To say again:
This country has been in some form of default for at least the last 50 years.
The government(s) continues to trample the citizens and their monies.
Any hedge fund or others who assume to be enlightened towards investing in this country apparently have not studied and do not understand or have knowledge of the modern history of the country; and perhaps think they know how to work the system of investments there or just feel lucky.
Without a doubt, some of the folks who are on the losing end of these investments right now are just pissed about their skills and judgements.
Numerous articles are readily discovered regarding these circumstances.

@JohnChism Depending on which Arnott funds you are talking about, you may have not liked them for the past 5 years (March 9, 2009) or so, up until a few days ago.

Vintage, I agree regarding Chuck Jaffe. His Marketwatch articles are usually selling something. One of his latest was about the death of buy and hold investing, something he had been promoting for years. What changed his mind all of a sudden?

Some excerpts from a Memo written by John Bogle July 9, 2014
http://johncbogle.com/wordpress/category/memos-to-principals-and-veterans/
July 9, 2014
To: My Fellow Vanguard Veterans and Principals
My 63rd Anniversary
Monday, July 9, 1951, was the first day of my long career in the mutual fund industry. I vividly remember walking into the Wellington Fund offices on 1420 Walnut Street in Philadelphia
Little could I have imagined that I would remain with Wellington/ Vanguard for 63 years
Much of what was to follow was due to the ethical values and financial wisdom of my great mentor and friend, Walter L. Morgan, who did his best to impart them to his heir-apparent.
Walter Morgan was the founder and chief of Wellington Fund and Wellington Management Company, and (as I once wrote to him) he gave me his confidence when I had little confidence in myself. Then, Wellington employed maybe 75 people, and supervised $150 million of assets for the shareholders of its single mutual fund. (Tiny by today’s standards, but then one of this industry’s ten largest firms.)
You all probably know about how my career at Wellington ended (I was fired from my position as chief executive in January 1974), fortuitously opening the door to my creation of Vanguard only seven months later
It was, as they say, the opportunity of a lifetime—a chance to build something new and better for our mutual fund shareholders. The three pillars of our fledging firm were our unique mutual structure, the world’s first index mutual fund, and the unprecedented conversion to a distribution system without a sales force
Still strong, if perhaps diminished (your call on both!), I continue to use those powers to speak out for giving all mutual fund shareholders a better chance to accumulate wealth; for reform in an industry that has come to emphasize marketing over management; for the requirement that every firm that touches other people’s money be subject to high standards of fiduciary duty and trusteeship

Hi Paul,
Mr. Marcus managed or co-managed Mutual Series funds for less than 2 years, so I doubt that he earned any "pedigree" during such a brief period. And if you look at the record of MEURX, the only fund he managed by himself, it trailed the category average until the last month of his tenure. So like many new funds, I usually recommend that folks watch until some track record develops and refrain from being an early buyer.
In the World Stock space, my short list of funds to consider would be DODWX, PGVFX, OAKWX and THOIX (per test trade, THOIX is apparently available in Fidelity retirement accounts for a $500 minimum with a $49.95 initial transaction fee).
Kevin

You had to ask :)
Whitebox and Hussman.
This is a good time to note which of your fund are truly "long/short" or "market neutral" or "tactical allocation" or "absolute return". It is days like today that confirm once for all whether a fund is really worth it.
Take a look at JAZZX. Did so well over past 3 years. Today drops 2%. Tells you this fund is really net long. PMHDX drop is surprising. I expected it to drop, but not that much. CLSVX is another that dropped big.
OTCRX, CGVAX are up.

Maybe Price's PRHYX is really the best. At least they were smart enough to close it to new investors two years ago.
These types of questions bug me. Best fund? Best wine? Best vacation spot? Best spouse? All depends on situation, risk tolerance, and time horizon. For some there may not even be a best junk fund. They'd be better off in a low cost hybrid that varies exposure to junk and other assets.
Article mentions some great funds. However, there's no guarantee either manager or current attractive fee structure will still be there five years from now. And when you hype a fund like this $$ pours in (unless they've already closed it). Resultant flood of $$ (bloat) creates problems not all managers deal with effectively.
Junk article? No. Not quite. However from many posts I'm beginning to suspect there must be a robo-writer out there (maybe gifted by Steve Jobs). Punch in 10 minutes worth of data and head for the links (not Ted's). Robo-writer finishes off the article pulling catchy lines from a stored bank of time worn cliches as necessary and publishes. Regards

scott, that's the only reason I thought it was interesting - his pedigree. Expenses are on hte high side and performance has been pretty dismal.

I haven't looked at the portfolio over time, but if it has been anything like the current one, I'm guessing high exposure to Europe has been problematic and I'm guessing was behind the fund's significant decline around mid-2011 (around the Greece-related Europe decline, I believe? The investment years run together.)
Still, the fund's performance - despite the pedigree - is dismaying. I'd say watch it, see if things continue (although you have problems in Europe again and a fund that continues to have heavy exposure to it) and hopefully improve. I wouldn't invest at this point (although I wouldn't really add to much of anything at this point aside from a few things that I intend on holding for years.)
Edited to add: I think the other thing to consider would be what is the manager saying - I haven't read the letters, but does the manager have a long-term view, what's the reasoning, etc? I've held funds that may have been underperforming in the short-to-mid term if they have a very defined vision as to themes, predictions and have displayed an understanding that the bet is currently not working and why.
Long story short, I'll hold an underperforming fund if they display an understanding of the reasons why, display some flexibility and a vision as to how their current bets/themes may pay off. If a fund is underperforming and a manager's like, "We're very happy, everything's great" or "well, it's a bad quarter.', then I'll consider ditching the fund.

FYI: If Vanguard had a family tree, its roots would be Vanguard Wellington Fund. Now the nation’s largest balanced mutual fund¹, Wellington Fund began operations on July 1, 1929, 85 years ago this week.
Regards,
Ted
http://vanguardblog.com/2014/07/02/wellington-fund-and-the-vanguard-family-tree/print/

As David noted several months ago Marcus was one of Mike Price's boys (Max Heine's grandkid?) and their "deep value" strategy seems to be less successful when markets only go up. We'll see how successful their style is when the market reverses (soon perhaps?) But as Junkster has advocated for years, get off the boat to nowhere and if for some reason you're attached to that boat, get back on when it starts to move in the direction you want to go.

I think I used to own that one in a 403b years ago. Got out before the '08-'09 Crash, for which no one has gone to jail.
http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/f?t=ARYVX

You might be thinking of another fund? This one started up in 2011. I was in on the initial trading day. American Century does have another real estate fund REACX which is a much older fund.

...Yes, it must be so.

What Junkster said. Hussman is clearly smart and hardworking and cares about his shareholders, he's just not making them any money. 10 years is a full market cycle. He's been tested.
If you think the market is overvalued, hold cash and high quality short term corporates, maybe through an etf like VCSH. No need to get fancy.

I think I used to own that one in a 403b years ago. Got out before the '08-'09 Crash, for which no one has gone to jail.
http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/f?t=ARYVX

You might be thinking of another fund? This one started up in 2011. I was in on the initial trading day. American Century does have another real estate fund REACX which is a much older fund.

I think I used to own that one in a 403b years ago. Got out before the '08-'09 Crash, for which no one has gone to jail.
http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/f?t=ARYVX

What stands out to me is he is negative over the past 1, 3, 5, and 10 years (HSGFX) Not exactly my idea of building wealth.

Also calling him a perma bear is also wrong.

I'd say that's accurate when you look at Hussman as a whole. The media has taken to making villains out of/shouting down anyone who has tried to bring a little reality into the discussion. They did in 2007/2008, too, to anyone who questioned the sustainability of the situation ("Housing might crash? How dare you say such a thing!")
I really dislike Hussman's positioning (this whole overly complex and unnecessary completely hedged long portfolio.) If he feels the way he does, go heavily to cash and staples, with some light hedging if need be. Simpler strategy (given his views) and would have likely done better. I think there is a stubbornness in keeping with the portfolio positioning.
Additionally, calling the stock market a bubble and being long thing like Panera, Starbucks and Viacom? Meh.
"He is a hedger not a shorter"
The portfolio - last I looked - remains fully hedged. So, either his hedging strategy is not working or his long portfolio is underperforming or some combination of both, although I'm thinking it's the former more than the latter. I think we've gone over this before and I forget what the result was, but I'd be curious what Hussman's unhedged performance would have looked like over the last 2-3 years.

I just had a fresh look at Hussman's record with what seems to be his most important fund, HSGFX
Actually, he did amazingly well from inception on 7/24/2000 thru the end of 2008.
His 2001 and 2002 performances were exceptional. Most funds were taken to the cleaners in 2002. The Vanguard S&P 500 index fund lost 22% in 2002, and lost 12% in 2001. For Hussman to have been up more than 14% in each of those years is really something.
From inception thru the end of 2002, unbelievable performance.
2003-2007, lukewarm.
2008: Exceptional, considering the S&P 500 went down 37%
From 2009 till the present: unbelievably bad performance.

What's so unique about Hussman is his academic credentials. It's one thing to hear a charlatan say the Dow is going to 6,000 and the sky is falling. It's a bit different when someone with a PhD in economics from Stanford, who had an exemplary mutual fund record for almost 9 years, writes the kind of stuff Hussman writes.

Even a blind squirrel will find an acorn once in a while. So will Hussman be 'proved right' at some point. In the meantime, his disastrous management has cost shareholders dearly. It is amazing his Strategic Growth fund has any assets at all, let alone more than $1 billion (but down from $6 billion in 2010). His claim to fame was performance in the 2007-08 bear market. Perhaps he will do well in the next bear market, but there are other low-risk options for investors that have at least had a positive return the last 10 years.

It is beyond me why Janus Overseas gets any positive commentary. It's at the bottom of the heap over the last 3 and 5-year period. While I understand it has chosen to load up on emerging market stocks, my guess is that very few folks who own the fund, and certainly those who bought it years ago and for some strange reason still own it, understand this fact and the huge risks that come with it. It's one thing to have a 10-20% allocation to EM stocks like ICEIX, which has a remarkable record since John Maxwell took over the fund. But Janus, with a very cloudy history anyway, is going a completely different route. Interesting that M*, which is so quick to re-classify some funds (often incorrectly), has kept JAOSX in the Foreign Large Blend category, when it has been heavy EM for quite some time.

Of course, the big disadvantage with REITS is that you are investing in the stock market. Whereas one of the main attractions of real estate is getting an alternative asset class to stocks and bonds.

That is true, although I think they're both risk assets and are going to move South if things go South. Although owning both provides some diversification, the REIT is at least a very liquid asset whereas the real estate is not.
It's almost difficult to consider real estate an investment at this point, or at least maybe that should not be the focus/priority that much anymore. My only thought about real estate is this: I think what works over the next 10 years is convenience. Close to transit and amenities (grocery, etc.) This whole thing of houses in the middle of nowhere where you have to drive to do anything will be less appealing, especially if energy prices stay around these levels or head much higher. Other than that, who knows what house prices will do over the next decade.