FYI:
Regards,
Ted
WSJ Slant:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stock-futures-fall-along-with-european-markets-1429273588?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
Bloomberg Slant:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-17/u-s-index-futures-retreat-before-ge-honeywell-report-earnings
Reuters Slant:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/17/us-markets-stocks-usa-idUSKBN0N816320150417
MarketWatch Slant:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-futures-tilt-south-ahead-of-ge-consumer-prices-2015-04-17/print
WSJ Markets At A Glance:
http://markets.wsj.com/us
Sector Tracker:
http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker
Current Futures:
http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

So I see. But at least the others are at 1.35%

@little5bee
It will be worth watching how it does today (April 17, Friday) and for the next week or so if the equity markets remain in a down trend and/or sideways at lower levels.
My 2 cents worth for these type of funds when the equity sectors are not in the "up" mode.

@jlev I see that now that you mention it. But, if you check out the paragraph directly beneath that box you will see information explaining what the beginning expense ratio will be for both investor and institutional share classes through August 31, 2016. 2.25% & 2% respectfully.

FPACX
Activity:
Trimmed CVS, Intel and
Thermo Fisher
Added to a few names, including
Bank of America, Carlsberg, Citigroup, Joy Global and
Owens Illinois
Purchased 2 new equity positions in the quarter General Electric included
Initiated a
couple new debt positions, though small.
Top contributors for
the quarter were
Naspers, TE Connectivity, CVS, Thermo Fisher
and Alibaba (short)
.
Top detractors were
TenCent
(short)
, Microsoft, Alcoa, Oracle and
Bank of America
.
Positioning:
Gross
exposure to equities
remains at approximately 55%
and net exposure is circa 52%
. Fixed Income remains extremely low
at around 1.4%
.
Added
to private investments, specifically
real estate partnerships
Cash is approximately 45%
Outlook:
Remains difficult to find opportunities and businesses
that trade at attractive valuations.
We are looking at the shipping industry
and continue to explore possibilities in oil and
gas, specifically manufacturing and equipment.
http://fpafunds.com/docs/fpa-crescent-fund/q1-2015-crescent-update-w_o-cpi-docx.pdf?sfvrsn=2
Fact Sheet
http://fpafunds.com/docs/fund-fact-sheets/cre-fact-sheet-q4-2014.pdf?sfvrsn=2df?sfvrsn=2

Uhhh ...
Working on figuring out why this research isn't, well, stupid. The basic argument is this: if an "institutional investor" owns shares in two companies in the same industry, it's in the manager's best interest for both of the firms to overcharge which maximizes the firms' earnings and the investors' profits at the expense of customers. Since "the 1%" invest and "the 99%" shop, it's a systemic transfer of money from the latter to the former.
The proposed solution is this: allow each "institutional investor" to own one and only one stock in each industry sector.
Uhhh ...
(blinks)
Uhhh ...
Okay, the analysis is based on one of the world's worst and oddest industries, commercial airlines where capital costs are vast, a key resource (access to gates at hub airports) is guarded like a dragon's hoard and disruptors are few.

General Electric Co is a diversified company with products & services that range from aircraft engines, power generation, oil & gas production equipment, & household appliances to medical imaging, business & consumer financing and industrial products.

So if you invest in GE, you're blocked from any further investment in the seven industries in which it has operations?
The S&P 500 becomes the S&P No More Than 100?
Of course, you could only have one of Barnes & Noble and Borders because they represent an unassailable duopoly.
And it's at least plausible that the requirement would be that Fidelity, as a whole, could own only one bank since Posner keeps pointing an accusing finger at "BlackRock" without any hint of what at BlackRock owns the apparently dysfunctional, conflicting stakes.
Except for the fact that smart outsiders have so often said incredibly stupid things about the workings of the fund industry (the federal appeals court in one case decided that (a) rich people are smart, (b) rich people pay high fees for actively-managed hedge funds, and (c) the fees on actively-managed mutual funds are lower than those on hedge funds, therefore (d) the fees on mutual funds are reasonable.)
David

Current shareholder of Global Reach and am initially intrigued by the Global Micro-Cap fund but...2.25% expense ratio...yikes.

@Charles, From the August 1, 2013 MFO Commentary mentioning GP's intent:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2013/08/august-1-2013/
"...Those strategies are:
•Global Reach, their 300-500 stock flagship fund
•Global Opportunities, a more concentrated version of Global Reach
•International Opportunities, the non-U.S. sub-set of Global Reach
•Emerging Markets Opportunities, the emerging and frontier markets subset of International Opportunities
•US Opportunities, the U.S.-only subset of Global Opportunities
•Global Value, the “Fallen Angels” sub-set of Global Reach
•Global Microcap, the micro-cap subset of Global Reach..."

@Scott
Yes, I believe you are correct.
August 17, 2011, the Board of Trustees of Nakoma Mutual Funds (the “Trust”) approved the reorganization of the Nakoma Absolute Return Fund (the “Nakoma Fund”), a series of the Trust, into the Schooner Global Absolute Return Fund (the “Schooner Global Absolute Return Fund”)
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1355975/000089271211000724/nakoma497.htm
http://www.mfwire.com/article.asp?storyID=37713&template=article&bhcp=1
Then in 2013, Schooner liquidated the fund:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1141819/000089418913000794/schnrgbl-tpm_497e.htm

Vanguard funds have managers, of course, but their job is much simpler: To follow indexes."

While that sound so tautological as to be beyond question, question it we must. Vanguard has written:

Over the past six months, one of the principal differences between the funds and their indexes resulted from a decision by our portfolio managers and analysts to overweight the telecommunications sector. This decision rested on the belief that the prices of these bonds were cheap relative to those in other sectors. .....
The funds also were hurt by our "corporate substitution" policy - Buying corporate bonds instead of Treasury securities in the short-term end of the market."

Vanguard has altered policies since its Total Bond Market Index fund underperformed the total market index by 1.9% in 2002. But the fact that Vanguard has played these games in the past means that the opening quote does not merit a pass as self evident.
Here's M*'s column on the matter, noting that for a decade the fund "attempted to boost its returns by holding a higher percentage of short-term corporate bonds and asset-backed securities and fewer short-term Treasuries than did its index." Emphasis added.
You can also find the Vanguard quote in a M* discussion thread here:
http://socialize.morningstar.com/NewSocialize/forums/t/69530.aspx

@JohnChisum, sorry, my use of the term larger cap wasn't very good. I didn't mean "large cap" because as you rightly pointed out there's almost no large cap stocks in GPROX. It's still a good chunk of small caps plus the mid and large cap pieces of GPROX that will be the stocks to choose from, anything with a market cap greater than $1.5 billion.

The Stalwarts funds were written about in their Q4 commentary and the idea is to take the larger cap companies from GPROX and provide additional capacity to clients, hence the prospectus mentions that these will be companies with market caps greater than $1.5 billion. This seems like a bad business decision to me. Its an unnatural/arbitrary slice of GPROX I think and if the other funds are the best of the international/emerging markets/global ideas, then these should end up being some of the best and some of the not so best. These guys had their Ferrari going with very restricted supply and too much demand. These funds seem a little like a joint venture with Ford.
The language in Investment Strategies for all three of these funds seems to address the Fallen Angels situations and like @davfor I'd guess there's not enough of them currently for a separate fund.
I'm a little confused by the Micro Cap fund because the market cap description (less than $1 billion) doesn't seem much different than GPGOX. Maybe the implementation will be a bit different, but I was really expecting the smallest of the small.

For a very small fee of 0.1%, I would manage others' moneys by transitioning from AOA to AOR to AOM to AOK every 5-15 years or so. I wonder how that would compare.

The "stalwarts" funds appear to be more for mid- and large-cap stocks (> $1.5 billion). I suppose that's the reason they figure they have adequate capacity for new funds and can't afford to remove the hard close on the others.

I couldn't help but notice the title of the column: Fidelity vs. Vanguard, not actively managed vs. passively managed. So why did Merriman do the latter comparison? Fidelity has a series of target date funds that invest in index funds, and have exactly the same underlying ER as Vanguard; 0.16%.
(To John's point - sometimes Fidelity does not charge more for the same product; they generally match Vanguard in the index arena.)
There are still a couple of differences though, that Hank alluded to: the glide path of Fidelity funds (whether these index ones, or the ones Merriman chose to use as straw men) continue changing until 15 years past their target date (i.e. you still need growth past age 65). Vanguard's settle into a sleepy 30/70 (stock/bond) split just five years after retirement.
Then there is the breadth of assets employed. Even these "boring" Fidelity index target funds use TIPs and commodities. (The actively managed Fidelity target funds go further) And still they do this with the same ER. (To be fair, Vanguard adds international bonds, albeit hedged.)

A few questions for Mr. Andrew Foster:
Where do you plan to go for your next Field Notes trip?
Would you consider adding a retail+ share class with a min of $50k and an e.r. in between your retail and institutional?
At the start of the fund, there was a monthly commentary. Lately, this hasn't been the case (zero market commentaries in 2013 and one in 2014). What's the plan going forward? Will the quarterly portfolio review replace this?
Could you please provide some context for the holdings that are showing a negative EPS growth for this year? Looks like some financials, REITs, and a healthcare stock.

FYI: These closed-end funds were unstoppable in early 2015; plus, did the first IPO of 2015 usher in a new era for CEF shareholders?
Regards,
Ted
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=692850&part=1

Well, then there is only one thing left to be done. Isn't it obvious? Go benchmark shopping! Find one that is "a more accurate reflection of our investment methodology," or whatever. Apply to recent results and--- voila!--- retrospectively, the 3- and 5-yr ave. annual returns "just happen" to beat their (new) benchmark as well. What a coincidence! History redone. Fund is now an awesome benchmark beater.