@VintageFreak said

Who cares about the investors in our funds? ...sorry, scratch that, just thinking aloud

No, don't scratch that question; no apologies necessary. It is precisely at these turning points when we need to start to scrutinize just what is going down, because we now have a 10 yr. list, that continues to grow, of formerly up-and-coming MF companies, smallish, tightly-focused, with very good results, that have stalled, become mundane, and in some cases have driven themselves into the ditch. And what do most of them have in common? Either they (1) consented to be acquired by a larger player, or (2) went public with an IPO. And then sooner (1-3 yrs) or later (3-5 yrs), the decline---at first barely perceptible--- becomes obvious, after which things just never take a turn for the better.
So I think a better question to ask, when these transitional steps are taken, after which these outfits are no longer and will never be what they once were again, is:

From this point forward, when you say and think that everything you do will be in the best interest of your shareholders, to whom are you referring--- the shareholders in your company, or the shareholders invested in your mutual funds?

FYI: Jim Simons was a mathematician and cryptographer who realized: the complex math he used to break codes could help explain patterns in the world of finance. Billions later, he’s working to support the next generation of math teachers and scholars. TED’s Chris Anderson sits down with Simons to talk about his extraordinary life in numbers.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2015/09/jim-simons-the-mathematician-who-cracked-wall-street/print/

Lots of valuable insights here. M* X-RAY shows my portf now looks like this:
8% cash (but held in the funds, not by me.)
US 41
Foreign 10
Bonds 40 (Of that 40%, 29.2% is in dedicated bond-only funds: DLFNX, PREMX, PRSNX.)
"other" 2
Bond quality is LOW, with 67% at Moderate risk, 22% with Limited risk.
Equities: 44 growth, 34 Core and 22 Value.
Large cap: 62.72
Mid and small-caps. 37.26
...If the 8% cash position (aggregate) were invested in equities, I'd be just a baby-step from a 60/40 stocks/bonds portfolio, which pleases me. I'd like to have more overseas exposure, but I think this much smaller foreign chunk at the current time is prudent. Asia is the future. But I could let a lotta years pass waiting and hoping for it to be fruitful. I have only 1.57 in UK and 3.26 in Europe Developed. Emerging Europe = 0.71%, and that's fine with me. Japan is at 1.3%.
I have found 2 rather good Balanced funds in PRWCX and MAPOX, though the latter is not performing as well as the former. MAPOX pays quarterly divs, and I like that. PRWCX pays only in December. That's fine, too.
The exercise of spelling all of this out to you guys is a response to a very good question or two from ibartman. ALL of the input is valuable, and of course, there's no perfect answer or resolution.
One last thought: I'm intending to invest all of this for heirs. And the tiny, new position (joint with wifey) in the electric utility PNM will grow by tiny baby-steps each month, too. I chose it from among a list of companies offering DSPP, and after examining it. I know that utilities are going nowhere, but this one looks like a good relative prospect in a category I didn't have any money in, yet.
http://www.morningstar.com/stocks/XNYS/PNM/quote.html
I'm grateful to you all. Vintage Freak, from among your replies, is most concerned about the size of my PRWCX holding. I'm taking his words seriously, but does that "rule of thumb" about keeping holdings down to 20% of total or lower a good idea, here? (10%, per VF.) It's not a pure equity play. Maybe M* rates it to be riskier than it really is...And I'm not ignoring heezsafe.
As it is, I'd prefer not to collect any more funds. With wife's 403b, I'm up to 11 (eleven.) That's enough for me.
I made good profit in TRAMX, waited too long to get out, but still happy about it. I funneled that profit (back at the New Year) into PRWCX precisely because PRWCX is domestic and thus "safer," and riding high in a core-fund category.
New IRA money is earmarked for MAPOX. I think I WILL stand-pat. Thanks, all.

I dunno man. 10%, i.e. 10 funds. Seems like a reasonable number to manage. That's how I'm constructing each of my portfolios at each of the brokerages. If you like 9 or 13...it's YOUR portfolio.
One can buy that Fido fund that invests in 4 indices (I think) and be diversified across asset classes that way. Why does not everyone pile into that fund? Frankly, I'm not sure what the basis of discussion is any more.
Here's my story and I'm sticking to it. In my 401K I have stopped investing in bonds. I own cash, some S&P 500 index, and some S&P 400 index. That's it. In my my taxable portfolios, knowing how good/bad active fund managers are it is prudent to diversify manager risk. If one is going to invest in Active fund managers, I don't see why one would bet the farm on a single fund / fund company. It makes no sense whatsoever. 37% of portfolio in one actively managed fund should given anyone pause. Heck, put 100% in PRWCX then. Then why ask question?
One decides portfolio should have 60% stocks 40% bonds. One can buy XYZ balanced fund. There is a 1 in zillion possibility Bernie Madoff was cloned and his clone will start managing XYZ Balanced. 3 years later, one will come and tell VF he is an idiot for not investing entire portfolio in XYZ Balanced. VF will rue the day but go to sleep knowing he invested in ABC, DEF, GHI, .... Balanced funds knowing chance Bernie Madoff's clone managing any one of his funds is now 1 in gazillion.

@Crash
In wonderful English grammar, I will state: "I don't see no barking dog with PRWCX and no need to take part of the fund and escort it to another place."
I am sure you are aware of the category return status of this fund over the years, per M* or just the numbers, if you want to compare at some other site.
For the past 15 years through the good and the bad, you would be hard pressed to find better in this category and/or "build your own mix".
So what if it is 37% of your portfolio! Do you think you can remove half (or whatever % you are considering) of the fund and redirect to other fund type holdings and receive better performance from the monies?
I'd keep this one where is it at now; and reinvest the distributions back into the fund and let this one simmer along.
Play with the other holdings if you choose.
There are folks in the world of investments who desire to have this fund in their portfolio, but do not have access (closed), except for openings in some retirement programs.
You may choose to read through some of the list of "things" at this link to help with your decision. I personally would use the list of goodies to find a reason(s) to convince oneself of "why I should reduce the holdings of PRWCX ."
Disclaimer: my economic studies degree is from "Whatsamatta U". My suggestion(s) is free and may hold similar "value". I am not affiliated in any method with TR Price. Lastly, I am listening to "Days of Future Passed", by the Moody Blues; which may or may not affect my thinking at this time.
Good luck.
Catch

Crash:
1. In isn't clear (to me) that you have come up with an overall asset allocation that you want to "get to". I think that you need to do that.
2. As a TRP investor, I am pretty sure that you have access, on TRP's own website, to Morningstar Premium Portfolio Tools, that you might otherwise have to pay for. You should use them, and enter your portfolio into the tool, and see where you stand (versus the "goal", described in #1). Call them if you are unfamiliar, and ask about it.
[I believe that there are also TRP/M* Portfolio Stress Testing tools, as well, but have not used them myself.]
3. Identify where you are +/-, and identify the lowest cost (or otherwise "best") TRP funds to get there. Simply put, is your overall stock/bond mix OK or not?.... etc.
4. (If TRP has a "directed dividends" option like Vanguard does...) You might use "directed dividends" from all of your funds to gradually invest in a particular fund or funds in which you are light.
5. Set a goal - time period - for which you want to get to your goal. If say -short (immediately) or longer (say a year) then figure out what changes you need to make every month to get there over desired time period and do it.
6. Or something like that.
NOTE: For example..... Looking at PRWCX's 2014 annual report (page 18, Investor Class). In 2014, the fund paid out $2.62 in distributions, which was more than 10% of the Yr End 2013 value of $25.66. In a month or so [?], TRP will post estimates of distributions for the current year.
If you stop reinvesting the distributions, but "direct" them to the funds in your retirement accounts in which you are short, you might be able to effect at least a part of your re-allocation "automagically".

Here is what this rat would bo.
I'd like to know a little about the investor's risk tolerance; but, since that is not noted ... I'd take the conserative route.
To keep things simple let's say the investor's tolerance for risk called (when fully invested) for a balanced allocation of 10% cash, 40% bonds & 50% stocks. With the current uncertainty of interest rate risk (rising interest rates) and stocks considered to be fully valued (by some) I'd invest up to the low point of my allocation for each asset (bonds & stocks) thus keeping the rest in cash. Thus I might average in to about 25% to bonds, 25% to stocks and keep 50% in cash. From there I'd put the rest to work (over time) based upon market and interest rate movement.
To manage interest rate risk they could ladder the bond allocation spread among a short term bond fund (40%), a intermediate term bond fund (40%) and a little to a long term bond fund (20%). Then within equities diverfication is important so I'd slit equity with about 60% to 75% being in domestic large caps, mid caps and small caps along with putting the residual 25% to 40% to work in foreign positions which would include some exposure to emerging markets.
Just a lot to think on for a first time investor sitting on a pile of cash wanting to enter the market. And, with such little experience, I tip toe in while reading as much as I could about investing. Being a good saver is not the same as being an investor.

This makes me recall my foray into investing in the earlier years of dot com boom. I cost averaged all the way up. Then when market crashed, I was a deer caught in headlights.
$250 per month for 20 months I invested. I thought I was so smart.
If I had invested $5000 in one shot, I would have seen my investment more than double, then crash to still above $5000. I would have held that fund. It is too disgusting to discuss how much that would be worth today. Fact of the matter is DCA brought my balance down to way below $5000. I'm simply quoting $5000 as a number here.
I think above episode directly contributed to my hair loss and my cynical attitude toward all experts claiming DCA as the only way for investors. In the long run it might work out yes. As someone has said however, in the long run everyone is dead.
Bottom line, whether one DCAs or not, and whether it worked out or not, will depend on what happens in the future which no one can predict. When you buy will always matter more than What you buy. I would say with this much money, LSI half and DCA the rest.

from the Vanguard study, on which this blog note is largely based:
On average, by how much does LSI outperform DCA?
To calculate the average magnitude of LSI outperformance, we calculated the average ending values for a 60%/40% portfolio following rolling 10-year investment periods. In the United States, 12-month DCA led to an average ending portfolio value of $2,395,824, while LSI led to an average ending value of $2,450,264, or 2.3% more. [...] It is important to reiterate that these are average returns. Actual experience during any given period in the future may be much higher or lower, depending on market trends.

Measuring the dispersion of outcomes and risk-adjusted performance
[...] The 50th-percentile observation is positive (confirming LSI’s average outperform- ance, relative to 12mo DCA), but there is a fairly wide distribution of outcomes. Obviously, it is possible for either strategy to underperform the other over a given period—potentially by a significant amount. [...] Despite its lower average ending portfolio values, a DCA strategy might be more favorable if the risk-adjusted returns of a DCA portfolio during those first 12 months exceed the risk-adjusted returns of an LSI portfolio during that period. However ... this is not the case. LSI has provided better returns and risk-adjusted returns, on average.

Crash ... if you're concerned about being overweight equities than yes - you should reduce your holdings in PRWCX. It is foremost an equity fund. I took your question to be "fund-specific" rather than an allocation question. Perhaps I misinterpreted it. Only you know your own needs and risk tolerance.
Here's what you should consider: PRWCX has been around for over 25 years. Its worst year was a 27% loss in 2008. Bad as that sounds, many equity funds lost 50% or more in '08. TRIGX lost 45% that year.
Re the "talking heads" - If they're saying equities are overpriced and likely to decline and that you should reduce equity holdings and gravitate to cash and bonds, they make some sense. I might even agree. (Some of Price's "funds-of-funds" would serve that purpose with their varying allocations to cash and bonds. Since the allocations differ by fund, the math could get tricky for you.)
If these "talking heads" are telling you to sell a solid conservative equity fund like PRWCX and split the money up among 3 or more equity funds (for safety) that makes no sense. If three funds each fall by 35% your net loss is still 35% - same as if one fund fell by 35%. No safety in numbers alone.
My largest holdings - for whatever benefit it might offer:
RPSIX (multi-asset income) 16%
OAKBX (conservative equity) 15%
TRRIX (equity/bond hybrid) 15%
PRNEX (equity/NR) 12%

If you think you might ever want to trade or time even a little bit (interest rates and reactions thereto), you can get a fine ETF mix going 50-50 AOR and AOM.

@Crash Well, having many of these in a trad. IRA certainly simplifies the how's and why's re. maximizing the positive effects of any big trim (presumably, after a nice gain?). If you're settled on having another TRP fund, and "but what?" is the primary question, I'd suggest a look at this:
http://www3.troweprice.com/fb2/fbkweb/snapshot.do?ticker=PRSIX
1. If you look at the top 25 stock holdings of all the Personal Strategy fund in the TRP series, you'll note that many of them are shared with PRWCX, the fund you are leaving. Consequently, you would be maintaining a presence in many of the same type of companies, just reducing your exposure;
2. As part of the move to reduce your high exposure in a single fund to ... umm, a more prudent level (how could you let that happen? 5 lashes with a wet noodle!), this also would be a good time to incorporate a reset of some of your shares in other funds that have gone underwater, e.g. PRSNX (I only know this because we initiated circa the same time in that one).
3. Given its different nature, it also wouldn't be criminal to slip a bit of the PRWCX harvest into MAPOX, a finer balanced fund than you'll find at TRP.
Just off the top of my head musing, FWIW.

Yes, I appreciate that. I do have MAPOX at 13%. PREMX at 15%. PRSNX at 12%. And PRWCX at 37.30% --- which is why I'm looking to reduce it relative to my other positions.

HBLIX has a transaction fee at Fido, same as VWINX. Note that it has a 50/50 stock/bond split while VWINX tilts 40/60.

Krantz is pretty solid, and I am glad he remains there now that Waggoner is gone.
Yes, SPY is well-superseded for anyone who does reinvestment. SCHD is one favorite, but if I were not retired I would put a ton into RPG and RPV 50-50, which oddly outperforms RSP.

What a great sleep-inducer. Must be a student of William F. Buckley. "Subliminal realization" That's a good one!
Couldn't make it all the way to the end. What did he finally recommend people invest in now? (Gold I'd suspect.)
I've watched Grant off-and-on for many years. He's never been a cheerful soul. Further, I think you'd be hard pressed to go back over the past decade and find any "actionable advice" from him that made you money during that period.
http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2015/03/jim-grantthe-guy-whos-been-wrong-almost.html

You might consider BERIX if you haven't already. It and GLRBX are the two funds I have in that space. Looking back as far as 1991 periods of out performance have alternated. BERIX has performed slightly better overall but it has recently lagged. I suspect that is mostly due to its currently defensive 40% allocation to cash. Their August update said they have been patiently waiting for more volatility to show up....perhaps they are beginning to find some of that now...
http://www.berwynfunds.com/assets/BERIX-Monthly-Aug-2015.pdf

The problem is not about not looking at M* methodology. The problem is treating M* like God.

The fault dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves? With so many people here taking pokes at M*, it doesn't seem like God gets much respect anymore.
As Warner Wolf would say, let's go to the videotape...

I think it is M* who confuses the issue by summarily categorizing most of what it does not understand as long/short as long as it sees some short in funds portfolio.

That sounds like a criticism of M*'s methodology - that it is misclassifying (methodolgy) due to lack of understanding.
What people give a pass to are other sites. Did anyone, anyone wonder about a single figure in the original article?
It talks about "38 products – mutual funds and exchange-traded – readily identifiable as long/short strategies".
There are at least 60 distinct pure equity funds that call themselves Long/Short (I'm excluding debt, real estate, and commodity funds.) To me, these all seem "readily identifiable". But let's treat the number 38 as gospel?
It uses performance figures over a period of a single month. Anybody else have a problem with that?
BTW, the four long/short funds it names are also classified as long/short by M*. So it's unclear whose classifications it is complaining about. It seems to have set up a straw man.

Fund prospectus says it will buy stocks it thinks will go up, and short stocks it thinks will go down is Long/Short.
Fund that says it will do L/S with equal Long to Short weighting is Market Neutral.
Fund that says it will short using part of its portfolio upto all of its portfolio if it believes market conditions warrant it, is Hedged.
Fund that says it will do WTF it wants using all of the above is Multi Alternative.

You seem to prefer to look at what a fund says, not what it does. M* used to do that, but realized decades ago that this was unreliable. Here's a 1999 academic paper that talks about misclassifications based on prospectus. It starts (on p. 2) by quoting M*'s old practice of relying on what the prospectus says. It then goes on to say that it found 50% of funds are misclassified this way. And that was back in the 1990s, when funds weren't nearly as complex.
What's your classification of HSGFX?
Hussman writes that the fund is never net short. Though that's not stated in the prospectus, the prospectus does say that " the most defensive position expected by the Fund will be a 'fully hedged' position in which the notional values of long and short exposures are of equal size."
That sounds like your Hedged fund. But the fund is also allowed up to 150% market exposure - hardly a hedging strategy by my definition or by yours. "The Fund will be fully invested or leveraged [under certain conditions] ..." and "the maximum exposure of the Fund to stocks ... is not expected to exceed 150% of its net assets."
However, that's just what the prospectus says. In reality the net stock exposure (inception through 2010) has hovered around 20%. (M* premium data) And since 2010, its beta relative to the market (S&P 500) has been negative, as low (large) as -0.53% (M* analyst report).
So there's what a prospectus says, and what a fund really does. Prospectus allows leveraging, while fund's market exposure never exceeds 20% or so. Prospectus bans negative market exposure, while fund acts like it's 50% short the market.
That does seem to suggest that funds, or at least this fund, can be misclassified if one only reads the prospectus. It pays to read at least the portfolio reports as well.

Dude, check out the latest Semi-Annual Report.
Fully three Royce funds are now changing their names. Some make sense because the old names never made sense (Royce Value Plus, for example...where was the "plus" under Chip Skinner's stewardship ? Perhaps the plus was in the 6 or so share classes/ticker symbols for the fund).
A handful of funds have new managers/co-managers.
Royce selectively includes or excludes performance criteria on its funds to put funds in the best light (for example, some funds have upside/downside capture ratios for past 1 years reported, others do not, but have past 5- and 10-year, one newer fund doesn't have even a 1 year even though its been around since 2011, Royce Micro-Cap Disovery, ever the laggard which has been around since at least 2004 has no upside/downside reported; same for Royce Value Plus, I mean, Royce Smaller Companies Growth). Some funds have trailing 1-, 3-, 5-, 10-year performance reported, others only have 5- and 10-year. Typos ? Perhaps, but Royce has done this type of thing before, most notably during the depths of the great recession.
Share classes galore ! Six for Royce Opportunity, Royce Smaller/Small-ish Companies Growth Fund (formerly Royce Value Plus), Royce Small Cap Value (formerly Royce Value) and Royce Pennsylvania, seven for Royce Total Return and Royce Premier, three for Royce Micro Cap. You'll be relieved, no doubt, to learn that Royce Micro-Discovery (which was once Discovery) which rarely beat the benchmark and seemed to have very low active-management value-add under Mr. Necakov, has retained its one share class (but has a new co-manager).
And...my personal favorite for some time now...Royce allows several funds to have 10% or more of their holdings in international stocks (and handful are at or above 15-20%), but still benchmarks against all-US indexes.
Same old shenanigans at Royce. If you can't find `em, grind `em. Feed the beast.

Through successive ownerships, the Acorn Funds have been allowed to operate w/o interference, and to pursue their own path. Robert A. Mohn's retirement at end of 2015 as chief domestic investment adviser for the firm, following Charles McQaid's reducing his role in day-to-day management, may have been the death knell for the funds. The PMs of ACRNX went through some difficult analysis to try to improve the fund's performance, and there was an uptick after that. CEFZX emerging markets was a bright star, then tanked this year.
Most of the owners did seem to be legacy owners; nobody under 60 attended the shareholders' meetings, but the open question period elicited info I would not have thought to pursue, such as the funds' not timing cash, and ACRNX hoping some of its holdings would be takeover targets.
The PMs' frustration with performance was obvious.
It was a great opportunity for me to go to a local event and learn something.