I did buy today, just adding a bit more to existing position in NXPI and exchanged about half of MMUIX into existing position in FRUAX. MMUIX does outshine in good times, but with its 15% holdings in energy, is not the ballast I intended it to be.

If you are making a case for The Great Depression (1929 to 1939) Part Deux, I disagree. I see this as "just another bear market" - one that will (typically) last between 18 to 24 months, one that began in May/June 2015 in which we are now about 9 months into. We are in agreement that the markets will grind lower but we differ with regard to duration. I see another 9 to 15 months whereas you seem to be saying that we have many years remaining.

5. Market prices in equities and fixed income built on record levels of debt, leverage, share buybacks and derivatives held by the top 5 us investment banks

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/916006/000119312516453235/d125121d497.htm
497 1 d125121d497.htm BRIDGEWAY FUNDS INC.
Bridgeway Funds, Inc.
Large-Cap Growth Fund (BRLGX)
Supplement dated February 8, 2016 to the Prospectus
and Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”) dated October 31, 2015
At a special meeting of the shareholders of the Large-Cap Growth Fund (the “Bridgeway Fund”), a series of Bridgeway Funds, Inc. (the “Company”), held on January 15, 2016, the shareholders approved an Agreement and Plan of Reorganization and Termination (the “Plan”) between the Company, on behalf of the Bridgeway Fund, and American Beacon Funds (the “Trust”), on behalf of the American Beacon Bridgeway Large Cap Growth Fund (the “New Fund”), a newly created series of the Trust. The Plan provides for the Bridgeway Fund to transfer all of its assets to the New Fund in exchange for Institutional Class shares of the New Fund, which would be distributed pro rata by the Bridgeway Fund to the holders of its shares in complete liquidation of the Bridgeway Fund, and the assumption by the New Fund of all the liabilities of the Bridgeway Fund (the “Bridgeway Fund Reorganization”). The Bridgeway Fund Reorganization closed on February 5, 2016. Accordingly, all references to the Large-Cap Growth Fund are hereby deleted from the Company’s Prospectus and SAI.
Please retain this supplement for future reference.

I feel like there would have to be a big credit problem in the US to knock our market down 50%+ ala 2008.
China and commodities seems to be strong headwinds, and we're probably overdue for a bear market of some sort, but I still think there would need to be a domestic credit market problem to cause us to go that extreme.
In 08 it was the subprime market. It doesn't sound like that's an issue currently. It could be junk/energy, but it sounds like many of the companies are still profitable enough with oil in the $30's to not cause a blow up.

Small cap value is a misunderstood stock universe and many investors shy away from it in favor of popular large cap universe or / 60 / 40 balanced fund affairs.
Swedroe's work is important as it presents returns data via evidence based vs. anecdotal analysis.
I promote the small cap value universe to "young" demographic investors as they have time on their side for compounding of assets https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pQuBfbPd18ca0G-KiZc5FIWNMx0pNa87INgsLjEwuzY/edit?usp=sharing.
A tactical asset allocation process applied to SCV has produced further risk managed alpha premium. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1C37CJypoxHWHB09e3g25ewOGjP83wDZhj5j6tlrLJoA/edit?usp=sharing

FYI: Morningstar research analysts were fairly active in January. Indeed, while we upgraded only one fund last month, we downgraded seven funds plus one target-date series. We also covered three funds for the first time and re-initiated coverage on two funds. The table below lists all of the affected funds. And we highlight the most notable changes here.
Regards,
Ted
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=739554

FYI: How helpful are mutual-fund rankings from research firms such as Morningstar Inc. and S&P Capital IQ? New evidence suggests that for many investors, the answer may be “not very.”
Regards,
Ted
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-fund-ratings-could-be-misleading-1454900921

For those wondering why the dvd distribution of LSBRX has become so paltry of late--- despite the fund holding 35% of assets in HY bonds--- I suspect this is what's at play, and is having a significant impact:

HOW DO FOREIGN CURRENCY LOSSES IMPACT FUND DISTRIBUTIONS?
During periods in which the US dollar strengthens significantly against foreign currencies, some funds that hold non-US dollar denominated bonds may realize currency losses that impact their ordinary income distributions. When a non-US dollar denominated bond is sold at a gain or loss, the sale is made up of two components: a capital gain/loss and a currency gain/loss. A recognized currency loss, in accordance with federal tax rules, decreases the amount of ordinary income the fund has available to distribute (regardless of how long the bond was held). To compensate for realized currency losses, the fund’s ordinary income must be adjusted to ensure that the fund does not distribute too much income early in its fiscal year. If currency losses are not factored into ongoing distributions, the fund risks distributing more income to
shareholders than it earned during the year. This would result in a return of capital to shareholders, effectively reducing the amount of principal that shareholders have in their accounts. Global or international funds, given their larger allocation to foreign bonds, may be especially impacted by a strengthening US dollar and therefore could experience greater fluctuations in ordinary income distributions. Currency gain/loss amounts are monitored on a regular basis for each fund.

I don't really know, but what else could it be?

@davidrmoran, the answer to your last question is in that same post I pointed to earlier which gives example of how and when they might differ. A low volatility fund can score very high or very low depending on its returns through time relative to index. Think about it. And yes, you would see the difference if you thought about it for a while. I don't really think you are giving enough time to think about this before jumping into questions/conclusions. Ok if that is your style but please do not expect me to keep explaining and correcting. It is tiresome.
It is a valid question to ask as to how one would use this. So I will answer that as it would be useful to many to consider
The way I would use it in the future would be as one more input into fund selection. Typically, fund selection uses a number of factors, performance, tax efficiency, manager reputation, etc. So you land up with a number of potential candidates or a short list for most asset classes.
Out of these I would look at RARE grades if available or I can calculate them to see if any of them scored low. If they did, then I would suspect that perhaps the manager was streaky in his performance or only did better in specific market conditions. If the fund seems like a good one otherwise, I would take a look again at the performance charts to see if he had some small periods where he did well but not so much otherwise. This is different from just looking at 5yr or 10yr results as people who have read should have understood by now. If that was the case, I would skip it even if it was highly rated because none of these ratings consider this fact about the fund. Or if I really wanted that fund for other reasons or didn't have a choice say in a 401k, then I would wait for a time when the manager was underperforming the index than overperforming to get in with a big lumpsum. This is different from whether the market was down. If my plan was a regular DCA, I would not get into such a fund with low RARE grading because, it is likely that a lot of my purchases would likely do better elsewhere missing the streaky performance.
This is more about minimizing opportunity costs in getting into a better fund not in minimizing losses as people who have understood the metric would clearly see.
If the rating was good - B or better - then it would reassure me further about the fund that I had shortlisted that I wouldn't get shortchanged because I happened to jump in at the wrong time. So I wouldn't heistate to get into such a fund if other factors about the fund checked out.
If the only potential candidates for that asset class from other considerations and availability were in the C region or below in RARE grades, I would just buy an index fund or ETF instead for that allocation.
Every year or so when I take a look at my funds, I would reassess the funds in the same way as if I were selecting them and see if the original assumptions still hold. I am not in the camp of hanging on to a fund for decades to give the manager a chance. It is too late then if the manager has failed. If a fund has not met my realistic expectations of the fund for selection in 3-5 years, then the fund is out. My expectation if I have done the selection carefully is that I really would not need to make any changes but I am not one to believe I should not change and just hang on.
But that is just me adopting this additional information to make a more informed choice. Some people throw darts or chase returns or pick the latest fad fund and pray their selection was good. My effort here is to share that additional information with people who think more like the former than the latter.

@old_skeet, isn't that true of any ranking? I don't know of any ranking or rating that will guarantee a certain performance (or lack of) especially in a single snapshot of some time period. Perhaps the problem is in what you expect from a ranking whether it is US News rankings or Morningstar rating, or Lipper ranking or Zacks or whatever. There is bound to be false positives or false negatives otherwise we wouldn't need 8000 funds. Each ranking explains the metrics used to rate them and they are correct in those dimensions.
Comparing such rankings to RARE grades is even worse. I have taken a lot of pains to explain that this ranking is an evaluation of how the fund stacks up in one dimension, not a ranking of best fund or even an indicator of what a fund might return in some period of time. Yet people seem to be thinking that.
Lipper ranks funds in 5 dimensions. Would you say a fund is a Lipper 5 in tax efficiency but it is #256 in some other rankings and so the latter ranking is suspect? That is the same as comparing to this grading.
@davidrmoran, you said "I do realize that RARE is necessarily about investor patience,". This is absolutely not the case. It is, in some sense, a ranking of how investors with the same patience level will fare with a fund depending on which period of the fund they were patient in. Along with an observation that they will see very different returns even if they waited for the same period whether it is 3 yrs 5 yrs or if one were to calculate it for 8 or 10 years. Some funds do better at rewarding all similarly patient investors but investing at different times (as would naturally happen) better than others. This is what the grading here is about. This difference really needs to be understood.

The negative numbers get even worse, if you look year-to-date. Some popular growth funds at Price demonstrate how this bear (?) market is beginning to inflict some real pain: PRGFX -14.54; RPMGX -11.87; TRBCX -14.52; PRNHX -14.20.

This article advises shareholders to ride out the market, rather than to sell right now, at multi-year lows, following the (extremely warranted) extremely negative reaction by the Market on Friday, following the announcement of the COP dividend-cut. http://seekingalpha.com/article/3872676-conocophillips-throwing-towel?auth_param=19fcee:1bbejig:55110026f49e59c92b6af4f24a18e428&uprof=82&dr=1

9/25 of LCC and LCV had lead manager changes in the last 8y. Top tier to bottom tier.
Did not check LCG after I saw Danoff got an X:
'Toxic : Very poor returns relative to index for most investment periods except for an insignificant percentage of intervals so unless investors caught that interval would have suffered significantly relative to the index'
I'm not the only buy-hold investor who likes to know who's running a fund and if there is a change. Investopedia points out that manager "performance data that goes back only a few years is hardly a valid measure of talent. To be statistically sound, evidence of a manager's track record needs to span, at a minimum, 10 years or more." An extension of what I was querying in this RARE methodology. I cannot find exactly how M* accounts for tenure, only that they do.
Investopedia do go on however to note a study that individual-manager added value accounts for less than a third of performance, which I hadn't read before, and if true speaks more to your take re persistence / consistency, institutional approach / method. (Maybe this is a claim you are not making explicitly; don't mean to misattribute based on my inferences.)
Is it reasonable also to conclude that reduced volatility is being measured here, so if you are not buy-hold you are advised to look for lower volatility?

I had been looking at this ESG fund, for last two years. (this will be less than 5% of my retirement portfolio). PGRNX has 37% renewable energy, 40% water, 11% waste management.
http://paxworld.com/system/storage/19/d7/e/1748/fact_sheet_globalenvironmentalmarketsfund.pdf
This is tracked as a world stock. Expenses are a bit high, But I have more than 15 years for my retirement and was thinking to add one of ESG funds. I used to believe this was a hype but I do believe in climate change and have experienced personally scarce water issues in other parts of the world.
Thoughts? Opinions?
Thanks
Mulder

"If it works don't fix it" I guess I fit that description. At age 82 I own funds and stocks I expect to hold till dooms day. I expect everything I own to be profitable over the coming years. I don't like this market but don't make changes easily so I expect to hold what I now have. Call it stupid or stubborn. I've been through this before and made enough mistakes in past 45 years and will make more as I age. As they say, "till death do us part"

Junkster said: "... Stock indexes on the other hand trading huge multiples above their 70s levels."
Yes - And most of us here are probably overweight equities today for that very reason.
But here's what makes some of us age 70+ and retired shudder when contemplating where to invest. It's an excerpt from a purportedly independent study of PRPFX - the fund many love to hate.
(Excerpt): ... Turn the clock back a bit and revisit a time when the sky was falling and “Mr. Market” seemed to have it in for all of us regardless of where you tried to put your money. That was in 2008. ... (Let's) refresh you on the performance of certain asset classes/indexes that year:
S&P 500 -37.00%
Mid Cap -41.46%
Small Cap -33.79%
MSCI EAFE (International) -43.06%
Emerging Markets -53.18%
(Continued) ... If you had any Bond exposure in your portfolio that’s probably all that you had to celebrate as they at least turned in a positive +5.24%. Most people realistically didn’t have enough Bond exposure but flocked to them in 2009. They were rewarded with another positive year with +5.93%. The problem with that, however, is that the areas they just cut bait on (stocks) returned the following:
S&P 500 +26.46%
Mid Cap +40.48%
Small Cap +27.17%
MSCI EAFE (International) +32.45%
Emerging Markets +79.02%
Source: http://www.myportfolioguide.com/blog/168-independent-review-of-the-permanent-portfolio-fund-prpfx-.html
Article doesn't give stats for junk bonds, but my recollection is they lived up to their name in 2008. By contrast, PRPFX lost a bit over 8% that year.
-
How many small investors had the stomach to sit out 2008 passively watching their life savings depreciate by 40% or more? More unlikely still, how many who yanked their $$ out in panic after suffering big losses realized on March 9, 2009 that the bear had ended and it was now time to reinvest?
So Junkster ... That large outperformance of equities since the 70s is only as good as an individual's ability to hold on to those investments through thick and thin. I realize you are a experienced and adapt trader within your specialty. However, the research, work, education and temperament required to execute your approach doesn't fit many of us.
All of the above is why I keep a foothold in PRPFX. Won't make you nearly as much $$ as equities will long term. But it's a fund that allows some of us to sleep a little better. (And yes - you can replicate the fund's mostly static investments on your own for a lower ER if you want to.) At near 10% of my holdings I like it and recently converted to a Roth.
Loved Rono's reference to the teddy bear. I never had one as a kid, but occasionally took a bottle of Johnny Walker Red to bed in my younger years. Probably served a similar purpose. :)

I think it all depends on one's investing plan, circle of competence and, if you're a trader, the current investing environment for the issue at hand.
Speaking as one of the bigger fools in the room I don't believe rono would anymore trade his entire portfolio in and out of junk/muni bond OEF's than Junkster would a portfolio of PM's. Circle of competence: rono knows PM's; Junkster knows bonds. I have no doubt that both can successfully trade their chosen vehicles like nobody business. However, I don't see either pounding the table for their way of doing business but rather expressing opinions on what they know and understand. As in all matters, weigh the options for yourself mindful of the risks and rewards in view of your overall endpoint.
PRPFX (which I've never owned) has it's ups and downs like any investment. It's glory environment is during market calamities, recessions/depressions and so on. It pretty much lags during times of market advances as we've seen the last 5 years but kills it when we're falling into the eternal abyss. Again, treat it accordingly if you choose to invest. All things in moderation for most of us.

Thanks Mark, a most excellent 5 star post!

I think it all depends on one's investing plan, circle of competence and, if you're a trader, the current investing environment for the issue at hand.
Speaking as one of the bigger fools in the room I don't believe rono would anymore trade his entire portfolio in and out of junk/muni bond OEF's than Junkster would a portfolio of PM's. Circle of competence: rono knows PM's; Junkster knows bonds. I have no doubt that both can successfully trade their chosen vehicles like nobody's business. However, I don't see either pounding the table for their way of doing business but rather expressing opinions on what they know and understand. As in all matters, weigh the options for yourself mindful of the risks and rewards in view of your overall endpoint.
PRPFX (which I've never owned) has it's ups and downs like any investment. It's glory environment is during market calamities, recessions/depressions and so on. It pretty much lags during times of market advances as we've seen the last 5 years but kills it when we're falling into the eternal abyss. Again, treat it accordingly if you choose to invest. All things in moderation for most of us.