I'm a long-time investor in FMIJX/FMIYX, from the launch. I have profited very well from my investment to this point, BUT, I was a bit dissapointed in 2017's return, 98th percentile and now this year, albeit only 2.5 weeks into 2018, again 98th percentile.
I am beginning to lose a "little" confidence in FMIJX. Obvioulsy, we are only talking about the past 13 months or so but the direction is trending down.
I still like the overall metrics and investment philosophy, but something is just not clicking.
Outside of the dollar hedge not working, does anybody have any thoughts on what might be holding back this historically excellent fund?
Are you losing any confidence in FMIJX? If not, why not? If so, why so?
Thanks for any thoughts, suggestion and opinions!!
Matt
fyi, also posted on M*

Perhaps the 46% YTD return (in the subject line) for 2018 through the end of July, 2018 is a bit of a stretch; but a +21% return for a lot of equity funds seemed a bit of a stretch in January of 2017, for that year, too.
Re-do: I don't find it difficult to imagine an equity pull back in light of the on-going run since the market melt and from the nearer term of Feb., 2016 period.
I picked a few from Fidelity, but there are representative of similar funds from other active managed fund vendors for the period of Feb. 5, 2016 to date total return numbers:
--- FSPTX = +104% (March 6, 2009 to date) +687%
--- FOCPX = +86% (March 6, 2009 to date) +611%
--- FDGRX = +80% (March 6, 2009 to date) +523%
--- FCNTX = +60% (March 6, 2009 to date) +370%
--- FSPHX = +34% (March 6, 2009 to date) +234%

http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?FOCPX,FSPTX,FCNTX,FDGRX,FSPHX&p=6&O=011000
Anyway. A temporary exit plan was suggested if for ANY reason the equity markets decided to take a big rest while I would not be able to take any actions with our portfolio as deemed appropriate at the time.
A possible temporary EXIT plan, this is all that was indicated. The day will arrive at some point in the future, yes? I'm sure your plan would be different.
Interesting observations have been presented, and hopefully a few have considered their action plan to preserve capital.
Lastly, the equity sells noted would not be a current taxable event, as the monies in question, are in tax sheltered accounts.
Take care,
Catch

If Fink is serious, this is an important shift:
https://nytimes.com/2018/01/15/business/dealbook/blackrock-laurence-fink-letter.html

FYI: Plenty of things could upend the two-year rally in emerging-market equities. Yet no one seems to agree on just what they are.
Sure, the bulls abound. Fiera Capital Corp., the Montreal money manager that oversees $123 billion, expects attractive returns for several more years. Research Affiliates, a sub-adviser to such firms as Pacific Investment Management Co., calls emerging markets the " trade of a decade."
Yet contrarians are sounding the alarm, with Morgan Stanley the latest, saying that emerging equities may see a repeat of the year 2000, which began well and ended with a 32 percent drop. Here are five potential causes for concern:
Regards,
Ted
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/gundlach--goldman-sound-warning-on-emerging-market-stock-rally-36653.html?print

No apologies here. I'm just trying to stay hip/current/with it/in tune with the terminology/tone blessed by 45. Also, what is more joined to the hips of the economy and taxes than politics?

@Ted - how much weight would you assign to that tech fund in one's portfolio? My sense is that most would not hold enough to move the needle so to speak and may also be less exposure than one would get in an S&P 500 index fund or it's equivalent. We all have to build the portfolio we are comfortable with.

As it should have. He was talking about stocks, and there's a big difference between being a customer of a company and knowing a company. It's the latter sense in which he meant one should know what (company) one is investing in.
Still, when it comes to industries, knowing means something different. Working in an industry can give you a good sense of the health of that industry if you are attentive.
I was wondering whether you had any thoughts about how the CAPE index model will be adjusted for the new sector since this is a thread about DSENX. When real estate was carved out of financials, the CAPE index was modified to use a non-SPDR index fund, IYR.
I imagine that was done because it needed an index fund with a ten year history, and by definition, XLRE was a new fund without a history. Though IYR might have been chosen because it was more inclusive, holding mortgage REITS such as NLY that XLRE excludes.
However, that might mean that the CAPE index added a new group of companies (mortgage REITs) that it had not tracked before. A discontinuity. Regardless, another imprecision arose - the old history of the financial sector included real estate, while the sector itself no longer did. Was any attempt made to correct for this (e.g. recalculating the financial index history after pulling out the real estate component)?
This time things are even more interesting. The CAPE index tracks XLK for technology, but XLK combines technology and telecom. That's why there are ten "sectors" that the CAPE index uses, while there are eleven S&P sectors.
It is possible that State Street will decide to keep XLK as it is, in which case the CAPE index won't have to do a thing (other than watch the technology+communications "sector" continue to grow in weight). But what if State Street does finally create a communications Select Sector SPDR? There won't be any history for the new SPDR (just as there was no history for XLRE). Would the CAPE index turn again to a non-Select Sector SPDR? Also, as happened with XLF, the history for XLK will no longer precisely represent the new XLK after communications companies are carved out.
DSENX in turn will need derivatives that track whatever index or indexes the CAPE index chooses to track. Will they exist?
And they say that a machine can run an index fund.

Those are level load (C) shares. You can get the MGGPX share class mcmarsco originally named, without a load and with a much reduced 12b-1 fee (0.25% instead of 1.0%).

Of course that was never exactly Lynch's advice, more 'understand what you invest in' ---
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/06/peterlynch.asp ---
and he did often say things like 'know what you own and know why' etc.

Investopedia is describing stock investing (as one can tell from the URL). Investing in sectors/industries is a little different - one does not dig into the balance sheets of scores of companies.
I'll let Mr. Lynch speak for himself regarding how his oft quoted advice applies to stocks and to sectors/industries:

“I’ve never said, ‘If you go to a mall, see a Starbucks and say it’s good coffee, you should call Fidelity brokerage and buy the stock,’” Lynch says, some 25 years after his retirement ... “People buy a stock and they know nothing about it,” he says. “That’s gambling and it’s not good.”

and

“If you’re in the steel industry and it ever turns around, you’ll see it before I do.”

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/peter-lynch-25-years-later-its-not-just-invest-in-what-you-know-2015-12-28 (originally in WSJ.com)

For those who might think that they absolutely need a tech fund I would suggest that you take a look at the Josh Brown article Ted linked earlier today.

Thanks for the nudge.
I like the observation that there's no such thing as purely passive investing (though IMHO investing in, say, the Wilshire 5000 comes darn close), just degrees of passivity. Having pointed out that the S&P indexes are constructed by committee of course I'd agree with the statement :-)
Regarding the girth of the technology sector, the article says that technology currently constitutes "almost a quarter" of the S&P 500 market cap. "Something had to be done, I suppose, before the IT sector became 27%, 30% and so on."
In March 2000, technology represented over 1/3 (34.5%) of the market cap. Regardless of whether the circumstances were different then, a bald appeal to the size of numbers doesn't make the case.
NYTimes, Aug. 6, 2016, When Every Company Is a Tech Company, Does the Label Matter?
Nor are individual companies near record market weight. In 1932, AT&T alone constituted 13% of the total stock market. It was so large that S&P declined to include it in a predecessor of the S&P 500. NYTimes citing J. Siegel, Stocks for the Long Run.
So on the one hand, technology has become so all-pervasive that one benefits from it in virtually every fund, and on the other hand, "pure" technology companies are nowhere near their market peak, either individually or collectively. Which lets everyone read whatever they want into the current situation.

Hi @Mark
Agree.
I read, last week, the initial article linked within the "Reformed Broker" link. These changes will possibly affect some funds and/or indexes. Regardless of the "new" category names, the tech. has been inside of many funds and indexes of many equity flavor types.
Ted asked me (Jan. 6) about our holdings seeming to be "lite" on the tech. side; and the below is a broad sample of choices I grabbed to indicate the overall inclusion of tech. in so many places.
>>>Reply: Correct at this time, as to no direct "tech" holding; but with the broad based etf's and/or funds one will discover enough tech. of some form; mostly of the large cap. type and of course, the FANG kids show up just about everywhere, except a bond fund. Tis everywhere in some form.
A few samples of various tech. inclusions by percentage of the fund:
--- ITOT = 24%
--- VTI = 25%
--- SPY = 26%
--- FHLC = 25%
--- ACWI = 21%
--- FSPHX = 32%
--- GPROX = 21%
--- FPURX = 28%
I've been in and around tech. all of my adult life; and have always kept an eye to this area. One of my first exposures to the early life of what is nano and micro tech. today was a week of training of "how to remove and replace a defective integrated micro chip".
The class was taught by a NASA engineer from Houston. A micro what? These were mostly the 8 leg variety that had just begun to be used on integrated circuit boards in the newest versions of cryptographic equipment; the repair of which would be my livelihood for the next several years, and indirectly connected to me to a few folks that fully triggered my investment perspectives and forward directions.
ADD: I'm inclined towards large cap. tech., with mergers and acquisitions, but this may play well towards the smaller cap. companies.
Take care.
Catch

For those who might think that they absolutely need a tech fund I would suggest that you take a look at the Josh Brown article Ted linked earlier today.
http://thereformedbroker.com/2018/01/15/breaking-up-tech-indexes-doing-what-the-economy-wont/

FWIW, M* lists 49 technology funds, 4/5 (39) are LCG. It classifies 1 of these as supporting, 8 funds are called specialty, and the remainder are unclassified.
At one of the (technology) startups where I worked, the HR person told me that most people were pouring 401k money into Ultra (TWCUX). It was the closest thing we had in our plan to a technology fund. (I think it was about 45% technology then, it's 1/3 now.)
So maybe those are a few votes for technology as a core fund, or maybe they were simply following Peter Lynch's advice - invest in what you know. Though they were also violating another rule of thumb - don't double down on where your job is.

I can't comment on PRGTX, have never invested or looked into it.
I own DSEEX/DSENX and I pair it with AUEIX/AUENX as my LC core holding. These are long-term investments for me and I do not worry if they under-perform short-term.
I don't view them as safe-havens in a downturn, I do believe the combo will perform better in a downturn and over a full market cycle than the S&P500 itself.
Not sure if this answers your question or helps! I'm sure others will comment.

Thanks @MikeM,
I think I agree with everything you said there Mike. I’d just as soon play the tables in Vegas as own much gold. Hold it indirectly through several funds of course, but as far as dedicated p/m funds go - perhaps 1 or 2%. Don’t know how PRPFX gets away with it - but far less volatility than I’d expect for a fund with 25% in precious metals.
Yes - I did own both HSGFX and HSTRX for a few years in the 2000-2005 period. The latter was actually a pretty good fund and is the one I remember holding around 10% in gold and p/m shares.

Thoughts followed by explanations:

• I'm not fond of using global in lieu of foreign + domestic
• The funds listed are all good but are all of one type; you might want expand your search
• VMVFX is rare, if not unique, for good or for bad

Companies that invest internationally pay foreign taxes. In most cases, including most global funds, they declare your net income after those taxes on your 1099, and so you pay taxes (in a taxable account) on your net earnings. But if over 50% of a fund is foreign and if it chooses to do so, it can declare your gross income (before paying those taxes) on your 1099, and give you a foreign tax credit.
If you just deduct that amount, you're in the same place as if the fund itself had just declared your net income. However, you also have the option (in a taxable account) of getting a dollar for dollar credit - that's worth more. Many if not most global funds don't give you this option. Foreign funds do.
I prefer to invest in foreign funds (to control foreign exposure on the portfolio macro level) and domestic funds with a good slug of foreign companies (to enable fund managers to tweak my foreign exposure). That way I get the benefit (some would say drawback) of delegating tactical foreign/domestic allocation to fund managers, while maintaining control over the larger picture.
All three funds mentioned are off the (M*) chart on the growth side, and nearly off the chart in average company size (giant). Which explains their appeal to Ted. This part of the market has done so well for so long that it's easy to forget there are other companies out there.
Here's an article (with lots of numbers) on the Fidelity site that compares value and growth performance (domestic only) between 1990 and 2015 (26 years). If you don't want to read it, just look at Table 2 - it measures outperformance of growth or value (in basis points) in rolling five year periods. From 2005 on, growth "won" virtually all periods. Yet over the 26 year period, value came out better on average.
https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/trading/value-investing-vs-growth-investing
On the value, and somewhat smaller cap, side, you might look at PGVFX. Exclude 2017 and its five year performance (2011-2016) matches that of MGGPX, with significant stretches of differing performance (sometimes better, sometimes worse). You can see that clearly from this chart. The point is that there's more to investing than giant cap ultra growth.
Some funds tend to drift from domestic to global over time. Some of the Mutual Series funds did that. MDISX renamed itself from Discovery to Global Discovery, MQIFX changed from Qualified (originally designed for tax-qualified accounts) to Quest. Both were originally domestic value funds. I'm not suggesting those.
Another fund, this one worth considering, that is following a similar arch is FLPSX. While M* still classifies it as a domestic fund, it may be the widest ranging fund you'll find. Which may be part of why one looks at global funds. Foreign stocks and domestic stocks each comprise 40%-50% of its portfolio (with more domestic). ARTRX has a very similar ratio, though its domestic allocation is a tad higher, just above 1/2. PRGSX is even more domestic, with 58% of its holdings onshore.
Finally, VMVFX is an oddity because it is a hedged fund. It launched as the dollar was rising smartly, so that hedging contributed significantly to its outperformance. This is not to say that it isn't a fine fund, but that one where the numbers must be scrutinized more closely when comparing with other funds.

If you trend GLD and PRPFX, the 2 move in tandem. So, it could be argued PRPFX is a conservative way of owning gold, I think. I think you would own a fund like PRPFX for the same reason you would own a conservative balanced fund like maybe GLRBX, although over time I think a plain vanilla fund like GLRBX would have been a smoother and more lucrative ride. But in any case, it all comes down to being comfortable in how it fits your portfolio view.
What does that mean, PRPFX was "over-weight" gold? The weight within the portfolio doesn't change.

Mostly valid points @MikeM ...
With a combined 25% benchmark weighting to gold and silver, PRPFX will respond more to price changes in those metals than most funds having little or no exposure. Metals tend to be wildly erratic “assets”, which explains your preference at one time for this fund over owning GLD or a dedicated p/m fund. A bit like adding some water to your single malt to dampen the effect. I placed assets in quotes because there was a good thread here about 5 years ago debating whether gold should even be considered a “financial asset”.
Sounds like you had a reasonably good experience with PRPFX and moved out when momentum reversed. As with any open-ended fund, heavy selling by shareholders over short periods can ding returns, hurting those who stay behind - but there’s no way that I know of to prevent them, and I've occasionally engaged in the same practice to lock in a quick gain.
Adding a volatile investment to an otherwise conservative fund will affect returns during both the up and down cycles. Hussman, for example, once held significant mining shares in HSTRX. On the surface it appeared a mild mannered income fund. But in 2007 it outpaced the competition with a near 13% gain; than lost 8.37% in 2013. Suspect you’ll find those numbers track the performance / underperformance of GLD. (If memory is correct, p/m shares represented near 10% of the fund at times,)
I’ll go out on a limb and say I like gold / miners at the moment. In part that’s because most everything else appears so expensive. That said, timing the metals is a fool’s errand and I have 0% confidence in my outlook. Consequently, I currently maintain only a “token” foothold in a dedicated p/m fund.
Re “Overweight” (First mentioned in this thread by @PBKCM):
Unless a fund rebalances every day, rapidly rising prices for a particular asset might move that asset to a temporary overweight position relative to benchmark - until the manager rebalances. Don’t know how frequently PRPFX rebalances, but doubt it’s every day. So I’d expect that the fund went temporarily overweight gold for a stretch simply because it was appreciating much more rapidly than the fund’s other assets.

I have VMVFX for a nearly 50-50 split world stock fund and like it -- owned it since inception due to its fees, composition, and allocation --- not b/c it's called a 'minimum volatility' fund.
For world stock exposure you could also look @ sector funds/companies that include large (30-50%) allocations to global stocks, such as some of the TRP funds.

In a slightly related area, BFOR, the "GARP" ETF that follows the Barron's 400 index, failed to keep up with the S&P 500 in 2017. I haven't owned it for more than two years. However, I have found the M* wide-moat ETFs, the domestic MOAT (+23.16%) and the international MOTI (+30.16%) to be thoroughly rewarding funds to own.

Hello.
This is Old_Skeet's market barometer report for the weekending January 12, 2018.
Last week, I reported that the 500 Index was overbought with a reading of 134. This week the barometer dropped six more points to a reading of 128 which falls into the extremely overbought area on the scale. With this, it seems investors have been buying in advance of an anticipated strong 4th quarter earnings reporting season. Generally, a lower barometer reading indicates there is less investment value in the Index over a higher reading. Last year the lowest recorded barometer reading took place during the Trump Bump with a reading of 131 for the weekending of 2/24/2017.
For the week short interest for SPY was up from 2.7 days to cover to 2.8 days.
Within the major sectors of the 500 Index the lead pack consisted (as the week ended) of XLE, XLF & XLY. XLK faltered and has now dropped back form lead pack status and was replace by XLF. Within the lead pack my money hound remains XLY (and has been for some time). Back in late fall I put money on the Christmas shopper and with the new tax overhaul package that has recently become law the consumer seems to still be spending.
Within the global compass the lead pack consisted (as the week ended) of GSP, EWJ & VTI. EEM has now begun to falter and was replaced by a new hound VTI. My money hound remains GSP (commodities) and has been for some time. It has had a good run but I'm thinking this might follow a seasonal pattern soon to be ending. I'll stay with it as long as it is a good producer and might declare it a keeper and move it to the speciality sleeve from the spiff sleeve.
I am currently only putting spiff investment money on one hound at a time within each compass as I limit myself to only three open spiffs at any one time within my portfolio. However, another strategy that I have used in the past is to put investment money on each hound found in the lead pack. Since, the lead hound investment strategy is meant to complement other portfolio positions in the form of special investments (aka spiffs) I am at this time investing only in the lead hound strategy. I let my investment remain on the money hound(s) as long as they can maintain lead pack status. Should a money hound began to falter and fall from the lead pack then the investment is closed and a new investment position is opened on another lead hound felt to have good legs. Thus, it becomes my new money hound.
The process, for me, continues until I get tired of watching the hounds run or the investment momentum is lost and I close out the spiffs.
Another strategy listed above by @MikeM known as the Leadership Strategy was used by Old_Skeet for a number of years. I moved away from it because it mostly centers around a a style oriented strategy plus a few other holdings. I favor the sectors of the 500 Index and the holdings of the global compass over it because my strategy takes me back to my days (many years ago) where I'd do some weekend betting at the dog track.
My dog track strategy (years back) was that I'd bet three dogs in most races to win, place or show. This gave me a good number of chances to have a dog, or dogs, place in the money. Generally, I only bet the first eight races as I found the later races harder to pick the money dogs.
Reminder, both the stock and bond markets are closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Day.
Thanks for stopping by and reading.
Have a good holiday weekend ... and, most of all I wish each of you ... "Good Investing."
Old_Skeet