Capitol Group's American Funds was our primary investment vehicle for some forty years. I was never impressed with their bond funds, but other than that we made a lot of money through the years in quite a variety of their other fund types.

@crash
I cannot say there is a lot of rhyme my reason. I have always gravitated to value metrics, but have been burned many times for refusing "pay up" for stocks with high PEs. Using some of the classic "Value funds" over the years has precipitated some blow ups too especially with funds that remained concentrated in one bad position.
A 50/50 value/growth spilt would have been much more productive.
We have used the advisor for three years and other than the fact we disagree on selling a a stock down 25 to 30%, I am reasonably pleased with his "Buffet light" approach. It is well articulated and he knows the companies very very well. WIth a current P/S ratio 2/3s of market an P/FCF 50% of market, it is hopefully more resistant to the upcoming downturn. HEmanages about 45% of our equities. BKB.B is another 17%
With this as a base, I chose my own other more growth oriented ideas. I am convinced for example that inflation will be sticky and energy use will be driven by electricity demand and industrials will respond to global warming mitigation ( and repair efforts). Thus we are overweight Energy and Utilities and Industrials.
I am content plodding along, without huge gainsor big losses. I would reduce our equity % some more, but I hate paying taxes.

”It's hard to believe I'm retired 7 years already … “

Watched an MLB game last night between Seattle & Miami. Ruined the evening when the announcer mentioned that Seattle’s starting pitcher was born the same year I retired. To make things worse I lost $2 on the game.
Enjoy retirement @Pudd. Try to stay healthy. Careful with those longnecks.

Hi Hank,
Good to hear from you. Hope you and yours are well.
I'll do the Scotch first.....yuk! It's all yours, Bro.....lol. Not into Porter, I'm afraid. Too heavy. I feel like a whale after a few.
As far as ideas on the Board, I always felt it was a strong point especially when people don't agree with you. Like you said, it causes one to pause and reflect which is good at all times.
Some things I miss on the Board: he is both conspicuous and greatly missed by his absence.....of course, you know I mean Ted. Things have changed forever with him gone. Another is Old Skeet. No here....but that's life.
It's hard to believe I'm retired 7 years already. As I always said, getting old is not for sissies...lol!
I wish you all well.
God bless
the Pudd

I don't care for Scotch. I'll stick to long necks.

Afraid I’m of no help in that respect. Either the flavor of beer has deteriorated in recent years or I’m losing my taste for it. But I’ll make an exception for Founder’s Porter. Excellent flavor and brewed in Michigan.
@Puddenhead - Nice to hear from you. Hope you find the ideas shared here (excluding those on scotch) helpful. I find the site invaluable. Even those with whom I disagree over how to invest (there are a few) cause me to rethink my approach and double-check / put to the test what I’m doing and why.
Take care

back to primecap topic, from IAV :
"...I won’t be buying either of the two reopened funds, but please do not take that as any indication of a lack of confidence or conviction in the funds and the managers. I’m not buying the funds because...I already have a lot of exposure to PRIMECAP's stock pickers...
Yes, PRIMECAP has trailed 500 Index over the past three years (by around 1% per year). However, the active fund has beaten the index fund over the past five, ten and fifteen years..."

Sitting tight. Normal 10% cash allocation is at 15% pending a sizable withdrawal / distribution later this summer. Than back to 10%. Labor is in short supply so I don’t know when the infrastructure work will begin.
I watch the precious metals. If I were going to take a stab at something it would be GLTR. There’s a certain “fun” aspect to playing in that area. But that stuff has had a few good years and I don’t usually buy things that have risen a lot. Don’t usually mention specific CEFs, but I watch (and have owned in the past) GGN which plays in the miners and appears to be a pretty gentle behaving security considering its exposure to gold. But, again, it’s had a couple hot years recently, so not buying.
I watch scotch brands and prices. Testing a bottle of Glenfiddich 12-year right now and quite impressed. Enjoyed some Glenfarclas 12-year recently on United. Great stuff, but at $79 will need to grow the portfolio a bit more. United’s scotch is better than their planes.

@Tarwheel - never would I claim that FCNTX is an S&P 500 clone. It's far from it. At the time I sold what it hadn't been doing was beating up on the S%P 500 like it had in prior years. I blamed it on the growth of the massive AUM. I owned it close to 30 years.. largely due to it's skilled manager.

Thanks Everyone. It’s my impression I came out ahead. As @msf noted, there is no tax consideration being in a Roth IRA. Maybe a better way to look at it is I own more shares of the same CEF now for no additional cost (as I reinvested roughly the earlier cash value).
This might make a worthwhile thread on CEFs if anyone is so inclined. I’ve for several years owned 1 or 2. I view these as a way of broadening out / diversifying a portfolio. Also, as a way of adding a little extra “octane” to total return because most employ leverage.
The way they trade drives me nuts. As @BaluBalu pointed out in another thread they are used by some as trading vehicles. And as @Mark mentioned in another thread they are largely owned by institutions. The latter fact would seem to indicate that smaller investors have a better than average chance of getting burned by these. If you think interest rates will fall, they should rise in value to the extent that they employ leverage (and falling rates = lower borrowing costs).
What are the incentives for the manager to perform well or to stick to the fund’s mandate? I’ve read that their fee is based on total amount including levered amount. OK. Mutual fund managers have an incentive to attract more investors and sell more shares and increase the funds’ AUM. But a CEF cannot issue more shares. What incentives keep the manager on the straight and narrow?
I do understand that these often trade at a discount to NAV. Is the manager’s fee based on NAV or share price? Does each have a board of directors elected by shareholders? I think so.
Why is it that the share price of so many of these drop rapidly in the first year or 2 of operation? Often they will fall 15-25% in the first year or two and then begin a slow recovery. Obviously, they don’t look like a good value when first issued. Is that just raw luck or is some other factor at work?

FCNTX is no S&P clone. It rose about 15% in January alone. I’ve owned it for 20+ years and it’s the best performing fund in my portfolio.

Sure makes sense…. I’ve also got a lot invested in SPY too. It’s certainly been the place you wanted to be the last 15 years

It's true that there are only a handful of offerings right now, but I just took a quick and arbitrary look at 3 years out and there are eight between 4.7 and 4.85%. I might do a Morgan Stanley in those, because how much longer will Moneymarket SUTXX be paying 5.18%?
Add: In Treasuries, 7 offerings @4.55% maturing 1/27. Another possibility.

This is gonna really throw into chaos a lot of old timers who joined Vanguard in the 70s thru 90s era when its low-cost approach was thought to be the greatest innovation since sliced bread. I know one such person (an otherwise intelligent hands-off investor) who was puzzled by their push to make people switch to ETFs a few years ago. “What the heck is an ETF?” he asked me recently.
Phone support? Don’t know about Vanguard. But TRP should pay you to call in, so poor is the “support.”

Primecap started out as a mid cap growth, evolving over time into a large cap that straddled the growth/blend boundary. Core launched as a large cap blend as I recall. It has usually trailed Primecap in performance, as growth has generally led value/blend for many years. I tend to think of Primecap as an AIO, covering both VPCCX and VHCAX.
M*, Primecap: The Shades of Difference Among Its Funds
As you've no doubt noticed, all three funds invest about 1/8 of their portfolio abroad. I happen to like this (bigger pool to fish in), though others prefer to invest strictly domestically.

Buying into the S&P 500 seems like buying into megacaps but then adding 300 "smaller" companies for what? Seasoning? Diversification?
If the decision is to go with megacaps, then why bother with that dreck? Or if the decision is to diversify across the market (despite smaller companies having not fared as well as megacaps in the past), consider buying into funds that truly diversify.
MGC has outperformed VFIAX since inception, Jan 2008 (10.50% vs. 10.26%), with slightly lower volatility (16.00% vs. 16.14% std dev), and a 3 year rolling coefficient of correlation ranging between 0.997 and 0.999 (nearly perfect tracking).
Portfolio Visualizer correlation (and performance) analysis of MGC and VFIAX
The divergence between mega caps and the rest of the market has been most apparent in the past five years (give or take). Go with the flow or "revert to the mean"?

I have concentrated in the right categories since 1995. See (link).

LOL. WTF dude.

"Like others here, I own a slice of GLFOX which invests in infrastructure and, for whatever reason, stays mainly in Europe. It has returned a big zero this year. Not a concern to me. I can be content with some holdings rising and some falling. If everything were rising together I’d be very worried."
The optimal portfolio is only known in hindsight.
Diversification means always having to say you're sorry about some investment in your portfolio!

Your best observation ever. And no need for hindsight.
I have concentrated in the right categories since 1995. See (link).
Just a small example: since 11/2023, I have posted many times to own US LC tilting growth and not diversifying. See my post from 11/1/2023 (link)
"You can just play it simple: no diversification, no predictions, no narrow range funds, looks like tilting LC growth is here to stay which = SPY/VOO or you can gamble and use some QQQ."
Why I posted the above? my system told me. See the chart(https://schrts.co/MWCuZUMV)
One of my fundamental rules is never to hold a fund that is not performing well. It doesn't mean #1, it means in the top 30% based on risk-adjusted performance. It's much easier when you have 3 funds, it's a lot harder with 10-15 funds.

I am pretty certain it was 1992 when I jumped at the chance to buy re-opened low turnover Primecap shares for a taxable account. I felt fairly lucky, except SEQUX caused some fund envy. But of course, that envy disappeared in time. Other than MM holdings, VPMAX became my largest position - now ~13% of PV. Given the mediocre performance for several recent years, I certainly wouldn't mind if it reverted to its historical mean.

Its heyday may be over? Last 5 years 2019-2023 or YTD it hasn't even kept up with the SP500 (VOO) Why pay ER .31 (VPMAX adm) vs ER .03 (VOO). On 200k that's $620 vs $60.

Eight or nine years of redemptions probably explains it.
BTW, those consistent redemptions have resulted in years and years of significant capital gains distributions. On an after-tax basis both of these funds have underperformed the S&P 500, by more than 100 bps a year for over a decade.