Hi msf,
I appreciate your perspective.
I'm an amateur investor and consequently have huge knowledge holes. I suppose you mean Money Market Funds with your mmf abbreviation. Or perhaps you mean Makes Money Fast. Either is appropriate.
I have zero direct experience dealing with Dreyfus. I learned of their early beginnings from Charles D. Ellis’s book titled “Capital”. I own that volume and dug it up to refresh my memory. Ellis discusses Dreyfus in Chapter 9 of that volume. He is the historian, not me, that I referenced in my earlier post.
Although I started investing in the 1950s, I was totally unaware of the existence of mutual funds in that timeframe. At one point, I foolishly believed that I could invest my paltry savings with George Soros. Dream On!
Best Wishes.

Oil probably bottomed on January 20 when West Texas Intermediate for February delivery settled at $26.55 a barrel. Currently WTI's trading at $49.47 - about 80% above its January low.

The article says that "the average manager is likely to do no better than the market, before fees". This of course is wrong. The average dollar is likely to do no better than the market, at least assuming that funds for all intents and purposes are the market.
There are lots and lots of poorly run, small (and expensive) funds that I believe skew the "averages" (i.e. unweighted average fund performance). Maybe a modicum of diligence in avoiding the worst managed or highest expense won't bring the odds of success up to 50:50, but it surely will make the reported figures less bleak.
With respect to Dreyfus leading the way in aggressive investing (at least in advertising), that may well be true. But some of us haven't quite reached the level of your esteemed seniority, and recall Dreyfus differently. By the 80s, it was best known for Dreyfus Liquid Assets (MMF), selling primarily MMFs and to a lesser extend bond funds. Sure it still had (and still has) equity funds, but they were also rans. Interesting how people's impressions can differ so much.
Here's a NYTimes article describing this incarnation of Dreyfus:
Dreyfus Bets on the Lion Again, Januay 16, 1983.
For the classic Dreyfus comercial (which according to one site shows the J train subway exit on Wall Street - many different subway lines converge there):
""

Hi Guys,
In the referenced article, The Economist reports that the tide has finally turned in terms of active fund management. Active fund management is losing market share. It’s about time! It has been statistically established that professional money managers have been swimming naked for a long time.
Yes there are a few rare exceptions, but the bulk of the money management community have indeed generated excessive royal rewards for themselves, but not much for their customers, either individually or institutionally. It is common knowledge that passive Index investing has left these experts high and dry on the beach of under-delivered promises.
These experts promise excess returns (Alpha) over benchmarks and do not produce. In any given year 50% to 70% do not match their benchmarks; when the measurement timeframe expands to multiple years that underperformance increases to the 80% to 90% level. That’s true even in the Emerging markets sector where these guys are supposedly at an advantage. That’s a sad record.
It’s not that these experts have not had an opportunity to display their talents. Aggressive active investment organizations that were established to specifically service institutions (like company retirement funds) were assembled in the 1960s. According to some industry historians, these newly formed firms were motivated by the success of the Dreyfus Lion prowling out of the New York subway exit. Dreyfus was attracting tons of money.
In those days, individual investors did 90% of the trading activity; today, a few giant money management firms do 90% of that trading. At a minimum, these experts interact to cancel any of each other’s perceived investment insights and/or tactics. In fact, any such insights are more than neutralized by their operational cost drags.
Most money managers fail to satisfy their extravagant promises by not meeting their benchmark goals. Integrating globally, the active money managers who are on the negative side of the measurement criteria lose more on a percentage basis than those on the positive side of that balance sheet that incrementally gain against that same criteria. Now that’s a practical Loser’s game!!
So after these many decades, even the investing institutions, the preferred customers in terms of profit potential, are slowly learning the lesson that many private investors learned much earlier. The California pension fund, CALPERS, has finally reduced the number and the resource commitments to active fund managers. The shortfalls of active fund management has ultimately prompted even these moribund sleeping institutional giants into some action.
Good for them, good for their clients, not so good for the professional money managers. Their services do warrant some payoff, but their investment decisions have been a disaster. They have earned a pay-cut, and that’s now happening. We do learn, although far too slowly.
Best Wishes.

A year and a half later, is this any less true? http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/01/16/investing-international-funds/21825245/

Leave it to J. Wag. to nail it: "In any event, you need two factors for an international fund to beat the U.S. First, you need international markets to fare better than the U.S. Second, you need the dollar to fall against foreign currencies."
The last time both of those were running in the right direction for a U.S. investor was in the 'noughties, and it lasted long enough that even I realized it and made $ hand over fist in plain old VEURX and TRP's EM stock and bond funds:
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/DTWEXM (set the time frame to "maximum")
No wonder that over the last 5y, currency-hedged FMIJX ranks in the top 1% of foreign large blend funds (that, and very little invested directly in EMs), but as good as the FMI guys are, it still trails the S&P 500 by a lot.

It appears as though Chartwell previously did away with 5.75% load "A" shares for its Short Duration High Yield fund. Its CWFIX "I" shares also has a posted $1-million initial requirement.
The prospectus reads "eligible" shareholders may convert to Class I shares for its small cap value, CWSIX.
My view remains: the offerings of Berwyn and Chartwell appear somewhat redundant.
Chartwell's two mutual funds: small cap value (CWSIX-$1.7B market cap) and short duration (CWFIX- mostly BB-rated corporate bonds).
Berwyn: Berwyn (BERWX-$620m market cap) and Berwyn Income (BERIX- >%50 corporate bonds, BBB to B )

@MFO Members: Put the Linkster in the John Bogle school of foreign investing. You get all the foreign exposure you need by owning the S&P 500. However, if you must invest across the pond no more than 10-20%.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sp-500-companies-generate-barely-over-half-their-revenue-at-home-2015-08-19/print

FYI: FOR decades looking after other people’s money has been a lucrative business. Profit margins in the asset-management industry were 39% in 2014, according to BCG, a consultancy, compared with 8% in consumer goods and 20% in pharmaceuticals. The industry’s global profits in 2014 were an estimated $102 billion, allowing firms to pay those picking stocks in the American equity market an average salary of around $690,000 a year. Better yet, asset-management is growing fast: the industry looks after $78 trillion worldwide, and could shepherd over $100 trillion by 2020.
Yet the outlook for many asset managers is grim. The industry is being reshaped by low-cost competition. At the same time falling markets are shrinking assets under management, and thus fees levied as a percentage of those assets. Regulators, meanwhile, are trying to prevent consumers from being sold inappropriate products, which are often the most lucrative.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21695552-consumers-are-finally-revolting-against-outdated-industry-tide-turns?zid=300&ah=e7b9370e170850b88ef129fa625b13c4

A year and a half later, is this any less true?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/01/16/investing-international-funds/21825245/

http://www.salon.com/2016/05/19/it_is_happening_again_david_dayen_on_the_epidemic_of_mortgage_fraud_and_the_rigged_economy_that_sets_it_in_motion/

Are we safe from it happening again?
It is happening again. Every day in America people get kicked out of their homes from false documents. The government created a bunch of settlements with the mortgage companies, but central to most people’s conception a settlement is the notion that the settled misconduct stops. It never did. Nobody cleaned up the paper.
It’s going to take an entire cycle of getting mortgages originated in 2004, 2005, 2006 out of circulation to actually end this. After that, we do have new laws on what kind of mortgages get issued, and the private investors are thoroughly uninterested in buying private mortgage securities from banks. So the skepticism of the investors might save us. But those memories don’t always stay so long.
Just for fun, any thoughts on Trump Mortgage? You have to admit his timing was perfect … 2007.

I wrote about Trump Mortgage, actually. So did Lynn Szymoniak. When the first iteration of Trump Mortgage imploded, Trump licensed the name to a company called First Meridian, who originated loans that got sold up the chain to big banks, and then went through this exact same cycle of dodgy origination and securitization and foreclosure fraud. First Meridian got really mad at me for pointing this out. I guess the apples don’t fall far from the tree.
And of course Trump’s finance chair is Steven Mnuchin, one of the worst foreclosure operators of this entire period back when he was CEO of OneWest Bank. Activists sat on his lawn and threatened to move into his house unless he stopped a particularly egregious eviction. Mnuchin called in twenty police officers and a helicopter. So you know, Trump got the right guy for the job.

@johnN
What say you??? Do you have a date in mind? Do you suspect that real estate will crash again leading to other problems; or perhaps other problems will lead to an eventual weakening in real estate.
Below is a 2014 short write about baby boomer trends. This group likely holds a lot of real estate at this time. What will happen to this real estate when the boomers leave the planet?
Still location, location, location??? I suspect location is still very important. 'Course, this continues to have a direct link to "work" and "wages", eh? Now, your part of the world has some areas literally "under water". What is this doing for real estate prices today?
Real estate prices in general may remain static and not "crash" again. A crash presumes a fall from some over elevated level, yes??? How long before the 35% or so, of 18-35 year olds move out of their parents homes to pressure real estate prices?
Lots of questions.
What do the doom and gloom web sites predict?
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/on-retirement/2014/07/22/12-baby-boomer-retirement-trends

FYI: As investors search for bargains in a world of overpriced assets, they should be guided by the EMH.
That isn’t the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which holds that the price of a security reflects all available information. It’s my own Emetic Market Hypothesis, which says if the mere thought of owning an asset turns your stomach, that’s probably a sign you should buy
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/05/27/hold-your-nose-and-buy-europe/

FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Doogle Search)
The real estate industry, which knows a something about the importance of location, soon will be able to boast a prime spot in the investing world: a sector of its own in the major market indexes.
It’s the biggest change to the classification system underpinning the Standard & Poor’s 500 and the MSCI equity benchmarks since the current sectors were established in 1999. The move signals the increasing importance of real estate as an asset class in global equity markets and is expected to lift and broaden the appeal of.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=5+REITs+Worth+A+Look+WSJ

Bill Gross has around $700 million invested in JUCDX, so he is paying Janus around $7 million a year in expense fees

I have a suspicious mind. I don't think Bill has an ER for his money in the fund even though his portion makes up more 50% of the AUM.
Charge everyone else twice as much in order to cover his expenses. The fund looks like it collect $13 million in ER based on the math ($1.3B AUM * 1.01% ER).

FYI: One of the problems with the typical “trust me, we got this” attitude that you often see with financial professionals is the fact that most of the time their unwitting clients don’t really even understand what’s going on in their own portfolios. There are really no independent parties overseeing the overseers so a lot of the time it’s the clients who are left to judge the fund managers, advisors and consultants who are managing their money. Most investors aren’t qualified to be able to judge the performance of those investing or making decisions on their behalf, so it’s basically a whatever-they-say goes arrangement. It’s hard for many clients to even know that they have subpar results because the “experts” they’re listening to set the expectations and benchmarks.
Regards,
Ted
http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2016/05/how-the-finance-industry-tricks-you/

Update:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1013881/000119312516605102/d160984d497.htm
497 1 d160984d497.htm NUVEEN INVESTMENT TRUST
NUVEEN TRADEWINDS VALUE OPPORTUNITIES FUND
SUPPLEMENT DATED MAY 27, 2016
TO THE PROSPECTUS AND SUMMARY PROSPECTUS DATED OCTOBER 30, 2015
NUVEEN TRADEWINDS GLOBAL ALL-CAP FUND
SUPPLEMENT DATED MAY 27, 2016
TO THE PROSPECTUS AND SUMMARY PROSPECTUS DATED NOVEMBER 30, 2015
The Board of Trustees (the “Board”) of Nuveen Investment Trust (“NIT”) and Nuveen Investment Trust II (“NIT II”) has approved several matters related to Nuveen Tradewinds Value Opportunities Fund (“Value Opportunities Fund”), a series of NIT, and Nuveen Tradewinds Global All-Cap Fund (“Global All-Cap Fund”), a series of NIT II. Both Funds are managed by Nuveen Fund Advisors, LLC (“NFAL”) and sub-advised by Tradewinds Global Investors, LLC (“Tradewinds”). These approvals were made in connection with an internal reorganization of certain investment personnel and fund management responsibilities from Tradewinds to NWQ Investment Management Company, LLC (“NWQ”) and the anticipated orderly wind down of Tradewinds. NFAL, Tradewinds and NWQ are subsidiaries of Nuveen Investments, Inc.
Fund Reorganizations. The Board has approved the reorganizations of Value Opportunities Fund and Global All-Cap Fund (each an “Acquired Fund” and together the “Acquired Funds”) into Nuveen NWQ Global Equity Income Fund (the “Acquiring Fund”), a series of NIT which is advised by NFAL and sub-advised by NWQ. In order for the reorganization to occur for an Acquired Fund, it must be approved by the shareholders of that Fund. There is no requirement that shareholders of each Acquired Fund approve the reorganization. Therefore, it is possible that the reorganization could occur between the Acquiring Fund and only one of the Acquired Funds.
For each Acquired Fund, if the Acquired Fund’s shareholders approve the reorganization, the Acquired Fund will transfer all of its assets and liabilities to the Acquiring Fund in exchange for Acquiring Fund shares of equal value. These Acquiring Fund shares will then be distributed to Acquired Fund shareholders and the Acquired Fund will be terminated. As a result of these transactions, Acquired Fund shareholders will become shareholders of the Acquiring Fund and will cease to be shareholders of the Acquired Fund. Each Acquired Fund shareholder will receive Acquiring Fund shares with a total value equal to the total value of that shareholder’s Acquired Fund shares immediately prior to the closing of the reorganization.
A joint special meeting of the shareholders of the Acquired Funds for the purpose of voting on each Fund’s respective reorganization is expected to be held in October 2016. If the required approval is obtained, it is anticipated that the reorganization will be consummated shortly after the special shareholder meeting. Further information regarding the proposed reorganizations will be contained in proxy materials that are expected to be sent to shareholders of the Acquired Funds in late August 2016.
Each Acquired Fund will continue sales and redemptions of its shares as described in the prospectus until shortly before its reorganization. However, holders of shares purchased after the record date set for the special meeting of shareholders will not be entitled to vote those shares at the special meeting.
Investment Policy Change. Contingent on shareholder approval of the reorganization of the Value Opportunities Fund, the Board also approved the removal of the Fund’s primary investment strategy to invest not more than 35% of its net assets in non-U.S. equity securities. If shareholders approve the reorganization, the Fund may invest in non-U.S. equity securities without limit. If shareholders do not approve the reorganization, the 35% limitation on non-U.S. equity securities will remain in place. In either case, the Fund will not invest more than 15% of its net assets in equity securities of companies located in emerging market countries.
Interim Sub-Advisory Agreements. In connection with the planned wind down of Tradewinds, the Board also approved the termination of the sub-advisory agreements between NFAL and Tradewinds for Value Opportunities Fund and Global All-Cap Fund, effective August 1, 2016, and approved interim sub-advisory agreements between NFAL and NWQ for each Fund that will go into effect on the same date. The terms of each Fund’s interim sub-advisory agreement between NFAL and NWQ will be identical to the terms of the Fund’s current sub-advisory agreement between NFAL and Tradewinds, except that each interim sub-advisory agreement will terminate on the earlier of (i) 150 days after its effective date or (ii) the date the reorganization for the respective Fund is consummated.
Although the names of the Funds will not change after effectiveness of the interim sub-advisory agreements, Tradewinds will no longer have any involvement with the management of the Funds. As of August 1, 2016, Value Opportunities Fund and Global All-Cap Fund will no longer be managed by their current portfolio managers and each Fund will be managed by the following individuals:
•James T. Stephenson, CFA, is a Managing Director, Portfolio Manager and Equity Analyst at NWQ. Prior to joining NWQ in 2006, Mr. Stephenson spent seven years at Bel Air Investment Advisors, LLC, a State Street Global Advisors Company, where he was a Managing Director and Partner. Most recently, Mr. Stephenson was Chairman of the firm’s Equity Policy Committee and the Portfolio Manager for Bel Air’s Large Cap Core and Select strategies. Previous to this, he spent five years as an Analyst and Portfolio Manager at ARCO Investment Management Company. Prior to that, he was an Equity Analyst at Trust Company of the West.
• Thomas J. Ray, CFA, is Managing Director, Head of Fixed Income and Portfolio Manager at NWQ. Prior to joining NWQ in 2015, he served as Chief Investment Officer, President and founding member of Inflective Asset Management (“Inflective”), a boutique investment firm specializing in convertible securities, from 2001 until 2011. From 2011 until joining NWQ in 2015, Mr. Ray was a private investor. Prior to founding Inflective, Mr. Ray served as portfolio manager at Transamerica Investment Management.
PLEASE KEEP THIS WITH YOUR FUND’S PROSPECTUS
AND/OR SUMMARY PROSPECTUS
FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

Agree 100% with msf.
Why hold cash if you're than willing to expose it to even a modicum of risk? Would seem to defeat the purpose. Take your risk through other parts of your portfolio.
I hold very little cash per se. What little is held I tend to view as "dead-wood" and don't expect any growth from it due to the very low risk-free rates available today. Similar to msf's use of short munis, I'm willing to stretch my definition of cash just a hair by using Price's ultra short TRBUX. It might net an extra half-percent or so per year over money market funds, and I can tolerate an occassional penny or so deviation from its $5 NAV. But you need to be careful with ultra-shorts. Not all are equal in terms of safety/stability. Some experienced large losses in '08. I've been with Price about 25 years and have found them very cautious in managing these types of conservative investments.
Another thought: As a senior investor with limited appetite for risk I lean heavily toward balanced and hybrid funds that contain cash or cash-like holdings. These managers have a better read on the short term money markets than you and I do, and because they invest in large quantity can obtain a slightly higher return on the cash they do hold. Some houses actually maintain separate institutional cash/short-term income funds for this purpose. A couple hybrids I've used are TRRIX and TRRFX - both very risk-adverse funds.
If you're looking for something slightly more adventurous than cash, you might take a look at Price's PRWBX. It's a solid short term bond fund with a long history that should protect/grow your principal over time - but which is subject to the occasional down-year.

1.7% since he took over in October 2014 Obviously my account is but a miscroscopic fraction of Mr Ex Bond King. So who am I to talk. But seems like less than a pedestrian return in Bondville and you would have been better off in a 5 year CD.
http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/Bill-Gross-credit-bonds-debt/2016/05/26/id/730869/

In the taxable arena, I have a hard time justifying the added risk of any bond fund over the safety of an FDIC-insured bank account. One might eek out a quarter percent or so additional return, but at a cost of volatility along with interest rate and credit risks.
Right now, it's easy to get 1%+ from banks. (I'm looking at straight savings accounts here, not "rewards" checking accounts that limit the size of the account, require you to make a dozen debit card purchases a month, mortgage your first born child ....)
DLSNX has missed the 1% threshold over the past year, and has not quite made 1.25% over the past three years. It may look like it's managing interest rate risk (low effective duration), but it is heavily invested in mortgages, which tend to have negative convexity (meaning that prices will drop faster than duration would suggest). And it is at the low end of credit quality.
I'm not knocking that fund in particular - any fund that gives returns much in excess of bank accounts now is taking risks somewhere or other. Maybe the risks are manageable, maybe not. That's why for taxable yield I'm sticking with banks for now.
Munis are another matter. There, I think that by going out slightly in duration, one can get respectable returns with what for me is acceptable risk. VMLTX, BTMIX (Baird portfolio stats here), MSINX, etc. SEC yields about 0.9% or better, higher credit quality. While the duration tends to be around 2.5 years, I expect less interest rate movement in the muni market. Rates are lower (because interest is tax-exempt) so the same percentage shift in rates means a smaller change in magnitude than for taxable bonds.
Banks yielding over 1% include Ally (1.0%), Synchrony (1.05% - formerly GE Capital Retail Bank), Goldman Sachs (1.05% - formerly GE Capital Bank, a different bank).

FYI: Janus Unconstrained Bond Fund has returned 1.6% under Gross.
Gross manages $2.5 billion, including $1.3 billion in fund.
Bill Gross says he’s satisfied with the performance of his Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund and plans to continue managing money for a long time.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-25/gross-says-he-s-happy-with-his-performance-and-plans-to-continue