FYI: The average small-cap fund has clobbered its large-cap counterpart and the S&P 500 in the past 15 years, but it's failed to keep its lead in the stock market this year.
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTgzNTkwNTA=
Enlarged Graphic: http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=WEBlv080814.gif&docId=712324&xmpSource=&width=1000&height=1062&caption=&id=712327

Authors help others when they have a short one to two sentence instruction concerning their wishes. I recall wanting to post a portion of a John Mauldin newsletter years ago. At the bottom was his instruction of how he preferred that one do this. I think it said he wanted to be notified at a given email address and he wanted you to provide a link to your use of his material in the email.
Such a short clear comment can be cut pasted at the bottom of original material in a second and could help avoid grief and, maybe, lead to new friends who share your interests. Not doing this can lead to a rough introduction. The internet is used by everyone without specific knowledge required.

My situation is much different as I am still 16 years from full retirement and my wife is 20 years away. We keep a 60/40 portfolio...we are happy with overall returns and we sleep at night. We probably keep a much higher percentage of global smallcap in our portfolio than most...approx. 20%.
Doing the same as previous posters with GPROX as it looks like a future hard close will not allow additions to retirement accounts through 3rd party platforms such as TDA.

Hi Catch,
Thank you for your interest and unexpected reply.
Not unexpected in terms of a direct topic exchange, but unexpected by the focus change that your post took. Great stuff. I had not thought whatsoever of what beneficial impact a risk understanding would have on our youth if introduced early in the educational process.
But apparently Gerd Gigerenzer has made that linkage in his “Risk Savvy” book. I have not yet read this recent release, but I have ordered it and anticipate some practical lessons that are exploitable. The subject matter is in my curiosity wheelhouse.
I always focus attention on the odds of any real world scenario and how to improve them. Along those lines, I purchased Gregory Baer’s “Life: the Odds (and how to improve them)” a few years ago. Statistical data is fascinating.
For example, Baer reports that the odds of a golfing hole-in-one improve as the distance shortens (no surprise here). It’s 15,000 to 1 at 175 yards and drops to 13,000 to 1 at 150 yards.
As equipment has improved with time, so has the odds of bowling a perfect game. Currently the odds are 4,000 to 1 for each full game; twenty years ago those odds were a staggering 89,000 to 1. Change happens and matters greatly. Investors must be familiar with past stock market annual rewards to make informed investment decisions.
Gerd Gigerenzer is an acknowledged expert on risk identification and management. He is an advocate for an early introduction of statistical thinking into schools. Our statistical illiteracy is staggering and detracts from our successes during our entire life.
Gigerenzer’s answer is to incorporate a multi-component statistical curriculum starting at the sub-high school level. His proposed curriculum would include health, financial, and digital risk literacy segments. Each of these elements would be subdivided into statistical thinking, rules of thumb and the psychology of risk according to a review by Omar Malik.
Gigerenzer is a popular public speaker. He has recently appeared on a TED video. Here is a Link to one of his talks:

I hope you enjoy it. I did.
Thanks again for your comments. They certainly expanded the discussion context in a positive direction.
Best Wishes.

From the FundAlarm days; my question to any web site was what their use policy may be, other than what may be stated at the web page. In general, 200 words of copy/paste and a link to the full article/story was the common reply.
I have read, but not linked some articles over the years; as the legal language at the web site did not allow for this.
Tis always easy to ask for permission(s).

Glad to see Ted has returned.
On a related note, as it pertains to Ted's "offending" post, though I'm not a copyright attorney, I did study copyright law while in law school, albeit many years ago. As I understand it, a forum or blog can issue portions of an article so long as the excerpt is quantitatively small and does not cause the newspaper financial harm. When Ted published the post it made me want to click through to the original article--which I ultimately did. I'm sure that this forum wants to steer clear of copyright violations, and I don't have any issue with a moderator making sure that the site isn't subject to liability.
I'd suggest that David issue guidelines for the "reposting" of articles. If and when he sees those guidelines violated, he can gently remind offenders and can edit the posts accordingly. Beyond this, I think that censorship directed against individual posters should be frowned upon.

I do see that the annual reports have the total assets for the current and previous year, but they don't show it over the past several years.

Morningstar (under "Filings") just has the most recent annual report.
I'm assuming the individual fund websites may be a good place to find historical annual reports, going back at least several years. But some fund websites are not very good.
If they are not on the fund website, are they available on the SEC website, or elsewhere?

There are other websites where I run into big jerks. I simply turn them off. Literally, I block them so I don't even have to see them or anything they may say. That's not possible in here. I recall years ago someone was "stalking" Max Bialystock in the Fund Alarm website. He wasn't heard from much, after someone chimed-in and called a spade a spade... Anyhow, Ted is ignore-able. But I wouldn't do that. He knows too much. And a word here directly to Ted: " Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you."

Ted is 77 years old and as he has mentioned several times not in the best of health. I might be a bit more onery too if I had a host of health problems (and was 77 years young)
So we should probably cut him some slack.

I hadn't realized he was of that age. Now that I know I will take your advice Junkster and not say any more about it. Thanks for adding some perspective to the matter.

The quote:
“People aren't stupid. The problem is that our educational system has an amazing blind spot concerning risk literacy. We teach our children the mathematics of certainty -- geometry and trigonometry -- but not the mathematics of uncertainty, statistical thinking.”
>>>Nothing else is being taught that measures or assesses risk???
I see a bunch of risk assessment taking place in our school system; and "it ain't got noth'in" to do with math.
1. bullying
2. school lockdowns (practice drills) to prepare the staff and students for the event of a person who has chosen to cause harm at a particular facility.
3. plain old fights taking place in classrooms, the hallways and cafeteria.
4. risk literacy arrives in many forms in schools. Those who take the chances of failure from participation in any number and/or forms within the social fabric of a school society. Four years of being the backup quarterback for the high school football team, busting their butts to achieve a place or a position within any number of other school functions; but not always reaching the goal from any number of circumstances.
5. Sadly, for too many in some school systems, is the risk of being able to arrive at school for another day of study; without the risk of violence to them traveling to school.
The society of young folks in school systems is a world unto itself. There is risk with many things these young people deal with everyday within their school system; be it the staff/teachers or the other students of this special society.
I did not read the linked article; but hopefully it is more than data studies about math and risk, and how students do not understand risk.
Respectfully,
Catch

A good learning experience re: copyright law. I've found librarians in the past to be especially well versed on the "dos" and "don'ts". And, to his credit David has done an excellent job over the years explaining what's acceptable and not acceptable in that regard. But copyright law's not an easy concept for many laypeople to fully grasp.
Yep - I'd rather critique Ted, Rono, Catch, OJ or anyone else when they're here to defend themselves - which Ted is clearly not.

Here is a result from a MFO Fund database search, sorted by UI - ulcer index, lower is better. These funds, over a 20 year period, performed well compared to the S&P 500 (VFINX) with lower drawdowns in 2009. Over the past 3 years these funds have captured only about 70% of the S&P gain (my ball park estimate), but one could anticipate that they would also capture less of the next drawdown, making it easier to stick with your plan.
Fund APR MDD UI
MAPOX 10.3 -33.1 6.2
JABLX 10.3 -22.2 6.3
VWELX 10.1 -32.5 6.4
PRWCX 11.3 -36.6 6.5
FPACX 11.1 -28.8 6.7
JAMBX 7.4 -29.0 10.5
VFINX 9.7 -51.0 17.6
Apologies - I have not yet figured out how to post a result from the "Risk Profile" scan.

Ted is 77 years old and as he has mentioned several times not in the best of health. I might be a bit more onery too if I had a host of health problems (and was 77 years young) So we should probably cut him some slack.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014
It’s Only 3.4%
Ron Rowland
"Yesterday, the S&P 500 closed 3.4 percent below its all-time historical high. Bears are coming out of the woodwork, and media outlets are painting a grim picture. Although the modern day S&P 500 Index didn’t come into existence until 1957, Standard & Poor’s has been calculating an index of U.S. stocks since 1923. Dow Jones began the task in 1896. Today we have more than 14,000 days of S&P 500 history. That history extends to about 23,000 days if its predecessor is included and more than 29,000 days if you believe the Dow Jones Industrial Average was a good proxy 100 years ago."
One can read more of this weeks newsletter by clicking on the link below ...
http://investwithanedge.com/newsletter-archives/080614-its-only-3-4
Editing Note:
Recently there has been some issues brought forward about posting complete article content on the board over writing a brief blurb and then providing a link to the article.
The preferred way is to write a blurb and then post the link. Poster Mark called me out on this. With this, I have edited this post to reflect the site’s preferred way in hopes of maintaing harmony and conformability going forward.
I wish all ... "Good Investing."
Old_Skeet

Morningstar does have the current total AUM on the main quote page listed under "Total Assets". It is the total across all share classes.
I do see that the annual reports have the total assets for the current and previous year, but they don't show it over the past several years. In addition, I'd like to be able to pull the information programmatically into my spreadsheets. It seems parsing it from the annual reports might prove a little challenging. Not sure what kind of XBRL data is available, but I haven't been successful with my efforts thus far.

If you are a Morningstar subscriber (to the website) - you can get the AUM for each share class over several years individually by looking at the PDF for the fund. The PDF appears underneath the ticker and star rating, on the initial page for each fund, but M* doesn't have it for all funds. Again, AUM for >each< share class, not all share classes.
Also - I think that if you subscribe to Lipper then you can get the information.
Here is example for top 25 funds:
http://www.diansfundfreebies.com/performance/lg25.pdf

Hey guys! Managed to find Internet on the beach. My brother who thinks his lil brother lost it a long time back, never invests in mutual funds. However thanks to this board and after I recommended RPHYX and RSIVX - the only funds he owns besides bunch of Vanguard in his 401k - he still introduces me to others as his brother. Sorry digressing...
When we discussed conservative (ahem) ways to get some yield, he says to look at PFF and the new VRP. Then he showed me how some preferred stocks have provided him good income over the past few years and especially after the financial crisis. Anyways, just some food for thought. I am going to research some preferred stock funds after I get back. Seems like a compelling diversifying opportunity to me
Wish my first generation IPad had a camera so I could post a picture of my first real vacation in years. I have already had enought beers in the name of each one of you.

The article's argument is based on recent investor preferences - everybody and his dog is going after the good performance of passive funds over the past 5 years. My guess is that after the next solid correction, we will see articles about the superior performance of some actively managed funds.

FYI: Remember a few years back when everyone used to look at the 1% yields on long-term Japanese sovereign debt and write it off as a phenomenon specific to Japan? Well that so-called Japan specific issue is now firmly entrenched in Germany and Japan, and with a yield of 2.08% Canada is not far behind. Meanwhile, Japan has graduated down to the sub 1% club.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bespokeinvest.com/thinkbig/2014/8/6/incredible-shrinking-yields.html?printerFriendly=true

I've been toying for a while with a story on Morningstar's venerable "buy the unloved" strategy. It starts with the simple premise that most people, quite reliably, do exactly the opposite of what's in their best interest. In its first manifestation, the strategy was to buy the three sectors that saw the greatest outflows (measured by change in percentage of assets at year's end) and hold them for 3-5 years while selling the most popular sectors. I liked it, then Morningstar stopped publishing it. When they resumed, the strategy had a far more conservative take: buy the three sectors that saw the greatest outflows measured in total dollar volume and hold them, while selling the most popular sectors.
Oh, by the way, they haven't traditionally allowed bond funds to play. They track bond flows but, in a private exchange, Mr. Kinnel allowed that "Generally they are too dull to provide much of a signal."
The problem with, and perhaps strength of, the newer version is that it means that you'll mostly be limited to play with your core sectors rather than volatile smaller ones. By way of example, large cap blend holds about $1.6 trillion - a 1% outflow there ($16 billion) would be an amount greater than the total assets in any of the 50 smallest fund categories. Large cap growth at $1.2 trillion is close behind.
Morningstar has taken, very quietly, to publishing fund flow reports each month. Here's the August report, for what interest it holds.
Who's unloved? Over the past 12 months:
intermediate term bonds - down $57 billion but up $7 billion YTD
large cap growth - down $35B
intermediate government - down $23B over the past 12 months
TIPs - down $22B
National munis - down $13B
commodities - down $11B
EM bonds - down $8B
Who's really unloved? Though Morningstar doesn't do the calculations, it appears that some of the emerging markets (China and India in particular) and currency funds have seen 10-25% of their assets disappear over the past year.
There's a lot of poke through. Hope you enjoy.
David