bonds also become a flight to safety device when folks are not happy with other market sectors.
This is only my opinion, of course.
We have not invested in TIPs for any relation to receiving income from the investment; but to obtain capital appreciation from pricing. We have not used this area as a long term holding; and from my recall, we have not held TIPs for more than a year, during the last 5 or 6 years.
EDV ,TLT ,LTPZ follow the long term gov't. bond pricing. TIP and other TIPs active managed funds tend to follow the middle dated yield/pricing of gov't issues.
All of these had a bad 2013 period, as they followed the gov't longer dated issues.
EDV is the hot dog in this area for both the up and the down, slightly followed by TLT and LTPZ. EDV would be my choice, next would be LTPZ in the TIPs area.
As to active managed TIPs funds, they are pretty much in line with TIP for the longer term, but vary on a shorter term as the managers move around the duration ranges and in many cases also hold corp. bonds as well.
Ron, you noted LTPZ in particular; so I presume you have access to EDV as well.
For our house, we do our best to either purchase a 5% position on day one or at least obtain this percentage within a month's time with an average in once a week. Otherwise, we don't feel the holding has enough effect upon a portfolio.
Lastly, is how long is this down trend going to stay in place relative to bond yield? A real head scratcher. And that the etf's discussed above can and do move as much as a speciality equity sector. One should watch them for price movements, IMO. These will not neccessarily behave like a smoother, well managed corp. bond fund.
I probably forget something........will add later if needed; as I have to be away for a few hours tonight.
Don't forget, lest I get dragged across the carpet. These are only my views/opinions.
Take care,
Catch

I've been in TRP Africa/Middle East TRAMX for 2 and a half years, very pleased. It sank last year through the latter months, but still gave me good profit. Right now, it's less than 3% of my portfolio. I use its (so far) outsized returns to feed money into my core fund: PRWCX. LONG-term bet, for sure, and I'd not let it even get to be 5% of portfolio. The ER is not horrible, at 1.42%. Morningstar puts the fund in a crazy "non-category" category.

I was mostly concerned with longer term since LTPZ has over 90 % in TIPS in years 2040+. Going to be very volatile and I guess if you hold long enough, no losses. Yes in an IRA and retired. But I won't be around around after 2040. Seems like a good year to own some, but who know about the future.

UC, have to agree with LLJB that there really is no right answer for an "ideal" number of funds. I struggle to keep my portfolio from becoming a "closet" index.
I normally do not have more than one or two funds in a given space, so as long as i'm satisfied with the "coverage" in that space (LC, MC, SC, sectors, etc.), I 'm good. I do, however, continue to keep my eyes open to improve my portfolio. If I come across a fund that better meets my needs, I will switch.
I'm also a believer in new funds; they seem to out-perform more often than not in the early years. For example, FMIJX, although still a very yound fund, its 3-year relative performance is outstanding. Far outpacing its cat. and benchmark; I switched from TGVIX (Thorburg Int. val) 2 years ago and have not regretted one second.
I will say that there are some reasons to have more than one fund in a given space beyond what I previously mentioned and one that I pay heed to is, to mitigate manager risk. There is something to be said for this approach, see FAIRX.
Sorry I could not be more definitive, but it's a very difficult question to answer. You certainly do not want your portfolio to be an expensive "index" fund, but you have to be comfortable in the spaces that you are investing!
Continued profitable investing!!

I think you'll find a lot of different opinions about the "ideal" number of funds and I think the real answer depends largely on your style. For instance, if one is mostly a passive investor, then I would think that person wouldn't need more than 5 funds/etfs. On the other hand, there can be good reasons for having more funds, such as not putting all your eggs in one basket, or because you want both growth and value within your global funds, for instance. Of course you have to worry about becoming a closet indexer at higher cost.
I have 6 large cap funds to cover the world right now (1 of which is in the process of being eliminated so I won't discuss it). Three of those funds are very focused and have a total of 80 positions among them so I'm in no danger of becoming an indexer. These are mostly a 'not all my eggs in one basket' approach. Two others are specific bets that Europe and Japan will experience significant gains thanks to their central bank's QE program and they are hedged etfs. The last one would most likely be eliminated too because it is largely duplicated by one of the etfs (except without leverage), but its closed to new investors. Because of that I've reduced it to a very small position but I don't want to totally exit and at some point, maybe years from now, I'd expect I'll get out of the hedged etf and rotate back into the fund. Do I really need all of those? Maybe not, but I'm comfortable with my approach and I think everything has a clear purpose.
Finally, there are some other cases where I have multiple funds doing essentially the same thing, but for example Grandeur Peak International Opportunities is hard closed, so I have another small-cap international fund that I like as well and use to balance my allocation when its needed. Again, maybe not totally necessary but I'm happy with the approach.

I too am a believer in FM. Many believe that they are traditional EM of 20 years ago, so the growth potential has a huge upside. I have been moving some monies from my traditional EM funds into FM funds.
I currently own MFMPX.lw, WAFMX and MEASX. I like the breadth and depth this combo gives me. Although they are relatively struggling in 2015, this is a LONG-TERM investment and high volatility is to be expected. Furthermore, high ER is the going rate, it cannot be avoided in this arena with mutual funds.
I have not looked into the Dreihaus fund at this point, so I do not have any thoughts on it.

I don't like your very limited choices. I'm assuming they are fund-specific, meaning that you can't buy one fund at the house and than transfer into a different fund a few months later? The only house there I'm familiar with is Oppenheimer Funds where I've held a small amount for couple decades. I would not recommend them to you. Their funds seem to me very inconsistent performers, with some racking-up market-beating numbers for a few years and than disappointing later on. While their (embedded) management fees are reasonable, they are still notably higher than for managers like T. Rowe Price, Vanguard, or Dodge & Cox.
I would take a look at that NY Venture fund run by Chris Davis. He was a frequent guest on the old Rukeyser program in the 80s and 90s and left a good impression. Apparently, it is (or was) a family run business. Here's a link concerning that fund.
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/large-blend/davis-new-york-venture-fund/nyvtx
Sounds like you are load-waived. If so, that's great. Check on that. In my old workplace plan we paid a reduced load, but it wasn't fully waived. (Loads are deceptive. They don't show up as an added charge. Instead, you pay a higher NAV when you purchase shares of the fund than without the load.)
Regards

@fundalarm:
Age: 35y
Country origin- India. Medium term outlook - to stay for 5 years or so in US and then back to native country.
Portfolio: Reasonable amount in the native country with real assets too. The equity allocation can be adjusted based upon the 401k selected funds. So, if I can select a US based equity fund, I can adjust my home allocation accordingly over time.
The overall idea is to have around 20% bond, 30% mid/small and 50% large cap, if possible. Otherwise, I can manage with a single decent fund here and rest outside.
The 4% match is the main point. If nothing else, I will use this to get a bond allocation, as you mentioned.
Regards.