I'm sure there are those who do trade on his (and others) recommendations, not understanding many things about the markets or those who pontificate about them on TV. But hey, it's not my money that's being invested in such cases!! :)
Years ago CNBC had a new program about options trading. Their first-ever guest suggested selling puts on Google when it was around 500/share. I was screaming at the TV for the asinine idea, targetted at retail investors who likely didn't have 500 x 100 = $50,000 cash lying around for when (or if) the stock was put to them and they had to buy.....b/c in a 3-minute piece, you can't also teach folks the intracasies of options-101. The clown simply picked the stock, said it was a good buy, and here's how to profit from it. Thankfully he was never to my knowledge invited back on the program. But I wonder how many people tried to do the trade, or got burned if it went against them, b/c they didn't know the risks of the trade, just got caught up in the possible rewards of it should it work out as intended.

The part that always bothered me is he'll go on CNBC or do an interview with Barron's and he'll say stuff that's totally true at the moment he says it. Unfortunately he might change his mind overnight and not only doesn't anyone know that but there's not much effort made by these media organizations to be transparent about it other than the standard legal blah-blah disclosures that not many pay any attention to. I guess most people wouldn't trade based on anything he says but I "pity da fool" who does.

FYI: If there’s an economic indicator that gets released these days, taking the under usually ends up being the prudent bet. Today’s release of homebuilder sentiment for the month of July from the NAHB on Tuesday was the latest example. While economists were expecting the headline reading to come in at a level of 67, the actual reading was 64- the weakest reading since November. After a four-month surge post-election, the last four months have seen homebuilder sentiment decline in three of the last four months. Making matters worse, Tuesday’s reading was the weakest relative to expectations since May 2015.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/homebuilder-optimism-up-in-smoke/

"If you look at the fund's trailing SD, you will see it at 18.11 over 10 years, then it drops drastically to 11.41 at 5 years. You think something changed in their investment strategy during that time?"
Not based on that data alone. Since std dev is a second moment, outliers such as 2008 have a disproportionately large impact on the figures.
The S&P 500 std deviation also dropped by around 3/8, from 15.21 to 9.56. Do you think something changed in Standard and Poors' Index Committee's selection strategy during that time? (The S&P indexes, unlike those from other companies, are selected by individuals rather than by mechanical algorithms.)

I'll preface this by saying that I am not an LPL advisor directly; however, my firm uses LPL as our platform for clients.
For the $25,000+ account, the fee is actually set by the advisor. The range I see among colleagues is between 1-1.5%. As for the services a client receives, that is going to vary greatly from advisor to advisor based on what kind of practice they are running. But couldn't that be said of nearly any firm! (Our team focuses on asset allocation, risk management and comprehensive planning--we aren't stock/fund pickers really. We mostly use low cost indexed investment options) The platform itself is open-architecture; equity/ETF trades are a few bucks, many mutual funds are NTF (wish they all were), etc.
I'm right there with you, Bob, that LPL's new mutual fund only platform is bizarre and a step in the wrong direction for smaller clients who often don't have very good options. I sure hope that changes. But I did want to make it clear that LPL also works well for fee-based advisors who run their practices as fiduciaries to their clients. Hope that helps!

Interesting, and thank you for the information. What do they charge on a $25,000 account, and what services does an account owner get?

The account minimum at LPL for the fee-based account I mentioned is $25,000, and I am constantly lobbying for it to be lowered or eliminated entirely!

Oh yeah, not a good call on my part 5y ago, it turned out. Ain't hindsight wonderful?
It did not occur to me likely that the Jameses in Ohio and McGregor at Oakmark would quite flatten, if not slump, as they did. I guess I would stand by my "automatically prefer" locution, though.
As for the AO_ approach, it also did not occur to me likely that diversification would fail to pay off as it did.
2013 is what did it for the D&C groupthink work, that and whatever the heck they bought / held last Nov 3. So good on them.
Still, as noted above, the 10y performance, if one is a believer in that period as some sort of standard, is problematic given their method constancy. As is that odd Aug 15 - Aug 16 slump.

Again, about keeping DODGX and M* accountable for a clear standard.
The webpage of D&C states (as of June 30), 10 year returns 5.89% - compared with S&P 7.18%. Let's please not search for excuses for underperformance. Without discussing the yearly tax cost of 0.98%.
In relation to the fund performance during the past 5-years, more volatile funds that missed in the downside in 2007-2008, typically have better returns in the more recent period. For this reason I tend not to rely on 5-year returns.
What is different about DODGX (in relation to other outstanding funds!) is that its returns, after the 07-08 underperformance, were not adequate for the fund to catch up with the S&P.

+1
In order to get a full reading of this fund's performance, you have to look back 10 years, not 3 or 5. It's clear to see that they dropped the ball big time and never recovered to keep pace with the S&P 500 over the past 10 years. I held the fund during the disastrous 2007-2009 and dumped it upon a partial recovery. When I bought the fund, it was my understanding that they would hold up better on the downside; they did not. Quite the contrary. *M can talk about its "deep investment team" and "decisive value approach" all it wants. Currently, *M shows the fund's risk as very high. I guarantee it was showing as lower on *M when the credit crisis hit. Clearly, *M misread the fund as well. If you look at the fund's trailing SD, you will see it at 18.11 over 10 years, then it drops drastically to 11.41 at 5 years. You think something changed in their investment strategy during that time? Lessons learned.

"Huh? Gosh, the three ]LCV funds] I moved to long ago from DODGX (before placing everything LCV in DSEEX): PRBLX. YACKX, and TWEIX."
What is long ago? DODGX was in the top quintile for 2009 and top fiftieth (second percentile) in 2011 and 2012. D&C funds often go through multi year funks and multi year spurts. 2008 is an important benchmark, as is 2015 for value funds. (By that latter metric, DSEEX looks good, at least so far.)
If one wants a smooth ride, shorter term, D&C funds are not the way to go. M* seemed to agree, saying that DODGX had enviable long term results. But (assuming that the long term market trend is upward) there is a problem with long term investors placing too much emphasis on the down years.
For example, one investor here five years ago almost to the day (Aug 2012) wrote about another D&C fund (DODBX):
"it certainly seems to have improved, but (recent, tempting) past performance does not etc. I cannot imagine why anyone would automatically prefer it now over Oakbx, Glrbx, and even AOR / AOM, my two 'new' favorite ETFs. "
Here's the five year chart comparing these five funds.
(Data per M* as of 7/17/17) Growth of $10K:
DODBX: $18,358.73
OAKBX: $15,848.45
AOR: $14,959.24
AOM: $13,422.89
GLRBX: $13,366.85
Now I'm not suggesting that one compare any of these funds with the S&P 500 (or S&P 1500); they're a different type of fund and the comparison wouldn't be meaningful. Likewise, I wouldn't go comparing value funds with blend (e.g. SPY) or growth funds, especially over the past decade when growth had a decided advantage. Heck, if I were to do that I'd just dump everything into a growth fund - even the average (median) LCG fund (NMFAX) returned 7.48% over the past decade, beating the S&P 500.
D&C, like many peers (and also unlike many other peers) completely blew 2008, getting caught in a value trap - continuing to hold on the way down. The questions are: how likely is another 2008, has D&C modified its investment process since then, is short term (e.g. 2015) or even prolonged underperformance acceptable in exchange for longer term gains? Different people have different answers.

RPGAX ;has performed well and Fidelity now has it available NTF. However the ER is very high @1.15. When I look at RPBAX which carries an of ER .64, I think I would do better by adding a little more international stock and foreign bond to it. But don't know what I might add to take place of the Blackstone Hedge fund Solutions
I am seeking opinions on best way to mimic RPGAX at a lower cost.

I own QRSVX, FOSCX, and MSCFX in this space. Queens Road is a value fund, while the other two ride the line between growth and blend.
5 year annual returns of: 11.11%, 14.2%, 15.5%
QRSVX is pretty conservative if that is what you are looking for, but it still has an ulcer index of 10 and had a max draw down of 42% in 2009. It is in risk group 4. So, yeah, maybe protection is the wrong word, but the conservative positioning of the fund results in holding some cash (currently around 16%), and avoiding overpaying for stocks. It has had the same manager since 2002! FWIW

Down Market Performance Bar Chart on the QRSVX website

Again, about keeping DODGX and M* accountable for a clear standard.
The webpage of D&C states (as of June 30), 10 year returns 5.89% - compared with S&P 7.18%. Let's please not search for excuses for underperformance. Without discussing the yearly tax cost of 0.98%.
In relation to the fund performance during the past 5-years, more volatile funds that missed in the downside in 2007-2008, typically have better returns in the more recent period. For this reason I tend not to rely on 5-year returns.
What is different about DODGX (in relation to other outstanding funds!) is that its returns, after the 07-08 underperformance, were not adequate for the fund to catch up with the S&P.

This large cap value fund outpaced the S&P 500 Value Index over the last 10 years (5.78% annualized vs. 5.01%) as well as over the past fifteen years (9.56% vs. 8.51%), 5 years (16.72% vs. 14.01%), 3 years (8.83% vs. 7.98%) and 1 year (25.45% vs. 13.37%). All data as of 7/17/17, per M*.
If you don't want a value fund, that's fine. Invest in a blend or growth fund. But if you are looking for a large cap value fund, what do you feel is a better one than DODGX?
If one finds indexing attractive, one might consider VSPVX ( your index company of preference appears to be Standard and Poors)? Or perhaps VRVIX (M* seems to like comparing DODGX against the Russell 1000 Value index). Note that these both have had returns falling short of DODGX. (FWIW, DODGX has better 5 year performance than any 5* LCV fund as rated by M*, so its performance does come at the expense of some extra risk - hence its lower 4* rating).
Lipper rates DODGX a 5 as a large cap value fund for consistent return and for total return. The fund drops to 4 on consistent return, which, like the M* rating, suggests that the fund is not the very best LCV fund around for short term investing.

I am trying to understand how a fund can be considered outstanding when for the last 10 years it could not keep pace with the S&P, for the last 15 years was ahead of the index by only 0.46%, with volatility higher than the benchmark - for most of the period. If this is considered 'enviable long-term results", then indexing is indeed attractive.

+1

I am trying to understand how a fund can be considered outstanding when for the last 10 years it could not keep pace with the S&P, for the last 15 years was ahead of the index by only 0.46%, with volatility higher then the benchmark - for most of the period.
If this is considered 'enviable long-term results", then indexing is indeed attractive.

>> the time to be in PRPFX is when stocks are heading south and the metals are heading north.
If that happens.
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/885926494937128960
some of the responses are good

PRPFX owns both gold and silver. One might be able to get close owning CEF - Central Fund of Canada which contains roughly 65% gold and 35% silver. As mentioned by others previously the time to be in PRPFX is when stocks are heading south and the metals are heading north.

@hank, the etfs I used for comparison were VTI for stocks, TLT for bonds and GLD for gold, so its physical bullion. For cash, portfolio visualizer has it's own version of cash, CASHX, which I don't think is a real fund, but the rate it earns in their model has to be based on a money market fund or a bank account, I'm not sure. In fact, portfolio visualizer has a pre-configured portfolio for Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio and I just compared that to PRPFX starting at the beginning of 2005.
According to Wikipedia, "the Permanent Portfolio mutual fund, however, is more complex than Browne's original concept and has six asset categories. The fund aims to invest in a fixed percentage of uncorrelated, asset categories to minimize risk in changing economic climates. These include 35% in government bonds, 25% in gold and silver bullion, 15% in growth stocks, 10% in cash and Swiss francs and 15% in energy, mining, and real estate stocks."
I certainly wouldn't want to put all my eggs in history's basket, but PRPFX has seen a lot more volatility in getting to what, at this point, is a worse return, at least in the last decade plus. My understanding of Browne's intent was to have a portfolio that would be profitable in any type of economic environment. In my simplistic way of looking at things that suggests less volatility and that's not what the fund has delivered. I have no idea which will do better in the future but considering the expense ratio together with the historical volatility, I'd far prefer a straightforward etf approach if I was going to invest in something like this.

An additional thought related to PRPFX. Harry Browne's simpler approach that this fund is based on, allocating 25% each to stocks, bonds, cash and gold, is easy to copy with far lower cost etfs and the historical performance has been better on both an absolute and risk-adjusted basis. Of course that's all history, but the guys who run this fund haven't shown that they're 'system' is any better than Browne's and whatever active management they've done certainly hasn't added enough value to justify their management fee. With only $2 billion of AUM they're still earning a management fee of $20 million each year. It's no wonder why we have 10,000 distinct funds chasing $30 Trillion of AUM according to Charles' update recently. Who wants to start a mutual fund? I'm totally confident I can do far better than these guys and charge far less.

FYI: Gold-rated Dodge & Cox Stock’s seasoned team, low fees, and decisive value approach have led to enviable long-term results.
Regards,
Ted
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=815776