I owned OAKBX for about 10 years in my IRA, and it generally performed better than average. I sold it several years ago because it was changing in ways that didn’t suit my purposes. It started holding higher percentages in stacks, its volatility increased, and its bond sleeve seemed to underperform. It no longer had the excellent downside performance that attracted me in the first place. I replaced it by increasing stakes in funds I already owned — FBALX, PRBLX, TWEIX— that had good downside performances. I also added money to good performing bond funds to achieve a comparable stock/bond allocation.

HFCSX Hennessy Focused Fund had a distribution of $22 on a reinvestment price of $61
Price before distribution was $83, so that's a distribution of over 25%.
I had a very small holding, so hadn't checked ahead of time --- but I'll be liquidating in 30 days.
They don't deserve to have my funds.
Who else has had enormous distributions?

Thanks for all of the positive feedback. I really appreciate it.
Rick, as a disclaimer, I am employed in the precious metals industry, but not on the marketing or sales side.
Gold has a place in portfolios if your believe that 1) the dollar will devalue, 2) inflation will rise, or 3) uncertainty is going to rise. For these reasons, gold has a low correlation to stocks. Gold has risen from $1,500 a year ago to $2,061 in August and then fallen to $1,858.
I usually own precious metals company stock and don't buy gold ETFs. I did buy gold earlier this year and sold when it crossed the $2,000 threshold as I believed it was a psychological ceiling. Gold related investments helped reduce the volatility in my portfolio. It is an emotional asset as some wise investors don't invest saying they don't know how to value it, and gold bugs saying it is the world's most reliable currency.
You may be familiar with the "All Weather" Permanent Portfolio created by Harry Brown in 1980's. It was made of four equal weighted assets of gold, cash, stocks, and long term treasuries. It's performance has worked well in some environments and not others.
I believe that the conditions exist for gold to be a small part of most investor's portfolios in the coming decades. In the short run, I don't know which direction it will take, and am monitoring it in case there is an opportunity to re-enter.
Be Safe and Enjoy the Holidays.

@wxman123 What your point is, your real point then, is that sacrificing human life in exchange for personal wealth is an acceptable outcome if you are more concerned about the "social impact" than the death rate as you say. Why not just come out and say that keeping businesses open is more important than death rates to you, that some people are expendable? Because to say having one of the lowest state death rates as Newsom does with California is "pretty dreadful overall" because you don't like that some businesses are closed means as much. The difference between a 50 person per 100,000 people death rate and a 100 person per 100,000 death rate is not meaningless to the 50 people who didn't die as a result or to the families of the 50 extra people who did die. Nor is having half the infection rate of another more laissez-faire state meaningless to those who didn't get infected or those who did.
So OK, if I misinterpreted what you were saying, the ethical implications are far worse from my perspective. So yes you did need to spell that out to me. Thank you for doing that. To just say well a lot of people are getting sick anyway so who cares what the infection or death rate is seems pretty cynical. The question is who should be sacrificed for the greater economic good, who are the expendable ones? You? Me? Maybe just the old and poor. It's worth it so bars can stay open.

@wxman123

Both of you are mincing words to avoid my point and to support your brethren. ..We can debate how bad California has done on Covid in light of its policies

No one is mincing your words except you. You said with regard to Covid death-rate outcomes that Newsom's record for California was "pretty dreadful overall." That is fundamentally a false statement, according to the CDC's analysis of state outcomes. What I despise is a tendency often found on Fox and with your own statements to claim something well-established like anthropogenic climate change is "debatable" when it isn't unless you go outside the realm of science into the rightwing fantasy-land of conspiracies. Now you are backpedaling and claiming you were really discussing the "social impact" of the policies. Your original words were:

but conveniently ignore that Gavin Newsome (another big science guy, right) has presided over the state with the worst covid record amongst healthcare workers (and pretty dreadful overall). Did he kill his state's healthcare workers too?

That is clearly not a reference to "social impacts."

No, Lew, you did mince words and now you are creating entirely new ones. I never said as you falsely summarize: "with regard to Covid death-rate outcomes that Newsom's record for California was "pretty dreadful overall.'" I never mentioned "rates" or "death rate outcomes." What I said exactly was California was "the state with the worst covid record amongst healthcare workers (and pretty dreadful overall)." You chose to define "worst" and "dreadful" as you did, good for you. My statement was not made false by you sua sponte adding a comparative analysis with states with totally different covid policies. It doesn't take a genius to understand that if you shut down everything covid rates will be lower than if you didn't. My POINT (which was very clear to an unbiased reader) was that even with "smart" policies (according to those who choose to post on such matters here anyway) there are plenty of cases of covid and so it's absurd to blame the deaths of two healthcare workers on covid policy. Of course Florida is on one of the spectrum and California the other with respect to covid restrictions. I didn't need to spell that out for a careful reader like you, did I? But why beat around the bush with rhetoric, let's get to it smart man. Was DeSantis "directly" responsible for the death of Mark's friends, and, if so, is Newsom responsible for the deaths in his state (regardless of "rates")? And while you're at it, please tell me if you think Cuomo "followed the science" in sending covid infected persons into nursing homes? That's what this discussion centered on, but you have discussed everything but that.

@BenWP : Thank you for your thoughts.
My thought process says, everything works until it doesn't !
You mention value funds above. I happen to purchase small, medium, & LCV in equal amounts two or three weeks back. SCV seems to be working , better than 5% appreciation since purchase. I also own some TDF's , but not to the extent you do. I may add to 2015 or TDR fund to raise bond allocation. I hope Mr. Market doesn't have another (Dot Com ) per say blow out coming as many virtual company have popped up. Making money & burning through it are two different things !
As I've said before , different strokes for different folks.
Stay Safe, Derf

I agree. Fuss does great interviews, always seems very smart but I have never made much money in any of his bond funds since the mid 1990s, and their volatility is the poster child for "stomach churning"

“The difficulty in finding value in bonds helps explain poor absolute performance of balanced funds, but it doesn't help explain relatively poor performance. All of OAKBX's peers face this same problem.”
Yes and No. Not all bonds are equal. I’m aware of no other balanced fund that relied(ies) so heavily on upper tier and longer dated bonds as OAKBX during its hey-day.. It doesn’t take a big commitment to AAA bonds with 15 or 20 year durations to pack a lot of hedging power - if you get it right. I’d argue that that’s a riskier proposition than hedging with short-term junk bonds - just by way of example. During the time I was with OAKBX management sounded distrustful of the junk and lower rated bond sector. They did begin to exit the AAA stuff - but in so doing weakened or discarded the method of hedging against equity losses they knew best.
DODBX, from what I can tell, utilizes the same components as their relatively tame DODIX (income fund) for its “bond” portion. That’s a much more docile approach to bonds. Yeah - I’m disappointed in my DODBX holding. But, unlike Oakmark I think, D & C has stuck to its stated and time-proven philosophy. Unfortunately, they were early (by years) in predicting the uptick in long-term rates which now appears to have begun. Their big stake in financials has now started to pay off (and the fund’s recent performance shows some improvement.) So, I’m comfortable continuing to hold DODBX.
Final thought - As a group balanced funds are a very unbalanced lot. :)

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/so-much-of-retirement-planning-is-wishful-thinking-what-ive-learned-after-3-years-of-actually-being-retired-11607448083?siteid=yhoof2
Stay Safe, Derf

Laziness is not a virtue. :) - I’ve now taken the effort to Google the referenced column (November 2020 Mutual Fund Observer). I think in fairness to Ed I should post his exact words:
“ When I left Harris Associates in January of 2012, the Oakmark Equity and Income Fund had, on 12/31/2011, $18.9B in assets. Performance over the long-term had been above the relevant benchmarks. As of 10/31/2020, per Morningstar, the fund’s assets are at $7.2B, and performance has been lagging benchmarks for the last 1, 3, and 5 years.
What is the problem? Has my former colleague Clyde McGregor lost his touch? No, certainly not that I can see. The equity portion of the portfolio is a classic Harris Associates’ value portfolio, and it looks very interesting to me looking forward over a three to five-year time horizon.
There are two areas of issue. Please recognize that I am speaking about balanced funds, which is the class of investment I am most familiar with, having managed the same for more than twenty-five years at a national bank trust department as well as at Harris Associates. The first competitive issue is fees. When Fidelity’s Balanced Fund shows a 53-basis point expense ratio and Vanguard’s Wellington Fund shows a 25-basis point expense ratio (and the Vanguard Admiral share class drops that fee to 17 basis points). A 25 to 35 basis point fee disadvantage is a lot of baggage to overcome consistently in terms of its detrimental impact upon performance. If the fee disparity is larger, making up the differential becomes nigh on impossible. I will leave it to others to address the issue of the fee disadvantages relative to exchange traded funds.
The other area of disadvantage currently is fixed income as an asset class for a balanced portfolio. With rates where they are and where they are likely to be for the foreseeable future, it is almost impossible to add any value in the fixed income area without taking on extreme amounts of risk. Money market rates, when not negative, are running from zero to perhaps eight basis points. Maturities beyond two years are not compensating you for the risk you are taking on (if you are lucky, you can find 1% on a credit union’s three-year insured certificate of deposit).
I will leave aside the issue of value being out of favor as opposed to growth. Those of us who are value investors are prepared to wait through those periods of underperformance. That said, the goalposts for various asset classes have shifted. Small cap was equities with a market capitalization of $500M to $1B. Now, the range is extended up to $2.5B. And one must consider the extent to which other asset classes impinge on your allocation decisions. An article on the “Seeking Alpha” website was making an argument not too long ago that the better way to achieve portfolio diversification going forward was to pair an S&P 500 Index Fund with one of the publicly-traded C-Corporation private equity firms. It is an interesting question to think about.”
The End of Many Eras

Thanks for the pointer to the column. You can find a list of Ed Studzinski's pieces here, including his November post:
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2020/11/the-end-of-many-eras/
Your memory is perfect, right month, and 3/3 on his reasons. (More on that below.) I appreciate your additional thoughts about the quality of bonds used (Ed also commented on this in his column, saying that one can't add value without adding excessive risk). Interesting observation about using the energy sector.
Value vs. growth does seem to be a major factor. I looked at all 50%-70% allocation funds at M*. Of the 40 distinct funds with value portfolios, the number in the top half over the past five or three years can be counted on two hands. Of the 38 with star ratings, just 5 manage even four stars, with more having two stars than three. The four star fund people will recognize is BRUFX.
Cost would seem to be a smaller factor, though it could be why DODBX retains three stars. The difficulty in finding value in bonds helps explain poor absolute performance of balanced funds, but it doesn't help explain relatively poor performance. All of OAKBX's peers face this same problem.
Apparently value vs. growth has more of an impact on funds in this category than I suspected.

One of the most helpful articles I've seen in any forum. Thank you for all of your work as I know this will provide many ideas for those of us in or near retirement. I am on the Fidelity network and VWINX is my prime core fund by a long shot with PRWCX and QQQ also part of my core allocations to a much lesser degree. I am looking for ideas for "building downside protection" down the road and will look further into 10 of the funds/etf's listed.

I'm sounding like a broken record here, but 2020 was an unusual year. Take a look at its performance since inception through 2019 instead. Over the 7¾ years, it achieved an annualized return of 5.156% vs its peers' 3.936%. Still impressive, but far from the 7% advantage you're seeing to date.
Inception to Dec 31, 2019 chart. IMHO this chart really puts this fund into perspective.
Irrespective of the fact that most of the figures you gave are long term (multi-year) results, what they're really showing you is short term performance. That's because the past year has so distorted the longer term averages. So the next question is why did it do so well on a relative basis this year?
Look at its portfolio (again in the context of the 2020 market). It's nearly off the scale on the growth side. (YTD, VIGAX has returned 36.89% vs. 16.13% for VFINX.) Was this a matter of skill, that the management took the fund to the right part of the market at the right time, or was it luck? The fund has always been growth leaning (check its portfolio history). Its peers are a much tamer group (look at the "Value and Growth Measures" section of the M* portfolio page for the fund.)
I tend to look just as much at year by year performance as cumulative performance. Especially this year, one good year can skew the numbers. Likewise, while growth has tended to do better than value or blend for a long time, it hasn't had a year like this since the dot-com bubble burst.
https://www.longtermtrends.net/growth-stocks-vs-value-stocks/
Difference in annual returns of growth and value (from Vanguard)

Side note: what happened to Oakmark?

I can only speak to OAKBX which I owned for a decade or longer before bailing late in 2018. As to “EdStud” (referenced above), Ed Studzinski did address the dire situation at his old fund (OAKBX) in a recent MFO Commentary. For some reason I’m unable to bring up any except the December issue, but I think it was in the November issue - or possibly October. Ed was magnanimous in addressing the fund’s stumble since leaving as pertains current manager Clyde McGregor. Something along the lines of Miller’s “Nobody dast blame this man”.
Memory is a funny thing ... :) - But I believe Ed attributed the problems more to (1) value being long out of favor, (2) bond rates being too low and (3) competition from extremely low-fee index funds which compete against moderate-fee OAKBX. (Hopefully I got 2 out of 3 correct.)
My own perceptions:
- OAKBX (more than other balanced funds) hedged their equity risk with AAA rated (government bonds). Some had rather long duration. I never understood how they pulled it off, but for many years it worked for them. So when “the band stopped playing” (so to speak) and rates in AAA debt plunged to near 0, that hedging strategy ceased to work.
- OAKBX also hedged successfully in the energy sector, particularly with small drillers. So the depressed prices and upheaval in how oil is extracted had to hurt their strategy.
- Around the time I exited (late 2018) I noticed that OAKBX had begun mirroring (resembling) the performance of the major indexes on big “up” and “down” days. For a defensive fund, that’s not a welcome characteristic. That’s what drove me to get out. I tried unsuccessfully to prove my case that it had become a closet indexer and posted those thoughts here, but without success. The fund’s largest holdings did not correspond with those of the S&P. I remain convinced, however, that they had begun taking on more risk with OAKBX back than in an effort to compensate for the fund’s poor performance.
- Like all value funds OAKBX has suffered from value being out of favor.
- Likely, a lot of money has hit the exits (I believe Ed referenced the drawdown) and money flowing out generally hamstrings a manager. Conversely, money flowing in during strong markets generally helps a fund - though only in the near term.
Just some rambling thoughts. But, Ed’s comments were appreciated by me and definitely worth reading if you missed them.

@wxman123

Both of you are mincing words to avoid my point and to support your brethren. ..We can debate how bad California has done on Covid in light of its policies

No one is mincing your words except you. You said with regard to Covid death-rate outcomes that Newsom's record for California was "pretty dreadful overall." That is fundamentally a false statement, according to the CDC's analysis of state outcomes. What I despise is a tendency often found on Fox and with your own statements to claim something well-established like anthropogenic climate change is "debatable" when it isn't unless you go outside the realm of science into the rightwing fantasy-land of conspiracies. Now you are backpedaling and claiming you were really discussing the "social impact" of the policies. Your original words were:

but conveniently ignore that Gavin Newsome (another big science guy, right) has presided over the state with the worst covid record amongst healthcare workers (and pretty dreadful overall). Did he kill his state's healthcare workers too?

That is clearly not a reference to "social impacts."

RLSFX I received annual report, RiverPark, this morning & was shocked on the performance of this fund ! Since inception it has kicked it's competition to the curb !
As per M*
12Comparison of Change in the Value of a $10,000 Investment in the RiverPark Long/Short Opportunity Fund,Retail Class Shares, versus the S&P 500 TR Index and the Morningstar Long/Short Equity CategoryAVERAGE ANNUAL TOTAL RETURNS FOR THE PERIOD ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, 2020One Year ReturnAnnualized 3 Year ReturnAnnualized 5 Year ReturnAnnualized 10 Year ReturnAnnualized Inception to Date*Institutional Class Shares47.71%19.33%15.81%11.21%10.38%Retail Class Shares47.47%19.12%15.58%11.04%10.22%S&P 500 TR Index15.15%12.28%14.15%13.74%13.40%Morningstar Long/Short Equity Category1.78%1.90%3.25%3.37%3.20%
The important #'s RSLFX 10.38 VS category ave. 3.20 since incepetion.
Stay Safe, Derf

Both of you are mincing words to avoid my point and to support your brethren. The fact is that Mark DIRECTLY blamed Florida's "moronic" governor for the death of his friends in Florida who were healthcare workers. He wrote: "I have lost friends in FL because of the moronic way the governor and money grubbing crowd in that state have chosen to deal with Covid." We can debate how bad California has done on Covid in light of its policies (even "morons" know that if you lock everything down you will reduce covid) but the FACT is that many healthcare workers in California still died even with "smart" policy. It's simply not a fair debate if you ignore the social impact of lockdowns. That's where reasonable people can disagree and it is a fair point of debate. Mark also said on the heels of MSF's post softening Cuomo's blame for the nursing home fiasco that Cuomo, unlike DeSantis "did as the scientific and medical advisors suggested." This is also untrue. Cuomo himself did not defend his decision based on science. He essentially though falsely said he followed Trump's CDC guidance (according to PolitiFact https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jun/13/andrew-cuomo/new-yorks-nursing-home-policy-was-not-line-cdc/) Just as clearly, Cuomo did not follow the "science." The day after Cuomo issued his directive the AMDA responded that it was "over-reaching, not consistent with science, unenforceable, and beyond all, not in the least consistent with patient safety principles." https://paltc.org/sites/default/files/Statement on the March 25 NYSDOH Advisory.pdf

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/vanguard-makes-rare-retreat-price-135614153.html
Derf

Thanks Lewis, you got to this before me. Though perhaps I can add a little context and data.
Here's a news report from KCRA Sacramento. This or something like it could be the source of this misinformation on rates. The headline is correct, but the body of the report (regarding rates) isn't.
Study: California leads in health care worker COVID-19 infections

A report release in September by National Nurses United, the country's largest nurses union, found that California is leading in COVID-19 infection rates amongst health care workers nationwide. The Golden State reported 35,525 infection cases, followed by Georgia at 17,317, then Florida at 16,380. California ranks third in overall health care worker deaths, behind New York and New Jersey.

Anyone reading that and having at least a passing familiarity with US states would realize that California couldn't have the highest infection rate. The Peach State's population is 1/4 that of California, making its infection rate roughly twice as high.
From the study's press release, echoing what you wrote about quality of the data:

Only 15 states are providing infection numbers for all health care workers on a daily, semiweekly, or weekly basis. In May, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began requiring nursing homes to provide Covid-related health care worker infection and mortality data, which is publicly available from CMS. For the hospital industry, however, data collection on health care worker infections and deaths has been woefully inadequate.

The full report notes that just 16 states provide infection figures for all health care workers regardless of frequency. Table 6 there is labeled "Covid-19 Health Care Worker Infection Rates". In actuality, it gives the number of health care worker infections as a percentage of total infections. California has the 2nd lowest rate of the 16 states.
That comes with a qualification that could easily apply to the entire report: "Some variation among the states may be due to more aggressive testing of health care workers in some areas."

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4393471-building-downside-protection-for-retirees
This month I create a profile of the Flexible Portfolio ETF - Strategy Shares Nasdaq 7HANDL Index (HNDL).
Mutual funds with no-load and low minimum required investment from Schwab and Fidelity are matched with risk and risk adjusted return data from Mutual Fund Observer screens.
Over 400 hundred funds are ranked using Risk-Adjusted Returns, Risk, Quality, Momentum, Income, Consistency and Sentiment for over 100 Lipper Categories.
Top Funds per Investment Bucket are listed with two year metrics from Mutual Fund Observer along with graphs.