Roughly 18% is in Russia as well. He has the headwinds of Russian foreign policy and deflation in his way so I think he's right broadly speaking but he was too early. His AUM are down 15% in the last few months and some of that has to be withdrawals because I think he still had $1 billion when he was already down 7 or 9% YTD. He only has a bit less than 10% cash and I guess he needs to hold most of that for redemptions, so he doesn't have a big opportunity to add to positions he believes strongly in.
I would like to invest in the fund and I think he will eventually make a very big return, but I'm waiting until something seems to turn in his favor and I'll average in assuming it won't be a perfectly straight line once things start to turn. If I already held the fund I most likely wouldn't sell because I do believe in his theory and his history, but I'd be hoping I wasn't fully invested so that I could add more when it seemed appropriate.

David Iben who is the Portfolio Manager for Kopernik KGGIX/KGGAX is off to a rough start. Former manager of Nuveen Tradewinds Value Opportunities and had excellent returns.
YTD Down -15.37
Is this a buy, sell, or hold?

Dear friends,
Accipiter and Chip are going to install a security patch to the Vanilla board software on Saturday morning. They tell me that it's a pretty minor matter; with luck, our downtime will be 10 or 15 minutes.
Maybe less, 'cause they're good. And maybe more, 'cause software is weird. But I'm betting on them.
David

if it were me and I wanted to find out distributions.
I would call my company they have the most up to date info that may not be reflected. Or I would take my fingers to the google web site and spend one minute to search for the family or fund I wan interested in.
this may also help someone ... if not, my suggestion is to google and type.
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/17354/google-for-estimated-distributions-links

@JohnChisum, thanks!
It seems to me that Horrocks didn't make the best judgment not only from a return perspective but from a tax perspective as well. The 3 year returns for the fund are now below the category average and although I don't normally pay a lot of attention to 3 years, I've been considering my allocation for next year and MAPIX is going to be reduced.
Interestingly, I wrote a note to Horrocks a few days ago about the article he wrote for Asia Insight on Asia's Deepening Capital Markets. In it he said that Asia Pacific equity markets compose roughly 32% of the world's free-floating market capitalization and that it represents $20 trillion in market capitalization. When I look at MSCI's ACWI + Frontier Markets IMI index, they say 99% of the global investable equity opportunity set is a bit less than $43 trillion, and I calculate Asia's portion of that somewhere around 25%. I wrote to him because I was hoping he could help me understand the $17 trillion of global market cap that I'm missing, more than half of which is apparently in Asia. I don't have any response yet, which isn't that surprising given the holiday and all, but I'm wondering if his mistakes are growing in number.

Just the 3 1/2 hours did enough damage for some of my holdings !
PowerShares Global Gold&Precious Met PSAU 15.83 -1.58 (-9.08%)
Guinness Atkinson Global Energy Fund (MUTF:GAGEX) 27.27-2.88(-9.55%)
AMG SouthernSun Small Cap Fund Investor Shares(MUTF:SSSFX) 27.44-0.83(-2.94%)

I commend max for voting with his feet. We must in the world of investing trust our instincts honed by years of experience and after serious introspection make valid, for us, decisions.
Maxl's action is proper. For the 56 million a year they collect from MAPIX fund's expense ratio, it is incumbent on them to be obsequious to Maxl and courteous in their response. Maxl pays Tito's salary and is justified in being irate. In a tax sheltered account his immediate response to rudeness is correct and my hat is tipped to him.

Hello. It's 12:55 p.m. (EST) on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I just got a call back from the Matthews "compliance officer" named Tito. I believe his surname appears further up in this thread. I hung up on him twice without knowing who was calling, with a quick "on" then "off" with my phone buttons, because the Caller ID registered a bunch of unidentifiable nonsense. When he called back a 3rd time, I DID pick up, because the unidentifiable source of the call was becoming a nuisance. I answered the phone with "This better be good." He immediately identified himself. I made the point that if the Matthews funds are calling a shareholder, it would make sense that the receiver of the call be able to identify the source of the call, because these days, all manner of junk and cold-sales calls and crap comes in on the phone. He didn't like that much. He even went a bit further, to say that "I know for a fact that the caller ID comes up as Matthews Funds, and I don't like your tone. And if you don't like that, you are welcome to redeem your shares."
I didn't want to act rashly, so I waited a moment and bit my tongue, and simply said: "You called to tell me something?" He went on to tell me what he intended to tell me in response to my own call, on Wednesday, before the Thanksgiving holiday. He was almost finished--- and I could TELL that he was almost finished--- because he was reading from a script. He was using the same "talking points" blurb we have all already seen. I stopped and said: "Pardon me, Tito, but it sounds as though you are reading to me from off a script." He replied, "I AM reading from a script..." and continued a bit further.
At which point, I told him, deliberately giggling: "I'll be going now, Tito." And I hung up.
And that's it. The Fat Lady has sung. I'll be moving all of my Matthews money. .......When I called back, the switchboard even refused to let me talk to anyone else. End of story. Almost all of my Matthews money is in a Trad. IRA. I will do the simplest thing, and not even take the cash into my hands, but arrange for it to be sent directly to a new Custodian. Recommendations from any of you here at MFO for foreign exposure would be most appreciated. I've been with Matthews since 2003. Shareholders do not deserve to be dismissed and told they are not seeing what they are seeing, and then get their questions answered by reading from a blurb. This is all just shameful. I'm literally sick to my stomach just now. I will wait and research and not act rashly.

And a big hammer, too; for the junk bonds related to this sector. @johnN recently posted buying individual bonds in this sector and being able to receive more or less, a projected yield of 8%. I suspect that with a bit of waiting in this area may find pricing much more attractive going forward and a yield more to a range of 16% or more. The real challenge would be finding company bonds in this sector that do not default, which is a likely scenario for more than a few in this area.
The etf, HYG may likely be down 1% today. Current composition of this etf is about 15% in the energy related sector of its 1,000 holdings. The majority of HY, active managed funds I have reviewed have about a 8-9% exposure in the energy junk bond arena.
A buying opportunity will emerge going forward, eh ???
Take care,
Catch

@Ted That could work. However, if "one" were to scroll down all 4 pages (and headed for a 5th soon), "one" would note a goodly number of other contributors in addition to Shadow, i.e. it has been a collective effort. If these "comments" were eliminated, it would all fall to Shadow, and I think he carries quite a bit of water already (as do you). Why not lighten his load--- the power of the group?
@Old_Skeet That is a good suggestion, but poses 2 challenges: (1) in order to bookmark a thread, one first must be able to find the thread, and (2) if one can find the thread, bookmarking it for continuing use is far too obvious and effective a solution, and therefore must be eliminated from consideration. ;)

Hello,
One can book mark the thread and, with this, retrieve it regardless of how deep it might get buried in the stack of post. I did this and if I need to reference it I just click on my bookmarks and bring it up. In addition, I am linking a site below that one can look up yearend capital gain distributions by fund family.
http://www.capgainsvalet.com/search/?appSession=169106752968734
I hope all have a grand day … and, most of all “Good Investing.”
Old_Skeet

regarding Title of Post 75% no comment links,

it seems its not worth beating a dead horse. now.
regarding posts "with no comments".
- some people like posts that are just posts that have links in them - nothing has changed regarding viewing.
- some people don't like to see lots of discussions with 0 comments. - that is potentially solved now
by clicking on discussions+ on top left hand side in panel.
if there is a technical glitch with discussions+ - let me know.

The 'front page' of MF Discuss here, as I write, consists of 40 posts, of which 30 are links only with no comments, posted by a single individual. (There are a couple more no-comment links from others.)
For MFO, selectivity, not cleanliness, is next to godliness. It continues to be too difficult to sort through the chaff to find topics of interest.

I tried this, instead: 1-415-788-7553...I spoke to the front desk woman. You all would have been proud of me. I didn't curse and eat her face. Eventually, she put me onto Tito Pombra. But of course, his voicemail picked up. I could do nothing else but to ask him to call me back... So, we'll all just wait and see how long THAT might take....

No info on email address, but here is HQ:
Matthews International Funds
4 Embarcadero Ctr # 550, San Francisco, 94111
California
Phone: (415) 788-6036
We're leaving for San Diego in the early morning, but perhaps someone could give them a call and inquire as to the email address.

********************
Old Joe: Recorded female voice: "You have reached a number which has been disconnected or is no longer in service."
The only phone number I know of, offhand, without looking deeper, is 1-800-789-ASIA.

FYI: (Follow-Up Article)
Mutual fund capital gains distributions. They come unbidden, usually in early or mid-December. And they're one of the worst parts of owning mutual funds.
Regards,
Ted
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=675228

No info on email address, but here is HQ:
Matthews International Funds
4 Embarcadero Ctr # 550, San Francisco, 94111
California
Phone: (415) 788-6036
We're leaving for San Diego in the early morning, but perhaps someone could give them a call and inquire as to the email address.