FYI: The pain keeps getting worse for stock pickers.
Just 18% of portfolio managers who focus on large-capitalization stocks are beating their benchmarks so far this year, according to research by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. That’s the worst showing for large-cap managers in a decade.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/11/19/for-some-stock-pickers-worst-showing-in-10-years/tab/print/

The new economy revisited?(Broad spectrum not broad vacuum?) Info highway/clean efficient transportation vs capital intensive mining and oil e&p.
Assorted news stories from early week. PVSAX Putnam Capital Spectrum Fund Class A +0.58(+1.48%) and PYSAX Putnam Equity Spectrum Fund Class A +0.58(+1.32%) both have a large stake in DISH that gave them a nice gain today.They both trail SPY Y T D but both have strong 5 year returns.
Another wild-card bidder is Dish Network. There has been speculation that Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen wants to drive bidding prices up to help increase the value of the nearby airwaves licenses that Dish owns
Nov 19, 6:40PM EST
DISH 74.66 +6.81 (+10.04%)
Statoil (NYSE:STO) says it will suspend operations of two offshore drilling rigs for at least the rest of the year, with no plans for redeployment, citing overcapacity.
Transocean slides as fleet update shows more rigs idled
http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/RIG
Closing the mine is not CLF's first choice, but an attempt to find partners to share the cost of expansion appears to have failed, and selling a mine that needs $1.2B in capital is a doubtful prospect; even Teck Resources (NYSE:TCK), long interested in breaking into the iron ore business, isn't biting.If a sale process fails, a closure of Bloom Lake would close the books one of the worst acquisitions in the history of Canadian mining.
http://seekingalpha.com/news/2138385-cliffs-massive-closure-costs-for-bloom-lake-stuns-investors
Bidding in the FCC's AWS-3 spectrum auction have reached $24.1B barely 24 hours after topping $14B. Through 15 rounds, $1.19B alone was bid on a 10x10 MHz. license for the NYC area.
http://seekingalpha.com/news/2138395-spectrum-bids-top-24b-at-and-t-verizon-seen-spending-heavily
Linked from S A article
http://recode.net/2014/11/19/wireless-auction-attracts-whopping-24-billion-in-bids-so-far/
"We know there is a good potential in India for Tesla," Mr Vijayan said, adding "based on demand there could be a manufacturing plant in Asia and India could be one of the possible locations".
He said Tesla has been working to produce affordable electric car to cater to the mass segment.
"With our 3rd generation car Tesla Model 3, we are looking to make it more affordable at a price of around USD 30,000-35,000, which is about half of our current Model S," Vijayan said.
The company has a manufacturing plant at Freemont in US that can roll out half a million units annually (If Tesla can achieve that $30-35 thou price point they'll probably be able to put a plant anywhere they want!)
http://profit.ndtv.com/news/industries/article-tesla-keen-to-enter-india-but-says-high-import-duty-a-roadblock-700069
Norwegian Air CEO rejects criticism of plan for U.S. budget airline
BY ALWYN SCOTT AND JEFFREY DASTIN
NEW YORK/SEATTLE Wed Nov 19, 2014 8:09pm EST
Norwegian is one of the first airlines trying to bring low-cost flying to long-haul flights. It has a fleet of 17 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and plans to order at least five to 10 more.
Kjos said the Irish subsidiary is necessary to obtain access for all of Norwegian's aircraft to fly between the United States, Europe and Asia. If the company is only incorporated in Norway, it does not have access to many countries in Asia, since Norway is not part of the European Union. That would leave Norwegian running two airlines that separately serve the United States and Asia, and not able to shift aircraft from one region to the other.
They (opponents)say Norwegian will dodge U.S. labor laws by using its Irish subsidiary to take advantage of labor laws that are weaker than in Norway, threatening U.S. jobs.
"It would be a logistical nightmare," Kjos said. "We can't have one airline flying east, one airline flying west." http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/20/us-usa-airlines-norwegian-air-idUSKCN0J402I20141120
By COSTAS PARIS Copyright W S J
Updated Nov. 17, 2014 8:49 a.m. ET
(paste and copy)
LONDON—Shipping freight rates from Asia to Europe, the world’s busiest trade route, on Monday logged their biggest-ever weekly drop, as European growth is stagnating and Japan just fell back into recession.
Container-shipping volumes are considered an important barometer of the global economy. Container ships move items as diverse as household goods, apparel, toys, electronics and food. Analysts said they expected further shipping-rate weakness because the peak demand season for Asian exports ahead of the end-of-year holidays is already over.
Prices between Asian and European ports fell 21% per 20-foot container to $934, compared with $1,175 at the beginning of last week, according to the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index.The benchmark Asia-to-Europe rate stood at $1,765 per container at the start of the year.
“Shipping lines have at this point lost control over freight rates,” said Jonathan Roach, container-shipping analyst at London-based Braemar ACM Shipbroking. “They are desperately trying to fill their ships while being hit by a double whammy: a renewed global economic slowdown and a persistent overcapacity of ships.”
(subscription) http://online.wsj.com/articles/asia-europe-shipping-freight-rates-suffer-record-weekly-fall-1416226192
TV Studios Court Licensing Deals in Bustling Foreign Markets
By AMOL SHARMA
Nov. 19, 2014 10:33 p.m. ET Copyright W S J (paste and copy)
For Warner Bros. and other U.S. studios, the international TV-licensing bazaar has never been more lucrative
Licensing content to foreign TV channels is one of several ways U.S. media companies are tapping into growing overseas markets as they contend with a maturing pay-TV market at home. The U.S. growth in pay-TV subscriptions over the past 30 years has fueled the profits of TV channels and, in turn, created higher demand for the content studios like Warner produce.
Now, U.S. cable and satellite connections have peaked at around 100 million households, representing 86.5% penetration. That compares with an average penetration of just 48% across non-U.S. markets in 2013, according to securities firm Jefferies, leaving plenty of room for growth in European, Asian and Latin American markets.
As new international channels launch, they have voracious demand for content. The price paid by international networks for TV programming is growing at a double-digit pace, says Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne. “American studios have a huge advantage,” he said. “They can afford the kind of production budgets that most national players in their own market can’t.” (Content sales also go the other direction, of course, and U.S. TV networks have long licensed reality shows from foreign producers and are ramping up on scripted content, too.)
(subscription)http://online.wsj.com/articles/tv-studios-court-licensing-deals-in-bustling-foreign-markets-1416454383?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories

Wednesday 6:50 pm EST & 'my portfolio'@ morningstar is still not updated !!!
ralph
------------------------------------------------------------------
ALSO -- Here is a recent 'cut & paste' reply to another poster on the M* forum.
--Re: Incorrect mutual fund prices on Morningstar.com11-17-2014, 7:19 PM
"It's a sad state of affairs when we cannot trust the mutual fund quotes in Morningstar and have to go to other sources to find out what the correct price is."
-------------------------------------------
- Hello
---I have been checking 'other sources' for correct prices and M* has not gotten their act together.
---- for YEARS !!!!!
retris

Jerry is addressing the question of whether to liquidate completely (and implicitly, this year or across multiple years). That's because of extra taxes/higher rates that could kick in.
Edit: Upon rereading, I see Jerry largely addressed the item I also discussed below:
Let me address a slightly different question - assuming you are going to liquidate this year, do you do that before or after dividends? Simple rule of thumb: liquidate all your long term shares before distributions. Short term shares are (usually) better liquidated after distribution.
For example, suppose you have a LT share purchased at $100. It's now priced at $110. Suppose also that the distribution is going to be $3 LTG, $2 ord income. The price will drop to $105.
Sell before distribution and you have $10 LTG. Sell after, and you realize a $5 LTG. But you've also got a $3 LTG distribution, and $2 in ord income. That $10 realized LTG is better than the $8 LTG ($5 + $3) and $2 ordinary income.
The reasoning on the short term shares is the same, just backward. You're usually worse off realizing STG than getting the some of those gains as LTG distributions and some as ord income.

We can add Mr Rodriguez to the list of names that have called for the end of good times in the market. Wilbur Ross put out a statement late last week I think.

Icahn has said it, now the other day he said 3-5 years. While people are looking for a Santa Claus rally and all that, I do think a pullback would be healthy.
Also, Wilbur Ross has some kind of bizarre shell company listing that went public not that long ago.

Well, we had the winner for 10 years in a roth account. Win some, loose some.

Interesting that M* admits that the Manager of the Year award actually is not based on the current year. Why not call it fund of the decade that happens to have the same management for 7 years and has at least $10 billion is assets? If the award is for management, and if the name is Manager of the Year, what's with all the extraneous screens? And the required analyst rating insures only 20-30% of funds get admitted to the exclusive group. No funds under $3 billion need apply.
Many of these are not what I would call allocation funds, where management has the ability to determine the mix of stocks and bonds. Wellington and Wellesley for sure have mandates they cannot change. Both American funds have held the same allocation for years and years. They, too, are restricted by prospectus. Price Capital Appreciation has great management, but it, too, has had an almost unchanged allocation for a long time. Puritan has had the same mix, within a percentage point or two, for ages. Franklin Income has actually changed allocation a bit over the last five years, up to almost 10% less in bonds. Thornburg is by far the most adventurous, but still not much.
Given M*s rather glib interpretation of "allocation" (it seems to encompass balanced, all three allocation categories (conservative, moderate, aggressive), tactical, and world allocation) there are sure to be some great managers who are overlooked. FPACX, OAKBX, GLRBX, CAPSX to name a very few. I am surprised to see Thornburg on this list, but not disappointed.

FPA has been bearish for years. Years. I don't think FPACX is seldom below 20% cash. They were weary of a collapse quite a while prior to 2008, and had some sort of long-standing "buying freeze".
I don't mind that, BTW. That's why I've hired them (via FPACX).

Legendary fund manager??? The past five years his flagship fund - FPPTX - has **severely** lagged its benchmark as well as the S&P.

"What are your thoughts about the upcoming November elections and the presidential election of 2016?
They’re the most important elections in 80 years. I would like to see a revolt of nine to 10 senators shifting from Democrat to Republican/Independent. I guarantee that would send shock waves through many of the elites in Washington and set up for a major presidential outcome in 2016. Then the elected representatives may finally get around to dealing with what they should be dealing with — addressing out-of-control government spending and the complexity of our tax codes, which are starting to work in ways that aren’t positive. But if the shift is just in the four-to-six range, then it’s business as usual, and nothing will happen."
--
A bit dated. (Didn't the mid-terms already take place?) But demonstrates how intrinsically linked all this analysis tends to be to politics. (Paul Krugman would have a completely opposite view.)
Rodriguez and Clements are painfully out of step with current investor sentiment. Their deeply entrenched bearish views (not specific to their current analysis) would have been better received on March 8, 2009.

FYI: Midcap stock mutual funds have outrun the S&P 500 in much of the past 15 years, led by value funds
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTg2NzI4Nzk=
Enlarged Graphic: http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=111814weblv.gif&docId=726808&xmpSource=&width=953&height=1014&caption=&id=726809

I agree with most of the posters on this. The market does not NEED to drop 25%. Indeed it COULD drop 25%. Unlikely, but it could. Just because I did not have everything in the S&P 500 the last five years does not mean I want a big sell off. My below-market returns (because of my wide diversification) are still in my NEED range for future retirement. This was not one of Mr. Clements best moments.

FYI: Legendary fund manager Robert Rodriguez, who forecast the global financial crisis, sees money managers and advisors in peril. They will be victims of their own heedlessness, he says.
The day of reckoning will come within three years in a financial crisis at least as big and pernicious as The Great Recession, he told ThinkAdvisor in a recent, exclusive interview. The country is treading a tenuous path toward another disaster of massive proportions, according to Rodriguez.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2014/10/27/bob-rodriguez-new-great-recession-coming-in-3-year?page_all=1
M* Snapshot Of FPA Capital Funds: http://quicktake.morningstar.com/fundfamily/fpa/0C00001YR9/fund-list.aspx

A fund that has had 2.2 billion in recent redemptions ... Makes them a fickled bunch? I don't think so.
I was invested in the fund for a good while and left becasue of its assets bloat not because of its managers. Seems Mainstay tried to be too many investors sweetheart with this fund! Mainstay should have closed this fund a long time ago to new money. Perhaps with a good number of investors leaving and now with reduced AUM the managers will be able to better position the fund in ever changing macro environments ... and, it might now become to have respectable returns. In the early years I made good money in this fund but after it became bloated the returns began to wane.
Should this happen ... Then we know it was asset bloat! I like the manager ... but, not what Mainstay did in leaving the fund open and letting it become, by my thinking, to large to manage.
Old_Skeet

Not directly related to U.S. healthcare, I am sure many here are aware of the foreign health centers that have come into place in the past 10-12 years, in particular with India and Thailand.
This is a new entry that I have watched for the past two years; although there isn't any investment potential directly related the hospital, as it is private.
Acension Health/Caymans
Ascension is a full blown, very sophisticated total health care organization involved in all areas of the business from venture capital startups to insurance and is a non-profit, Catholic based group.
Regards,
Catch

Barrons has an interesting article on ETFs in which one of the panel suggests IUSB , a relatively new(June) ETF from i shares fund with much more than the standard bonds in the Barclay index (this includes high yield and emerging market denominated in dollars.ER is .15, duration about 5 years yield a bit high than the standard bond index

Same here but several years earlier.

Does anyone own RNCOX (River North Core Op?)
I have owned it for 3 years and am trying to decide if I should fold it into another fund. I am consolidating and was considering putting it into PRWCX (T Rowe Price Capital Appreciation) , or FPACX(FPA Crescent). I currently already own all three funds.
One of my concerns with RNCOX is the cost of owning it. The expense ratio is 2.22%

Does anyone own RNCOX (River North Core Op?)
I have owned it for 3 years and am trying to decide if I should fold it into another fund. I am consolidating and was considering putting it into PRWCX (T Rowe Price Capital Appreciation) , or FPACX(FPA Crescent). I currently already own all three funds.
One of my concerns with RNCOX is the costs of owning it. The expense ratio is 2.22%

Notes:
Stats for the top quartile managers 2000-2010:
97% of those who ended up with the best record (=top quartile managers for 2000-2010) spent at least 3 of those 10 years in the bottom half of performance
79% spent at least 3 yrs in the bottom quartile of performance
47% “spent at least 3 of the 10 yrs in the bottom decile of performance, meaning they were in the bottom 10%, so you’re pretty sure that none of their clients actually stuck with them to get the good return”
Two academic studies of institutional investors. Both studies concluded the same thing:
“There is only one metric that you need to predict institutional cash flows: and that metric is, how did the fund do last year, If it did well, it gets all the inflows, if it didn’t do well, it gets all the outflows”
“The best strategy for most people is the one they can stick with”
He likes the structure of ETFs a lot but does not like market cap weighted indexes. He prefers a value index like iShares Russell 1000 Value IWD