FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search) "A Top Dividend Fund's Newest Favorites"
This column has warned on several occasions about the perils of chasing yield. The strategy became increasingly popular this year with bond yields so low, their recent uptick notwithstanding.
In the past decade, however, the SunAmerica Focused Dividend Strategy Portfolio (ticker: FDSAX) has had success investing in undervalued stocks with above-average yields. Its annual return over that stretch, around 10%, bested the Standard & Poor’s 500 index by more than three percentage points, placing the fund at the top of Morningstar’s large-cap value category. The $13.4 billion fund recently reconstituted its holdings, which it does once a year, and the changes offer some ideas for income-seeking investors.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=a+top+dividend+funds+newest+favorites+barron's
M* Snapshot FDSAX:
http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/FDSAX/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot FDSAX:
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Fund/FDSAX
FDSAX Is Ranked 376 In The (LCV) Fund Category By U.S. News & Wprld Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/large-value/sunamerica-focused-dividend-strategy-por/fdsax

Dow gained what? 100 points or so Friday? My holdings were flat. Anything related to bonds fell. My bond funds are pretty tame - things like RPSIX (actually Multi-Sector Income) and DODIX (which Lipper calls Short/Intermediate Corporate). Not discouraged - still best year since '09 by far.
I have a premonition that the FOMC (Federal Open Mouth Committee) may be getting a bit concerned about the super-hot market. While they're likely to raise rates only a quarter point next week (as most watchers expect), there may be language in their statement about future intentions and their view of the economy that could jar the markets. Additionally, they've been in self-imposed black-out mode for several days now before the meeting. After the meeting the members will again be free to sound-off publicly. Could get interesting.
Hmm ... If you liked 10 year bonds yielding 1.5% ... you should love them yielding 2.5%. No?

Not that estimates are ever accurate, but inconsistent dates raise additional questions about the JPMorgan Funds.
The cap gains estimates (posted above by shadow):
https://am.jpmorgan.com/blob-gim/1383381886694/83456/2016 JPM Funds Capital Gains Estimates - Final Posting.pdf?segment=AMERICAS_US_ADV&locale=en_US
This page,created Oct 12, shows record dates of Dec 13-15, depending on fund.
Another page, created November 11, shows record dates (but not estimates) for income and cap gains distributions shows record dates of Dec 19, 27, and 29, depending on the fund.
https://am.jpmorgan.com/blob-gim/1383373248579/83456/4Q-Dividend-Calendar.pdf?segment=AMERICAS_US_ADV&locale=en_US
It's possible that for funds distributing both income and cap gains divs, this page is reporting the record date for the income divs (which are typically on the same date as cap gains or later). So that could explain the mismatch.
Regardless, this mismatch makes me somewhat more suspicious than normal about the estimates.

Hi guys!
Just goes to show you....if you slice a sector thin enough, you can find some winners. Will see when the Big Kahuna says "I do" in January what will happen. Now, it's just market moving babble.
As you know, I'm bearish on health care......been for a while. Only want to own what's in the S&P 500----S&P Mid Caps and Russel 2000. I fear the worst is yet to come. All that being said, I still have a small position in FSPHX and will keep it for now.
God Bless!
the Pudd
p.s. Duke says, "Merry Christmas and may you get many bones under your tree...." .....silly dog!

Article title should be: "This Fund Reinforces The Case For Passive Management"
I really need to add GOODX to my POST on 12/2/2016.
Please explain why I should even consider the opinions of the managers whose fund has had incredibly poor returns and risk metrics (sharpe ratios, sortino ratios) over the past 3 and 5 year periods ?
If you are invested in this fund, please sell it immediately. Believe SPIVA, not these managers.
Kevin

Yeah - Sorry, I was a bit hard on you (probably sour grapes from the election).
However, 5 weeks is a bit early to label the market "Trump Bull Market" - or anything else. That's what the CNBC crowd has been flogging - so I made an (incorrect) assumption.
As you used to be fond of saying, "Investing is a marathon not a sprint."
Regards

FYI: Helping investors find quality stock opportunities in foreign markets, Janus Capital Group launched a smart-beta dividend exchange traded fund that targets global companies with a solid track record.
The Janus SG Global Quality Income ETF (NasdaqGM: SGQI) began trading Thursday. SGQI has a 0.45% net expense ratio.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.etftrends.com/2016/12/janus-rolls-out-a-global-quality-dividend-etf/

@hank: One I don't watch CNBC, and two I have never said investors haven't done well under Obama, and three I predicted a double digit advance for the S&P 500 at he beginning of 2016 long before we knew Trump would become president. Am I patting myself on the back, you better believe I am !
Regards,
ted

@openice, thanks again! I missed the discussion about her experience at Wasatch so thanks for filling in those blanks.
Isn't it a bit strange though. I know she was investing in some of the smaller emerging markets but the entire frontier markets universe, according to MSCI, has a market cap of $137 billion and the largest single company is $5.7 billion. Of course the strong dollar has made those numbers smaller in the last few years but its not exactly easy to be "all-cap" unless you consider it relative to frontier markets specifically rather than globally.
The idea of go anywhere, do anything has been tried a few times before and not many that I'm aware of have succeeded particularly well. It will be interesting to see how she does and I hope it works well because she'll almost certainly have some of my money.

While it is well ahead of the S&P500 index this year, it is only slightly ahead of the more appropriate (for this fund) midcap index. And it significantly underperformed both indices in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Doesn't look like a good fund to me.

The Marketwatch piece is a little late. Goodx was profiled in Barrons in October
http://www.barrons.com/articles/a-top-fund-makes-the-value-case-for-verizon-1475905159
I too looked at it then but couldn't get past the M* analysis where a quick glance at the chart will show that while it has done Ok in the last year, the 3, 5 and 10 year records are awful.
there are a lot better mid cap value funds out there

Per the article,
"The suddenly booming stock market has prompted fund managers who had been hoarding cash amid economic and political uncertainty to put money to work at the fastest rate since 2009. According to Bank of America Corp.’s latest survey in November, cash levels plunged to 5 percent from 5.8 percent in October.
Investors are fretting they’ll miss out on a year-end rally. They added almost $50 billion to exchange-traded funds that track U.S. equities last month, the most since Bloomberg began tracking the data since 2000.
“US equity investors have focused more on hope than fear since Donald Trump’s election,” David Kostin, chief U.S. equity strategist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. wrote in his 2017 outlook."
Well...so after one of the biggest run-ups in market history, investors start piling in now. Sounds good...happy days are here again!

FYI: Can Trump's Policies Match Investor Expectations?
Donald Trump is doing to U.S. equity bears what seven years of economic stimulus rarely could: shut them up.
Two years of paralysis has for now ended in stocks, with more than $1 trillion added to shares values since Election Day and the Dow Jones Industrial Average looking bound for 20,000. Both the Dow and S&P 500 Index jumped to fresh records Wednesday, joined by transportation companies and small caps, while banks traded at eight-year highs.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-07/trump-bull-market-bounty-tops-1-trillion-as-bear-cases-go-quiet

"Drug makers will simply renegotiate ..."
Does this mean that they didn't negotiate the best deals already, that they left money on the table? Maybe that's true for third world country deals (good PR and little profit lost), but in Canada?
WSJ, Dec. 1, 2015: Why the U.S. Pays More Than Other Countries for Drugs; subtitled: Norway and other state-run health systems drive hard bargains, and are willing to say no to costly therapy.
(Link above is for Google search).
Legislation is moving in the opposite direction - I was serious about IP protection being a Congressional interest. As an example, buried in TPP is "what is called data protection to drug manufacturers ... [that will lead to] higher [prices] for everyday drugs."
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-21/new-trade-agreement-may-export-high-us-drug-prices-third-world-3
Reimportation is something that would bring down prices - regardless of how far or for how long. It's also one of the very few concrete proposals that Trump is on the record as supporting. The Reuters article said Trump didn't say how he would bring down drug prices. He had, at least in small part, this small part.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/healthcare-reform (position paper)
What else Reuters missed was that the day before that article was written, the Senate blocked a bill amendment that would have allowed reimportation, as well as allowing Medicare to negotiate prices (a position Trump had also campaigned on).
Dec 6, 2016, The Hill, Sanders: GOP blocked 'Trump proposal' to lower drug prices
I haven't yet cross-checked the votes on the 2012 and 2016 amendments to see which Senators flipped.

Having trouble getting my head around this. Psychologically, it feels more like '82 - as I think up until now there's been a lot of risk aversion among the retail investor class as in the 70s. But, as Lewis points out, P/Es don't support that. Seems to me markets are sensing some significant inflation (which would reduce the real value of stocks). But my Social Security check the past several years (0% inflation adjustment) doesn't support that.
Another interesting comparison: The NASDAQ Composite peaked at a high of 5132.52 (and a closing price of 5048.62) on March 10, 2000. (Wikipedia). Today, nearly 17 years later, it's at 5400 (5% higher).*
Buy, Sell, Hold? Fortunately, at an age where I'm pretty conservatively positioned. Such decisions amount to nickels & dimes (maybe quarters under really nasty circumstances). Not losing much sleep. For a more aggressive/active investor there's plenty to worry about.
-
(footnote)* Anybody out there still using a 17-year old computer from 2000? Must work really swell. :)

Adding more cooks to the broth? Might be good to get some fresh ideas. Looks like it has underperformed in the last 5 years. 4 star fund by M-star though.
https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/performance-and-risk/09251T509

At the beginning of the 1982 bull market, the Shiller P/E was 7.7. Today it is 25.8:
multpl.com/table
That gets us to 1998 at best. A similar result occurs even if you use the ordinary trailing twelve-month p/e ratio:
macrotrends.net/2577/sp-500-pe-ratio-price-to-earnings-chart

It is quite amazing they didn't see any danger in index funds in 2014. Such funds needs to be timed. Period. If you bought in 2015 consider yourself lucky, and congratulations. I took a long hard look at this one and passed.

VBIAX changed their benchmark equity index 2005-06 timeframe. Since then they have outperformed 2 of the 3 listed (all 4 very close however). Survivorship bias is frequently overlooked in these type analysis.

FYI: Neil Hennessy is bullish on the U.S. stock market.
Hennessy, who predicts that the Dow will hit 20,000 by the middle of 2017, is the president, CIO and portfolio manager of Hennessy Funds, which has some 16 funds and some $6.5 billion in assets under management. Indeed, barring a catastrophe such as another terrorist attack that could disrupt the U.S. economy, Hennessy predicted a continuance of the bull market, which some market observers believe is now long in the tooth.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.fa-mag.com/news/back-to-the-early-1980s-30343.html?print