FYI: Wait – 2015 is already over? How the hell did that happen?
It’s been quite a year, even though it feels like it flew by in an instant. Let’s hurry up and preserve the lessons learned lest we forget them all as 2016 gets underway.
You’ve already heard enough from me this year, so now, with a little help from my friends…
Regards,
Ted
http://thereformedbroker.com/2015/12/31/in-2015-i-learned-that/

FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search)
How do you invest when everything is expensive? U.S. stocks are selling at more than 25 times their cyclically adjusted earnings. Bond yields are unusually low (the 10-year U.S. Treasury yields about 2.25%), and interest rates are likely to rise. Money-market funds and savings deposits yield next to nothing. Property markets are also richly valued. There are no “door busters” available in world financial markets.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=Investing+for+2016+in+an+Expensive+Market

FYI: Patrick Kelly has the Alger Spectra Fund in a coveted spot. As portfolio manager since 2004, he has led the fund to the No. 1 ranking of 900 large-cap growth mutual funds tracked by Morningstar over the last decade
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MjEyMjg5Nzk=
M* Snapshot SPECX: http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/SPECX/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot SPECX: http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Fund/SPECX?countrycode=US
SPECX Is Ranked #115 In The (LCG) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/large-growth/alger-spectra-fund/specx

FYI: (This is a follow-up article)
The Michigan-native is betting against one of the most popular investment vehicles for mom-and-pop investors: exchange-traded funds. The bets have paid off, turning Miller’s little known Catalyst Mutual Funds into one of Wall Street’s most successful players in 2015.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2015/12/31/this-guy-had-a-great-year-betting-against-a-favorite-tool-of-mom-and-pop-investors/
M* Snapshot MCXAX: http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/MCXAX/quote.html

FYI: Many investors prefer the idea of buying a basket of stocks through a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund rather than picking and choosing individual stocks but the task of selecting the right fund can be a bit overwhelming. According to the Investment Company Institute, there are more than 8,100 mutual funds in the U.S. with combined assets of $15.94 trillion and more than 1,500 ETFs with total assets of $2.1 trillion. For some help in narrowing the field for investors, we asked some of our top fund and ETF gurus for their best investing ideas for the next 12 months. Their picks are included below.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2015/12/31/guru-picks-best-funds-and-etfs-for-2016/print/

FYI: Whether the S&P 500 finishes higher or lower for the year today, investors should be watching for bad “breadth” in 2016.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2015/12/31/will-bad-breadth-make-for-a-rotten-2016-watch-equal-weight-sp-500-etf/tab/print/

@ BobC, don't forget about OSMAX (I have the Inst. version), it's been my winner this year.

Foreign mid-cap growth funds had a great 2015 (OSMAX, AOPAX, PRIDX, etc.) ... so great, that those with the highest P/E's might be ripe for a stallout. (Same with the FI cef rally I mentioned above ... it's been a terrific 6m run, but more than a few are getting up there on relative premium/discount.)

FYI: So just how tough has it been for diversified investors in 2015? Think about it, stocks and bonds are flat, cash makes you nothing and commodities tanked once again. Most years being diversified is the way to go, this year has been historically tough.
I took a look at various asset class returns over the past 30 years and made some hypothetical portfolios for each year. I put 50% into the S&P 500 (stocks), 25% into 10-yr bonds (bonds), 10% into commodities, and 15% into cash.
Happy New Year,
Ted
http://ryandetrick.tumblr.com/post/136226077810/how-bad-has-2015-been-for-diversified-investors

FYI: Bruce Berkowitz, the largest outside shareholder at Sears Holdings Corp., plans to make himself heard.
As chief investment officer of Miami-based Fairholme Capital Management, Berkowitz has been a staunch supporter of Edward Lampert, the hedge fund manager who runs Sears and controls about half of the retailer’s shares. But Fairholme signaled a shift in its role at Sears in a Dec. 18 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-30/berkowitz-s-fairholme-increases-sears-stake-signals-active-role

And I think it's refreshing that this PM realizes that there are actual PEOPLE investing money into his fund...not just institutions.

My thoughts exactly. I'm sure he's busy with other things but took the time to call an individual investor.

The breakout by Credit Quality has '-' for GLRBX; the columns that are filled in are the benchmark and category average figures. I suspect the reason why the figures given are dated 12/31/11 is that this appears to be the last time that M* did a credit analysis on GLRBX - the "style history" table immediately above shows a style box for 2011 and nothing more recent.
I would suggest being wary of the benchmark/category average in the all the credit tables. Various numbers don't come close to the figures shown on the page for FBALX. (The figures are supposedly separated by a month, Sept vs. Oct 2015, so they shouldn't match exactly, but they should be closer than they are.)
It seems that if the last time that M* did a credit analysis was five or more years ago, M* does show the current benchmark and category figures. See the tables for OAKBX, where the claimed date for the tables is 12/31/10. The benchmark/category figures seem to match the (current) figures found with FBALX.

I've got very little in it anymore, but why is PRASX ALWAYS a laggard? Going back 10 years, it looks better than not bad. But if you invested in this fund 5 or 3 years ago, it sucks.

This does describe what I'm seeing - that an extra "income" dividend is paid at the end of the year, and that it doesn't vary by share class (since all the expenses have been paid already out of the usual monthly dividends).
What puzzles me about that M* statement (which likely reflects reality, at least in part), is that I don't see anything in the prospectus about the fund being an ersatz managed payout fund and that I can't get the financials to match.
Specifically, the fund's net investment income per share comes out to less than the total monthly income dividends (per share) paid out, let alone the total income dividends (including the year end "bonus"). How does it do this without return of capital?
This is based on the prospectus' Financial Highlights. (That's a 38MB file; just in case you've got thoughts of actually checking up on me :-) ) Wait for it to load so that it jumps to Financial Highlights, then scroll a few pages, past prospectus p. 87, to p. 89 where you'll find the data for PIMCO Income Fund.
It shows for the year ending 3/31/15 that the fund distributed 74c as income (for PONDX, i.e. Class D). This matches the sum of the monthly income dividends between April 2014 and March 2015 plus the bonus dividend on 12/29/14 of 10.6c, give or take rounding to the nearest penny.
But that same line in the prospectus says that the net income per share for the same period was only 49c. Where did that other 25c/share come from? The prospectus says there was no return of capital.
I honestly don't have a clue; I don't usually try to dissect financials this finely. There's more going on; can't really comment more on it without understanding it better. Homework for another day, perhaps.

@PRESSmUP - not unique, but not a routine occurrence (unlike monthly income divs and annual cap gains distributions).
The monthly income dividend comes on the last day of the month. For December, it came on the 31st in 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2010. In 2011 it was Dec 30th (Friday). The annual cap gains dividend comes each year in the middle of December.
In some years (2014, 2012, 2011) there was an extra distribution a couple of days before the end of the year. In other years (2013, 2010) there was not. When there was an extra distribution, it was 1x to 2x the mid December regular cap gains distribution (which IMHO looks bad enough - they should not be that bad at calculating the cap gains, absent a late sale). This year it was 25x (25c vs. 1c).
See historical div distributions at Yahoo Finance.
Morningstar is reporting the 24.75c/share div as an income dividend, but that's just repeating what PIMCO's supplemental dividend page said. How could a monthly income dividend of 5c/month transform into 25c for the month of December (in addition to the 5c dividend I expect to show up tomorrow)?
Unless PIMCO has been holding back on paying out the full amount of income on a monthly basis (contradicting its prospectus), or unless it is lying about the nature of the dividend? Any other suggested explanation of where an extra 5x monthly income div comes from?

I've held PONDX for the last 5 years, and in each year they've had multiple distributions during December. This is by design.
Is this year's occurrence of multiple distributions in December unique from prior years?

@msf Exactomundo! I saw this after my post (holiday-addled brain a little slow on the uptake). And whatever it is they have done, however they chose to do it, I'm also fairly certain why they did what they did.
Given the recent draw-down (and prospects slight for any imminent recovery), and with the sizable distribution they would have to give up, had they released this info when they announced preliminary estimates for yr-end distributions they effectively would have been whooping a blue light special for those looking for a good reset opportunity (esp. Class A shareholders). [provisions for resetting actually are stated in the prospectus; redeem shares and change your mind later and all one has to do is return all or part of it within circa 40d, with a letter explaining it is money from that redemption you wish to reinvest, and they give you the current NAV, load-waved]
Now, imagine what that would have precipitated. Beginning of December, a bunch of shareholders see the opportunity and go for it, redeeming a bunch, with intention of resetting in early January. Big portfolio churn, and at end of December? Insipid fund flow scorekeepers announce: BREAKING NEWS: Investors turn on 5-star PIMCO Income, yank $2B! Soooo, hushing this surprising "supplemental" distribution until its execution was doubly advantageous for them; for investors, advantage removed.

@ducrow: Based on it's 1-mo.-5 yr. 86/85 percentile performance I'd sell
Regards,
Ted
M*: ICMBX Performance
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/performance-return.action?t=ICMBX&region=usa&culture=en_US
ICMBX Is Ranked #59 In The (MA) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/moderate-allocation/intrepid-capital-fund/icmbx

Regardless of how the distribution is sliced and diced the drop in nav is due mainly to the distribution in the amount of $0.24752 as stated in an above post. This effects the funds nav pricing and a decline in nav valuation but it does not effect the funds total return performance numbers as distributions are part of the total return computation.

Something that seemed curious to me is that while PIMCO's link to the file is named is roughly what I stated above (quarterly/annual/supplemental), the file itself says only quarterly dividends. It looks like PIMCO may have grafted onto its quarterly income distributions a CG distribution (due to a last minute sale?).
Further evidence:
- The amount column is labeled Income Dividend Rate (as opposed to the Cap Cains Dividend Rate label that appears in its 12/15 distribution page)
- The distribution amounts are the same for all share classes; that happens for cap gains, not for income dividends (expenses are subtracted from income first, so share classes with different expenses have different net income distributions)
Put these two details together and it suggests a last minute change with incomplete editing, because you've got CGs listed in a file clearly labeled only for income distributions.

M*'s category list for foreign small/mid cap, not necessarily EM pure. Click the YTD column to sort returns through Dec. 29. More than a few active managers have done nicely for 2015 in this area. Always some of the right place/right time, eh?