FYI: Vanguard Group Inc., the world’s largest mutual fund company, said two long-time managers of the firm’s funds, Lucius T. Hill and Karl E. Bandtel, will retire as of June 2016.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-12/two-vanguard-mutual-fund-managers-to-retire-by-middle-of-2016

Some interesting background details behind the resignation of the two independent directors from Sequoia SEQUX: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/business/huge-valeant-stake-exposes-rift-at-sequoia-fund.html?_r=0
One point that I hadn't heard before is that SEQUX bought an additional 1.5 million shares in Valeant sometime in the summer (the fund's official portfolio holdings list hasn't been updated since June 30). Also, apparently the remaining independent directors have insisted that the managers can't buy any more shares of Valeant.

"However, you simply can’t find this unique bond strategy in an ETF at this time, which is why we have continued to stick with the marginally more expensive mutual fund strategy. "
Doubleline has an ETF, TOTL.

TOTL ER = 0.65% (0.55% after temporary waiver)
BOND ER = 0.55%
DBLTX ER = 0.47%
DBLTX is marginally more expensive than what etf exactly?

Yes and no in my opinion VintageFreak. I think broad range index ETFs like the S&P 500 are definitely investing tools. I would even say more so then a managed large cap fund for many people who are seem tempted to jump to the fund of the month. Heck, see it here all the time.
Specific sector funds like gold minors, a perfect example, are certainly a traders tool. And for the last 8+ years more of a Las Vegas betting tool. Most people will loose with the minors. I think Barry is right-on point.

Why does he not provide performance of GLD ETF itself? Without it, that article could belong to any Stock Group ETF compared to the S&P 500.
News flash. All Sector ETFs are trades when you are buying a basket of stocks. That's the whole point. The S&P 500 ETF was created for TRADING not INVESTING. If it was for the latter, ETF was not needed since there is no compelling reason to "invest" intra-day.
I'm sorry Barry. You are filling quota for Bloomberg. Please publish on your own blog.

FYI: The funds are a new twist on sector investing. The idea is that investors might want broad exposure to the S&P 500 but would like to underweight a specific sector they don’t want. ETF Report sat down with Michael Sapir, chief executive officer of ProShares Advisors, to discuss the funds and the idea behind them.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.etf.com/sections/features-and-news/new-twist-on-sector-etf-investing

FYI: If you wanted to own gold in the bad old days, there were only a handful of choices: You could take physical delivery (but if you needed any size, you would incur costs for storage and security); you could buy futures contracts, but they also incur steep expenses; or you could buy the gold miners, with their “proven reserves.”
Earlier this year, I laid out the reasons I believed the gold miners were no longer a good proxy for the metal itself. The change occurred when the SPDR Gold Shares Trust exchange-traded fund gave professional and amateur investors a fast, cheap and easy way to gain instant exposure to gold.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-12/gold-miners-are-a-trade-not-an-investment
M* GLD Performance: http://performance.morningstar.com/funds/etf/total-returns.action?t=GLD&region=USA&culture=en_US

With respect to the tax case (previously reported and discussed, see for example, link below) reported in Philly paper - which claims that "Vanguard has no legal justification for charging its mutual funds artificially low management fees that reduce its reported profits and tax obligations" - it seems that one strategy [?] might be to just wait-it-out.
As reported here - http://tinyurl.com/blkrk-schwab-cuts - others are now charging around 3 bps or so for broad-based ETFs. Once others charge next to nothing, it seems (to this non-lawyer) that this might improve Vanguard's position.
Philly.com: http://articles.philly.com/2015-09-24/business/66826472_1_washington-tax-journal-tax-law-lee-sheppard

Valeant should mean Valiant aka Brave. Another twist to the tale
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/valeant-ackman-must-face-u-013040755.html

Decision Moose over last 20 months or so has gone from high of $1,203,581 to current value of 1,008,249. A total loss of 16.23%.
http://www.decisionmoose.com/Moosistory.html
I just took some HSGFX off the table today, like I also did last year (each year regretting why I didn't take more off, but then you never know...). By contrast over the same period HSGFX lost 13.65%.
ADANX (people love AQR so much, I don't get why) lost around 10% over the same period.
Pretty much everyone else did better I guess.

TFS Funds
http://www.tfscapital.com/wp-content/uploads/2015_Distribution_Estimate-11.11.15.pdf

"But [ I ] am considering PNM as a bond equivalent in my taxable portion when one of my bonds cashes in mid 2016. "

slick, PNM is a stock that fell -28% in '07 and another -50% in '08. From the M* graph it looks like it took almost 7 years to come back to it's '07 peak value. Bond equivalent??? My goodness.

Thanks Ted,
Also discussed here:
mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/71065/#Comment_71065

FYI: Over the past year, small-company value funds
have provided little value for their shareholders. On average, funds that focus on cheap small-capitalization stocks lagged both the small-cap Russell 2000 index and Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, which tracks big-company stocks. One small-cap fund
that bucked the trend was James Micro Cap (JMCRX), which whipped the category average by nearly 11 percentage points.
Read more at http://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T041-C009-S002-james-micro-cap-wins-with-tiny-companies.html#QI3AOtuUv7DztvMr.99
Regards,
Ted
http://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T041-C009-S002-james-micro-cap-wins-with-tiny-companies.html#
JMCRX Is Ranked #13 In The (SCV) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/small-value/james-micro-cap-fund/jmcrx

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=WebMFperf111115.gif&docId=780140&xmpSource=&width=1000&height=562&caption=&id=780142

@Old_Joe
Including the bond side of life, I'm leaning more towards.....
3.14159265359
Now go have a piece of "pi". Free to veterans today.
Lastly, I'm still pondering negative swap rates in bondland; and wondering if a good butt kicking is ahead on the road to successful investing.
Take care,
Catch

Gee, not 5% or 3%. Just 4%. Should this make us feel good?

Well, ask and sometimes the World hears you.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e86a211e-847f-11e5-8e80-1574112844fd.html?siteedition=intl
"US interest rate swaps, popular derivatives that track government bond yields, have experienced a spectacular collapse this month with an array of reasons being suggested by traders. [...] Analysts at Deutsche Bank say the recent swap spread tightening reflects 'tighter macro prudential regulation, higher capital requirements and reduced dealer balance sheet capacity.' Also playing a role is swapping activity from companies selling debt.
Some say swaps are a broken market... Under normal market conditions the current inversion should be swiftly reversed, but thanks to tougher bank capital regulation, derivatives trading appears to have entered a new era. Currently, no one appears willing to normalise the relationship between swap rates and Treasury yields.
Trading Treasuries and swaps relies on funding via the repurchase or repo market. Thanks to balance sheet constraints, the use of repo by dealers is shrinking, another factor sustaining negative swap spreads."
So, as I read it, the consequences for us would be that our bond/income fund managers, for the time being, have just had a hedging tool taken out of their toolkit. And, once again, we see that the repo market is involved, a part of the shadow banking system that remains largely under-regulated because of humongous efforts by the global financial players to keep it that way.

I think I've commented on this particular writer before. So many writers come in with a cliche point of view but fail to martial their facts.
"The expenses are higher (and returns lower) for other share classes of the [PIMCO] Total Return fund, such as B-share class (PTTCX)"
He's writing about something that doesn't exist (anymore). PTTBX (not PTTCX) vanished around the end of 2014, when the last of the B shares automatically converted to A shares. (Nov. 2009 prospectus closed this share class, and the shares purchased in the years preceding that closure converted 5 years from purchase. That's why Shadow won't - I think - find any explicit termination of PTTBX.)
"Looking at performance, ABNDX loses to the index in the one-, three-, five-, 10-, and 15-year returns.
"Furthermore, the holdings for ABNDX average out to be intermediate-term bonds with an A credit rating. This type of bond fund fills the space of a core holding, which is the same for VBMFX.
"Why not just hold a bond index fund?
Perhaps because looking at performance, VBMFX loses to ABNDX in the YTD-, three-, and five-year returns? Or perhaps because, as John Bogle points out, bond index funds hold too much in treasuries?
I'm not saying that one couldn't reach the same conclusions in spite of the amended facts I provided. Just that there are lots of financial "writers" who seem more intent on making points (or filling space) than backing them up with accurate facts.

FYI: Stop using “bubble” every time you want to express disenchantment with the stock market.
Please.
Stock market bubbles are extremely rare events. When we indiscriminately throw “bubble” at everything we think has become overvalued, a fad or simply disapprove of, the term risks becoming meaningless.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/theres-only-a-4-chance-were-in-a-stock-market-bubble-2015-11-10/print