what is more important is to know when he moved the $150MM. Before the fall or after. By the time we know it will be too late, I guess.

Glenmede Funds
https://www.glenmede.com/files/2018-glenmede-funds-capital-gains.pdf

@Crash. I solve your sort of problem by making sure my largest holding is one that will never cause me grief because I hold many mutual funds. Of course, this is supposed to be a no-no, but it works for me. How do you think I suffered my "largest holdings" like HSGFX, FAIRX, etc? They were the largest but never large enough.
FWIW. If you owned 20 funds and PRWCX was 10% of your portfolio maybe you wouldn't feel the way you did. If you had 40, you would be numb.
PS - I have a botched root canal and another fractured tooth next to it and quite loopy on drugs. But still, my name is VF and I approve this message.

The folks at the Leuthold Group have an almost-daily subscriber newsletter that discusses their most recent research and, occasionally, how they're positioning their fund portfolios.
Today's note might have been titled, "we've seen this picture before."

Today’s backdrop from an economic, liquidity, and technical perspective is very reminiscent of all three of those prior tops (1990, 2000, 2007) in ways that are too numerous to cover here. But one that’s especially worrisome is the blowout in spreads on low- grade corporate bonds. The yield gap between Moody’s BAA corporates and the 10-year Treasury yield is up about 50 basis points since the January stock market high, poking above the 2% level that preceded several U.S. recessions. Note the market tops of 2000 and 2007 featured similar patterns of credit deterioration just as the stock market was issuing the “all-clear” signal by breaking above its pre-correction highs. Credit patterns did not show similar deterioration leading into the 1990 bull market top; even the “bond guys” sometimes get it wrong. But we are not inclined to bet against their message here.Stay defensive.

They reported earlier this week that their flagship Leuthold Core Fund (LCORX) had moved to its portfolio to the most defensive positioning permitted by prospectus. I suspect their ongoing concern about the market's health is reflected in the fund's changing beta values. Over the past three years, beta has been about .60 but over the past 10 and 15 year periods they've allowed it to live above 1.00.
David

>> don't give me the standard bullshit line about how I should not be concerned about a single day's performance. PRWCX is my biggest holding. The rest of the Market zoomed up on Nov 1st. PRWCX was FLAT.
>> Um... WTF? I understand the fund is heavier into (defensive) utilities lately. I understand that a bit less than 25% of the portfolio is in bonds. I understand that the fund does write some shorts against its holdings. Fair Market Pricing? ORK? It simply sucks to see the fund lying FLAT on a day like today.
I don't imagine that anyone here can divine its inner workings much better than you, but a disinterested adviser, or even friend, might suggest that if a flat day with the market up bends you so sorely, maybe you should get into something else?

If there is any solace for your 1 day disappointment with this fund, maybe this will help. From Oct. 1st to Oct. 29th, the S&P 500 dropped 9.9%. PRWCX dropped about 1/2 of that, 5.5%. No BS!!! Shouldn't that matter more?

Um.... @MikeM: yes. It DOES matter more. Thanks for so rudely dismissing what I asked about.

Long ago when I was interested in this sort of behavior,
I found it helped to look at the movement in the top 10-20 positions of the portfolio.

If there is any solace for your 1 day disappointment with this fund, maybe this will help. From Oct. 1st to Oct. 29th, the S&P 500 dropped 9.9%. PRWCX dropped about 1/2 of that, 5.5%. No BS!!!
Shouldn't that matter more?

You are both infinitely wise.

If there is any solace for your 1 day disappointment with this fund, maybe this will help. From Oct. 1st to Oct. 29th, the S&P 500 dropped 9.9%. PRWCX dropped about 1/2 of that, 5.5%. No BS!!! Shouldn't that matter more?

I wondered how a manager would have to pay out so much in distributions. The answer is that the rats have been abandoning ship. A glance at the Premium portfolio holdings tab shows that Rolfe has been selling from every single position in America's best growth stocks. And M* says to stick with him! A one star, bronze rated fund is now on sale.

M* was totally behind Arnott and PAUIX for years too, as I recall. Even as PAUIX and its 20% short SPX position dragged the fund lower and lower during the 'bull' market of the past 10 years, they kept saying it was a good fund and praising his discipline. Puh-lease.
M* stars, picks, and recommendations are just noise in the machine, at least to me. Some useful nuggets in the analyst reports from time to time, but I don't pay any attention to their star ratings or their (or anyone's) list of stocks-to-buy-now, stocks-that-are-undervalued, etc....

Hi Crash, The fund has morphed over the years into pretty much a “go anywhere” fund. Pretty darn hard to “read” its daily behavior for that reason. I knew they played with derivatives. Wasn’t aware (as you claim) it shorts stocks - but it wouldn’t surprise me. One thought - Gold (and materials) had an uncharacteristically big day Thursday. So if the fund is shorting any of that stuff, it would have gotten dinged. Even if substantially “underweight” materials (but not shorting) it would have lagged some of the broader indexes. TRP has been bearish on the commodities / materials sectors for several years.
Compared to many other conservative equity / balanced funds, PRWCX is still having a respectable year. DODBX is positive but lags it. OAKBX and RPGAX are actually in the red.
PRWCX - Lipper Breakdown (From Reuters)
http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/US/funds/holdings.asp?YYY622_6sBkEkBoRVEDVUmnzYdySBuZTH3KwZb8EX/lL+8rQLfc70v/pOneMtJCmBtqvYsy
TOP 10 HOLDINGS % of Assets (Change vs 1Q Ago)
1 Keurig Dr Pepper Inc ORD
KDP
4.2%
(+11.0%)
2 T Rowe Price Government Money Fund
PRRXX.O
4.1%
3 Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc ORD
MMC
3.2%
(+2.1%)
4 Microsoft Corp ORD
MSFT.O
3.0%
(-1.5%)
5 Fiserv Inc ORD
FISV.O
2.9%
(-0.4%)
6 Becton Dickinson and Co ORD
BDX
2.9%
(-4.5%)
7 Danaher Corp ORD
DHR
2.7%
(-0.9%)
8 PerkinElmer Inc ORD
PKI
2.7%
(-5.5%)
9 Visa Inc ORD
V
2.5%
(+1.4%)
10 Fidelity National Information Services Inc ORD
FIS
2.4%
(+0.7%)
@Crash - Try drinking more Keurig Coffee & Dr Pepper. It might boost your return. :)

FYI: It’s fall.
By the oddity of scheduling, Augustana’s fall trimester ended just as it felt that fall had descended. My students decamped on November 1, numbed from long nights of study and challenging finals, anxious to get home for “some real food.” They leave behind a campus preparing itself, at long last, for the sere and snowy season to come.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2018/11/november-1-2018/

Long ago when I was interested in this sort of behavior I found it helped to look at the movement in the top 10-20 positions of the portfolio.

[Comment replaced - Snowball] "I am concerned about a single day's performance." PRWCX is my biggest holding. The rest of the Market zoomed up on Nov 1st. PRWCX was FLAT.
Um... WTF? I understand the fund is heavier into (defensive) utilities lately. I understand that a bit less than 25% of the portfolio is in bonds. I understand that the fund does write some shorts against its holdings. Fair Market Pricing? ORK? It simply sucks to see the fund lying FLAT on a day like today.

You've got the right idea, but the dividends don't make any difference.
Whether for RMD or for any other reason, one always wants to buy low and sell high. So if, say, you want to pull $4K out of an account, you'd rather do it when that account is worth $100K (4% drawdown) rather than when the value has dropped to $80K (5% drawdown).
Of course that's the theory. The reality is no one knows when the account will hit the high point for the year. (Though since investments tend to rise more than fall, later in the year seems to work out better on average.)
The dividends don't matter because they don't affect the value of the account. Whether you've got 10,000 shares at $10/share, or 12,500 shares at $8/share (after a distribtion of 2500 shares), the total value is the same. Either way, the RMD is in dollars, not shares.
QCDs are a nice way to take part of an RMD without paying taxes on the withdrawal. Especially now that it's gotten much harder to itemize deductions. It's great you're thinking about this - both for your taxes and for whoever gets the contributions.

This is timely because I just happened to turn on CNBC when a former manager-of-the-year was getting undeserved air time. David Rolfe, whose principal claim to fame these days is the enormous distributions his Wedgewood Growth fund is paying, used to manage about $2B; today the fund's AUM amount to $260M. The suggestion to click on M*'s fund pdf page (in a discussion from way back) does show historical AUM, but the numbers for RWGFX make no sense. Here's a link:
https://members.morningstar.com/accessPdf/getPdf.aspx?sourcecode=PR8013&pdfName=RWGFX
I wondered how a manager would have to pay out so much in distributions. The answer is that the rats have been abandoning ship. A glance at the Premium portfolio holdings tab shows that Rolfe has been selling from every single position in America's best growth stocks. And M* says to stick with him! A one star, bronze rated fund is now on sale.

So perhaps every quarter when you adjust your allocation to bring it to par you take money out.

2019 will be my first year at RMDs, and for right now anyway, that's the basic plan.

Thanks -- I was going to check my local library tomorrow. I appreciate the info!

You may be able to access it free anywhere via the internet through your local library as I do. Here are the numbers if you are not able. All in millions. PRGTX AUM
2008-92
09-255
10-381
11-500
12-697
13-984
14-1626
15-2718
16-3153
17-5910
18YTD-4202

You may be able to access it free anywhere via the internet through your local library as I do. Here are the numbers if you are not able. All in millions. PRGTX AUM
2008-92
09-255
10-381
11-500
12-697
13-984
14-1626
15-2718
16-3153
17-5910
18YTD-4202

Thanks fundly. I let my M*Premium lapse last year given the ongoing issues there, but I know where I can find that data now. Thanks!

In Morningstar premium which I get free from our local library, in the fund page you are looking at, click on the Performance tab and the last 5-10 yrs of AUM will be listed low on the page. This will not show up in the free site. Hope this helps.

In Morningstar premium which I get free from our local library, in the fund page you are looking at, click on the Performance tab and the last 5-10 yrs of AUM will be listed low on the page. This will not show up in the free site. Hope this helps.