What pops out immediately from JABAX's portfolio is that its equity sleeve is large cap growth, and has been at least leaning that way for the past five years or longer. See here. We've been in a long period, virtually the whole tenure of MPinto, where growth has outperformed value.
This raises the questions (1) whether its good performance has been due in part simply to this bias, and (2) whether this is where the manager is comfortable investing or whether he would shift to value (and under what conditions)?
It's hard to answer #2. To address #1, I ran a quick analysis using Portfolio Visualizer.
I ran back tests from May 2005 to the present, comparing JABAX with VWELX and with 60/40 mixes of VOOG & VBTLX (to check JABAX value add vs. index funds) and VOOV & VBTLX (for VWELX value add vs. index funds). Rebalanced quarterly.
From best to worst annualized returns:
VOOG/VBTLX: 10.43% (growth mix)
VWELX: 9.74%
JABAX: 9.32%
VOOV/VBTLX: 8.36% (value mix)

You will have slightly different results is you punch in VWENX instead of VWELX, if the admiral shares go back that far. Has a lower fee/higher yield.

Thanks @msf
I use StockCharts to provide data that I may find useful, or to settle a dispute from whomever (not at this forum) about such and such a fund, vs another.
I find the visual of charting to satisfy how I absorb information, in additional to actual numbers.
For the VTSMX you mentioned for the 200 day period beginning Dec. 7 to date, I saw the return for the period to be shown as 13.86%. Using only simple math and starting with $10K brought me to a total value for the period of $11,386.
As the old saying goes, "close enough for government work."
Take care,
Catch

Does this look a little similar to Grandeur Peak Global Advisors?
From Wasatch website:
https://www.wasatchglobal.com/wasatch-advisors-rebrands-as-wasatch-global-investors/
News / September 24, 2019
Wasatch Advisors Rebrands as Wasatch Global Investors
New branding better reflects the firm’s global investment management business
Salt Lake City, Utah, September 24, 2019—Independent investment manager Wasatch Advisors has rebranded as Wasatch Global Investors, the firm announced today. There are no changes in ownership, employees, philosophy or process.
“The name Wasatch Global Investors better reflects our global business and clearly expresses our 100% focus on investment management,” said Eric Bergeson, President. “Our roots are in U.S. small-cap investing, but our process has proven successful in identifying high-quality businesses of all sizes around the world. Today, almost half of our $18.5 billion in assets under management is invested in dedicated ex-U.S. and global strategies.”
Wasatch CEO and portfolio manager JB Taylor said, “Our new name highlights our heritage as long-term investors. Our advantage starts with our culture, and a long-term perspective is part of that. Our best ideas come from seeing future potential, not short-term opportunities for trading or speculation.”
Wasatch offers 16 strategies that span market caps and geographies. Across all of them, what most defines Wasatch’s approach is a collaborative culture that embraces unique and diverging viewpoints. Taylor said, “To get to our best ideas, we debate—sometimes fiercely—with a motto of disagreeing without being disagreeable. Our employees are diverse, curious, creative and, most importantly, a team.”
In conjunction with its name change, Wasatch Global Investors today unveiled new visual branding and launched a new website, wasatchglobal.com, serving both institutional and individual investors.
Wasatch’s team members bring a truly global perspective to investment management, having lived in 42 countries and speaking 23 languages. Last year, the team visited 23 countries performing intensive due diligence to find the highest-quality, long-duration growth companies in the world.
About Wasatch Global Investors
Wasatch Global Investors is a 100% employee-owned investment manager founded in 1975 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Named after the nearby Wasatch Mountain Range, the firm brings unparalleled experience to U.S. and international micro-, small- and mid-cap investing with a culture that emphasizes collaboration, excellence and intellectual curiosity. Wasatch had $18.5 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2019. Wasatch Global Investors is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Learn more at wasatchglobal.com.

Boundary confusion here.
When StockCharts shows a heading of Dec 7, 2018 - Sept 24, 2019, it means the performance on those days, inclusive. So if there were no dividends, one would just take the closing price on Sept. 24 and divide it by the closing price on Dec 6 (and multiply by $10K) to get the final value of a $10K investment.
StockChart graph for VTSMX.
Since the fund had divs, you can use the adjusted prices from Yahoo to verify that this is in fact what StockCharts is showing (correctly). FWIW, I cross checked Yahoo's daily prices with Vanguard's data, incorporated the divs from Vanguard, and came up with $11,370. Clearly some rounding errors by someone, but close enough to validate the StockCharts price.
M*'s handling of the boundary dates is a bit problematic. The chart linked to here will illustrate. It graphs VTSMX from Dec 7, 2018 to Dec 10, 2018. (Weekend days were Dec 8 and Dec 9.)
Notice that there are three prices in the graph, i.e. two changes. Since this spans a weekend, that must mean that it is including the performances of Dec 7 (Friday), and Dec 10 (Mon). But it shows the starting value on Dec 7 as $10K, and a drop (to $9770.83) on Dec 8th, a Saturday. After one day with no price change (for the weekend) it shows a price change on the 10th. But a weekend must have two days with no price changes.
Regardless, it would appear that M*, like StockCharts, plots performance inclusive of the start date. It is just struggling with how to represent the change on the first date. (In fairness, StockCharts doesn't do any better; here's its chart going from Sept 23 to Sept 24, and it shows only one price change.) Or perhaps not ...
Rather than waste time reverse engineering how these tools handle their start points over different time spans, I'll just suggest you look at this M* graph of VTSMX from Dec 8 to Sept 24. Dec 8 was a Saturday, so in theory this should make no difference (but it does). This graph shows a final value of $11,371, within a dollar of my calculation and a couple of bucks or so of StockCharts.

FYI: Juul Labs Inc has become one the biggest bets in the portfolio of Fidelity’s $28 billion Blue Chip Growth Fund, whose exposure to the troubled e-cigarette maker has climbed to $761 million amid a regulatory backlash and departure of its top executive.
Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund’s manager Sonu Kalra had 2.7% of the giant fund’s assets invested in Juul as of July 31, the latest fund disclosures show, up from 1.7% of assets a year earlier.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.reuters.com/article/juul-investors/fidelity-funds-big-bet-on-juul-looms-large-amid-controversy-idUSL2N26G14N
M* Snapshot FBGRX:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/fbgrx/quote

something funky going on, but I bet it is clearly explicable somewhere by someone
VTSMX $10k appreciation since last Dec 07, not so long ago:
M*: $11,110
SC: $11,368

I found this information connected to M*. No date stamp was with this information; so I can only presume this is their correct method as of today.
Growth of 10,000
The Growth of $10,000 graph shows a fund's performance based on how $10,000 invested in the fund would have grown over time with dividends reinvested. The returns used in the graph are not load-adjusted. The growth of $10,000 begins at the fund's inception, or the first year listed on the graph, whichever is appropriate. Located alongside the fund's graph line is a line that represents the growth of $10,000 in either the S&P 500 Index (for stock funds and hybrid funds) or the LB Aggregate Index (for bond funds). Both lines are plotted on a logarithmic scale, so that identical percentage changes in the value of an investment have the same vertical distance on the graph. This provides a more accurate representation of performance than would a simple arithmetic graph. The graphs are scaled so that the full length of the vertical axis represents a tenfold increase in investment value. For securities with returns that have exhibited greater than a tenfold increase over the period shown in the graph, the vertical axis has been compressed accordingly.

'$10k growth' should, no?

@davidrmoran I don't dismiss what one may discover at M*, just that I use the chart info provided to obtain a "total return" for whatever given period.
Yes, it is not easy to get an exact start date, but I was able to review the chart with a starting date of 4-21-2005; which is close enough over such a long time frame.
I find JABAX and VWELX even at +211%.
The other four for this time period range from +171 to +160%.
ALSO, that as one moves the left side slider to the right to shorten the time frame, more interesting changes may be seen.
Obviously, being active managed funds; their paths vary based upon management choices during the period(s).
FPACX running with high cash positions recently will show in their returns vs the others. Although I don't know what "cash" means in this case.
I can not offer more to this discussion, IMHO.
Take care,
Catch

Thanks. Takes a steadier mousing hand than I have to get to a particular day easily.
But the results are quite different! (Unless I am making a mistake.)
Stockchart shows performance since 4/25/2005 to date for JABAX of +208% (rounded up) and VWELX of +210% (rounded down). Hmm. Whereas M* shows nothing of the sort: $10k grows over the same period to 32,842 Janus vs 31,297 for Vanguard, a difference of $1500.
wtf??
Again, unless I have done something wrong.
Charles and msf may have thoughts on this discrepancy.
To use the M* legacy graphing for ready (meaning easier than with the new site, to my mind) specifying of dates and periods and more:
https://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/fund/chart.action?t=jabax

@davidrmoran The site wouldn't let me set the below chart for the time frame you mentioned. But, you may slide the left end of the 5210 day slider to the right to obtain your time frame for a better overview of total returns in percentage terms.
Chart of above funds

JABAX outperforms VWELX, OAKBX, FPURX, FPACX, and DODBX if you go back to the day Pinto walked in the Janus door, 14y and 5mos ago. It's a mysterious miracle of added value.
This is per M*; see below.

The very first paragraph I wrote in this thread was:
"I generally suggest caution when evaluating a fund with recent poor performance. That recent performance distorts the longer term figures."
The same applies to funds with recent good performance. One gets a different perspective by disregarding a recent, disproportionately bad (or good) period and looking at longer periods that came before. Now three years (2017-19) is not just a very recent 6 month or one year span that can be lightly disregarded. But there was a significant management change in 2016 that justifies looking at the pre- and post-Smith periods separately.
Your mother and daughter are in fact doing half of that. They're looking at the post-Smith period exclusively (3 years) or the mostly post-Smith period (5 years). You're doing that also, with your 5/4/3/2/1/ytd figures that virtually ignore the Smith period.
Again repeating myself, all of this may suggest that Pinto is a great manager (better alone than with Smith). But it also cuts against your statement that the key to the fund's performance is the way he manages the stock sleeve. If the stock sleeve were the key, one would expect similar relative performance across consecutive multi-year periods, those with and without Smith.
Cherry picking says that the selection of time periods is made by seeking especially good (or bad) periods. That's not what I did. I selected time periods based on management. Which makes sense to do on general principle, let alone to test the hypothesis that "growth a la Pinto" was the key.

I am lost now in your sub-period cherrypicking, but for 5y/4y/3y/2y/1y/ytd and 3mos JABAX has either matched (else very very close) or outperformed both the value-oriented (and excellent) VWELX and the growth-oriented FPURX. I wonder why. Your 'analysis' looks subpar to me.
(VWELX has done gangbusters over the last month, that's true.)
If you are interested in delving further, you might wish to MFOP-compare the two of them, both GO/HR and w/ similar UIs, over 15/12/10 ...-year periods and subperiods. Except for Vanguard having way deeper drawdowns long in the past, it is really remarkable how a fund 6x the size of Janus and moreover with a value tilt has done very close to as well, and sometimes better. It's as though the long-discussed value penalty does not exist for VWELX. It would be interesting to understand that too.

You asked for an analysis, I provided one. That's all. As I wrote before, the fact that JABAX leans consistently toward growth suggests that the pond it fishes in plays a significant role in its performance. Aside from Puritan (more on that below) the fact that you selected for comparison funds that lean toward value calls attention to its growth style.
"Growth, but growth a la Pinto, look to be the key." Are you sure that it's growth a la Pinto that's the key? Prior to the last three years, the fund was still good, but somewhat less so. Smith left three years ago. Coincidence? Pinto took over the responsibility for asset allocation and others took over the bond sleeve.
Before 2017 the fund had some fine years, but not in the top decile. Since Smith left, it's been nothing but. While that data suggests that someone is adding value now, it also suggests that Pinto's stock sleeve management skills are not the key. They haven't changed, have they?
Take the five year period ending when Smith left (3/31/11 - 3/31/16). Your mom and daughter's $10K would have grown to $14,177 with JABAX, and to $14,692 with FPURX.
See M* chart.
Or the three year period 3/31/13 - 3/31/16. There JABAX ended with $12,112 vs. FPURX's $12,722. (One can edit the start date in the M* chart to get these figures.)

None of the above criteria for me. For equity funds I look at its holdings, percentages, and sector allocations to determine how it might hold up during a drawdown. If it's top 10 holdings are all megacorps and in the top 20 of the S*P, you can figure it'll do about the same as the index. I like equity funds that don't act like closet index funds, are fairly focused, and march to their own drummers instead of following the herd. :)

Maybe.
Let us say mom or daughter, not just you or I, graphs M* $10k growth of VWELX, JABAX, and FPURX for 3 and 5 years.
(She did so because she read an article advising always to do that, not shorter terms.)
What does she see? Well, someone sure is adding value somewhere. Clearly. 3y starts in the fall of 2016. Hmm. Notable outperformance by JABAX from then.
She adds FPACX, OAKBX, and DODBX, because of another article she read. Well, forget them.
She goes ahead and, just for kicks, checks 1y and ytd. A hair of underperformance by JABAX wrt to Vanguard. Bond advantage lost? Not seeing it.
Same for 3mos.
You may have it in for Pinto because it was I who posted about JABAX, or something like that. But superior things have always taken place for as long as he has been involved w/ JABAX, to my view. Am I missing something?
Growth, but growth a la Pinto, look to be the key. If growth alone, the question remains for me, Why is FPURX not better?
So I score all this as showing at least some added value for this guy. Maybe Snowball can do an interview with him about outperformance longevity.

Just buy bunch income index etf or CEF not much fees but reasonable returns cut out middleman
@_OLDJOE or move to central Cali houses much cheaper 1/4 price (like palmspring) .. Weather maybe questionable though
@_Poptart Or retire in Central America coastal beaches.. Paradise pay very little toward standards living... Need good access to Healthcare just in case you get a hear attack

My apologies. While my inputs to PV were as described, that tool apparently refused to analyze more than a decade. Rather than indicate an input error, it generated returns over roughly ten years: Oct 2010 - Aug 2019. At least that's how it labeled the output.
The general point remains - MPinto may not have added value. The good performance can be explained by the Janus growth style.
(Based on the two sets of figures, what PV output for a decade and what you report from M* over roughly 15 years, we can say that Wellington has done better over the past decade; Janus Balanced was better in the five years preceding that.)
BTW, $10K in Wellington grew by $21,269, not to $21,269. See M* graph here.
Regarding Puritan, like Wellington it outperformed JABAX over the past decade. Which suggests not so much that it should have done better given its growth leanings, but rather that JABAX was the anomaly, as it outperformed by a wide margin in 2007-2008. Which in turn suggests taking a closer look at the other 40% of the portfolio, i.e. the bonds. (For example, treasuries did well around 2008, other types of bonds more poorly.)
If (and I haven't looked into this) bonds are indeed the reason for the outperformance of JABAX between 2005 and 2010, then that advantage was lost in 2016 when Smith left. That's something you might want to take a closer look at.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelfoster/2019/09/24/wall-street-is-wrong-you-can-retire-on-405k-heres-how/#42eae835539c
Wall Street Is Wrong: You CAN Retire On $405K. Here's How
Today I want to show you how you can retire on $405,000—and with just five buys, too! Put together, these five stocks and funds hand you a 7.4%-yielding portfolio that will pay you reliably for decades.
405k maybe too little though... Probably need 1mill to live comfortably... But if you live in other majorities like NY prob need much more than 1mill in portfolio