"Donald Trump's election in November further contributed to those trends. The election and his attraction to a stronger dollar have helped spur higher rates ...". This quote has it backwards.
It's the other way around. Higher rates since the election caused the Dollar to soar against other curriencies. (The author suggests the opposite). And I'm not sure there was any intent on the part of Trump either. Investors, fearing higher inflation if he funds massive infrastructure with debt have reacted predictably by demanding a higher rate of return on money lent. That's why rates have risen since his election. Currency traders, seeing the now higher rates available on U.S. debt have consequently bid the dollar higher against other currencies. Remember, however, the dollar was already sitting at multi-year highs before the election. Even at 1.37% on the 10-year the dollar looked attractive against many other currencies where negative rates had been imposed by central banks desperate to spur growth and inflation. (The Federal Reserve also contributed to higher rates, but the trend was well in place before they acted.)
As suggested by others, a strong dollar cuts both ways. It makes imported goods cheaper for Americans to buy but harms U.S. exporters by making their products more expensive (and less competitive) abroad. Perhaps missing from the article/discussion is that a strong currency can have deflationary consequences. That's one reason nations around the world have been attempting to weaken their currencies. As for REITS, don't feel too sorry for them. I purchased a small hold in OREAX in early September, 2015. In fewer than 16 months it's up 17.5% - not too shoddy.

So, Mairs & Power might well be the very LAST to pay-out profit to shareholders:
MPGFX $5.04/share
MAPOX $1.58
MSCFX $0.46 cents

erudite

It fascinates me that people obsess about round numbers on indices.

It is fascinating isn't it? Not just stock indexes. Toss in 50th anniversaries, turning 70 or 100, or becoming a millionaire - to name a few. The goverrnment, however, seems not to have such fixation. Witness the 70.5 years of age RMD requirement or tax brackets like 28 and 33%.
Is Dow 20,000 meaningful? Hardly. But if it's like Dow 10,000 the gang at CNBC will celebrate. Unlike your 50th anniversary, they'll probably get to celebrate Dow 20,000 more than once.
There could be a psychological aspect to all this that will motivate those investors who are less erudite than we to throw caution to the wind and start pouring money into an already hot market, driving indexes even higher for some period of time. Or, I suppose, the opposite may also accur - with the daunting figure stoking fear in the hearts of many and causing stocks to sell off.

FYI: Everyone has their blind spots — even the greats !
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/buffett-bogle-merriman-losers-every-one-2016-12-15/print

@VintageFreak
Incidentally, I posted the fund's closing earlier this month:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/30594/champlain-focused-large-cap-value-fund-to-liquidate#latest

@catch22: that was very clear. I appreciate the link! I do not dislike PRSNX. I had good reasons for selecting it. TRP shows me EXACTLY my personal rate of return in that fund, and it's disappointing, that's all. I've X-Rayed the thing and can see what PRSNX is holding, and durations, maturities. So, "don't just do something, stand there!" I hold domestic bonds in my balanced funds. I'll be unloading and re-deploying the proceeds from DLFNX. I assess that I can comfortably give up that very small DLFNX position, anyhow, and it will bring me to 35.4% of portfolio still in bonds of all sorts. Thanks, again.

FYI: His election and his attraction to a stronger dollar have helped spur higher rates and resulted in higher bond yields, both bad news for REITs
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20161227/BLOG09/161229957?template=printart

I really don't pay much attention to fund families in general, unless they do something really stupid or illegal (yeah, Janus comes to mind here, along with a select few other groups). There are some fund groups that continue to surprise me they are even still operating, and Putnam is the classic case, along with Pioneer. Oppenheimer as a whole is a disappointment, although ODVYX has been an exception. Also surprised that Invesco and Harbor are still going. The disappointing fund families for my own experience are no longer in existence, having been bought out and eventually disappearing: Fremont, Nicholas-Applegate,
If it were not for the commission brokers, American Funds would never have grown so large. It's recent ability to continually add share classes has been a brilliant marketing move.
Interesting note to prior comments on TGBAX: just when many had written off Mr. Hastenstab, his management once again has brought the fund to the top of its group. Hot money flowed in, hot money fled. In 2010, the fund had about $18 billion in assets, which grew to $37 billion in 2014, and is now at $21 billion. The fund now is again top decile for 1, 5, 10, and 15 yrs. The manager's ideas often take time to pay off, but like all great managers, Hastenstab might have 2-3 years of under-performance then it's back to the races. We'll see.

From a hard bottom in early Feb. 2016, a large portion of the better managed HY bond funds are running about +16% returns. This movement may exist and continue the trend into the unknown future for "x" months or ??? One is or would be buying HY at a pretty high price at this time, IMHO. If pricing starts to decline for any number of reasons, one will find the yield even better than now; but at the expense of the loss of capital (losing money on the pricing, eh?). This situation would likely find a loss in value overall. We've held as much as 60% of our portfolio in HY/HI; but not at this time, nor would I buy at this time. Just my personal 2 cents opinion.
As to VWINX (40 bond/60 equity): you may entry any fund you choose to compare at this site page and find how returns compare going out to 10 and 15 years for this conservative fund. Yes, bonds may affect this fund going forward more so than in past years. Institutions and folks will buy bonds going forward. Pension funds and others have limited choices for some holdings to maintain policy pay out into the future. Bonds may have been wounded recently, but they are not dead. And as you understand, there are many types of bonds; and all have their day(s) in the sun.
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/performance-return.action?t=VWINX&region=usa&culture=en_US

Sorry --- forget DSE_X, since that introduces bonds; I shoulda just asked about CAPE.
FT's lexicon defines quant as 'using computer-based models to inform their decisions on whether to buy or sell securities.'
>> ... the more discretion there is held by humans, the less quantitative the fund is [@msf].
Why I asked. Since there is no discretion for CAPE, seems to me it's as quant as can be. Hence in answer to your 'overrated' query, since for the last 4y it matches or outperforms (depending on timeframe) about all other SP500 constructions, it seemed to me that maybe it was the opposite of overrated. - ?
@MikeM ---
>> what 4 of the 10 sectors of the S&P the fund is invested in at any given time?
No. This is as recent as I have uncovered:
http://www.etnplus.com/US/7/en/details.app?instrumentId=174066

There are other views that are better elucidated.
I just finished reading James Cloonan ( head of AAII) book on "Level 3 investment" where he makes the case that there has only been one ( 1929) situation where the SP500 has not recovered from a bear market in five years. So it must follow that that the only investment calculation required is to put four years of retirement expenses ( or college expenses or emergency money etc ) into safe assets and the rest into small cap (micro would be preferable he insists ) stocks and don't worry. He has interesting data to prove that as long as you didn't sell at the bottom in 2008-2009 you made out fine, even if you retired that year,
The question is will the next correction be equal to 1929, or will the general market take a decade to recover like the Nasdaq did?
I wonder how the market can keep climbing with job growth anemic, hourly average wages flat, declining stock earnings and the huge public debt.
If he is right we should be close to 80% invested... but what if he is wrong and the SEC has a good reason for requiring a statement "that past performance does not guarantee future results"?

I would say DSENX is a mix of a quant system on the equity side and human managed on the fixed income part, which by M*'s numbers is around 40%. Which confuses the heck out of me why it is in the equity large value category with a bench mark of S&P 500. Maybe I'm thinking incorrectly, but I see this fund as an allocation value style fund.
Whatever it is, it's method is working well right now. It is 10% of my self managed portfolio.
Question for @davidrmoran, do you know how to find out what 4 of the 10 sectors of the S&P the fund is invested in at any given time?

FYI: There's no denying the importance and popularity of 401(k)s for retirement savers. Americans have $4.8 trillion invested in these tax-deferred savings accounts, according to the Investment Company Institute, and there are 52 million active 401(k) participants. BrightScope, a financial-information company that rates retirement-savings plans, compiled this list for Kiplinger of the most popular mutual funds in 401(k) plans based on funds' 401(k) assets under management.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T047-C009-S003-105-most-popular-funds-for-your-retirement-savings.html

Hi @Ted and others,
Good information as I feel a good sector allocation is very important for good returns.
Something I feel has helped me and something that I strive to do is to maintain at least a 5% exposure in the minority sectors of materials, real estate, telecom and utilities and a minimum exposure of 9% in the majority sectors of consumer cyclicals, financial services, energy, industrials, technology, consumber defensive and health care. When the mimimun holdings amounts are added up this totals 83% and leaves 17% that can be moved around to increase the weightings in my sectors of choice.
Currently, my four most heavly overweighted sectors from their minimum base allocations are energy, financials, industrials and technology. Thus far this year as reflected in Dr. Carson's chart all four have been strong performers.
And, so it goes ...
Old_Skeet

Was Bridgeway overrated? It may be the best of the bunch (quants), so perhaps the question might be rephrased as "are quant funds overrated?"

I think they are, generally speaking. IMHO the "less quant" a quant fund can be, the better it probably will do. IE, Vanguard's VMVFX is what I call quant-lite in terms of its construction, mixed w/a touch of active management/currency hedging....I own it, and like its construction, allocation, and investment process. Bridgeway's equal-wt BRLIX is all quant in its construction, but it's a simple system that is described and easily replicated if you didn't want to pay the .15 ER to the company. (I think BRLIX is one of their better-performing funds over time but haven't compared them recently.) If I need to park money into something that's a (thankfully) non-index LC fund, that's my go-to place.
Compare that to, say Arnott's PAUIX which has (last check) like 20 different slices represented by PIMCO funds -- with a ton of overlap if memory serves -- and percentages that are, imho, totally useless in terms of generating meaningful investment performance or diversity (ie, ABCDE position is 2%, etc.). Heck, some of these robo-advisors do that too ... frankly I think anything less than 10% isn't really much of a 'diversifier' anyway.

"The change has been so seismic that investors poured a net $20.7 billion into U.S. stock funds last month. That's the biggest month for stock funds since 2014 and a stark turnaround from the nearly $76 billion that left those same funds in the 10 earlier months, according to Morningstar."
That's great news for some of us. Although valuations have been stretched for some time (to say the least) there hasn't been the kind of euphoria among the Mom & Pop crowd that would lead me to move to a highly defensive position. My sense is markets don't die so much from high valuation as from investor euphoria. (Were the cause simply valuation ... we wouldn't witness drops in the magnate of 25-50% as sometimes occur.) Might a nice bubble now be in the formative stage? How many months or years will it persist before the inevitable pop?
At some future point (months or years out) fixed income will again look attractive and the smarter money will move out of their equity positions in favor of fixed. One fly in the ointment, alluded to by the writer, is we don't really know if Trump's stimulative agenda will get through Congress. Conceivably, he could hit a roadblock that would drastically alter current market perceptions.

FYI: For years, many refused to buy into the hype even as the stock market climbed to record after record. Wounds from the 2008 financial crisis were still too raw, and investors couldn't stomach the risk of watching their nest eggs drop by more than half for a second time. Instead, they favored bonds, which have pumped out relatively steady and healthy returns for decades.
Enter Donald Trump.
Since his surprise victory in last month's presidential election, stock prices have soared even higher, and bond prices have sunk on expectations that faster economic growth and inflation may be on the way. The change has been so seismic that investors poured a net $20.7 billion into U.S. stock funds last month. That's the biggest month for stock funds since 2014 and a stark turnaround from the nearly $76 billion that left those same funds in the 10 earlier months, according to Morningstar.
Regards,
Ted
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/eccce9265a14436696911e70363398df/greed-trumping-fear-investors-give-stocks-another-chance

Thanks so much for sharing Ted.. can I ask if you have equal weightings in each?

@MFO Members; The Linkster believes that dividends are the mother's milk of investing. For what its worth here is a current list of my dividend portfolio, and current yields.
Regards,
Ted
Bonds:
Navistar 8.25% 11/21 Callable 2017
Preferred Stocks:
ALLY-A: 8.125%
ARI-A: 8.33%
CIM-A: 8.96%
DDT: 7.50%
MLP's:
BX: 6.13%
KKR: 3.98%
Common Stocks:
CSAL: 9.04%: (Tax free spin-off of WIN)
CTL: 8.98%
FTR: 12.28%
NLY: 11.65%
NI: 2.96%
PFE: 3.94%
T: 4.59%
VZ: 4.30%
WIN: 7.62%

@ bee: I paid $5.40 which gave me a yield of 8.1% at the time of purchase. A 11/22/16 Morgan Stanley research report believes that after acquiring VZ subscribers in the Florida the stock should stabilize and has has a price target of $4.20.
Regards,
Ted

@Ted,
I am a subscriber of FTR. This was as a result of a service vacuum left when AT&T (U-verse) folded in CT.
I have taken an interest in following this stock when you first mentioned you bought it earlier this year. I have also watched this stock tumble over the last year. At what point, do you as an investor, worry about the dividend being impacted by the company share price? One would have to go back to the 1980's to find a comparative share price to today's $3.42. Also, the dividend trend since 2005 has decreased from .25/share to .10/share.
How do you, as an investor, deal with what I would call the "sour cream stage" of a stock like FTR? What I mean here is, how does an investor endure a 30% drop in share price (I believe you bought this first at about $5/share)? Seems more like a drying up of the mammary gland (mother's milk) to me.
Has the stock become an even more incredible buy than it was when you first bought it?
I will say collecting a dividend does help an investor be patient, but does an extended drop in share price curdle that milk?
Your thoughts?