@bee: From U.S. News & World Report (Copy & Paste)
Regards,
Ted
As of July 03, 2014, the fund has assets totaling almost $256.35 million invested in 31 different holdings. Its portfolio consists primarily of shares of large companies.
Relative to its large-cap value peers, this fund is aggressive in a number of ways. First, as of the end of January, the fund owned shares in just 29 companies. This concentrated, high-octane portfolio pushes the fund's performance, for better or worse, toward the extremes in any given year. The fund also has a fairly large part of its portfolio invested in small-cap names, which tend to be more volatile than their large-cap counterparts. And it is heavily invested in the technology sector, in which stocks are more commonly associated with fast growth than deep value. Meanwhile, the fund's turnover ratio exceeds 200 percent. This points to an opportunistic management team that is willing to trade quite frequently. Lately, this strategy has paid off extraordinarily well. The fund launched in 2007, and finished 2009 and 2010 in the top percentile of Morningstar's large-value category. Through the first quarter, the fund was once again in the top percentile of its group for 2011. Its returns over that three-month period beat the average for its Morningstar group by 13 percentage points. Its trailing three-year returns, as of the end of the first quarter, beat those of the S&P 500 by a whopping 18 percentage points per year.
Another distinguishing characteristic is the fund's exposure to international companies. One of its top holding, Flextronics International, is based in Singapore. Another big holding, Bombardier Inc., is based in Canada. As for U.S. companies, the fund's largest domestic positions are Apache and United States Steel Corporation. The fund has returned 50.79 percent over the past year and 11.34 percent over the past three years.
Investment Strategy
The fund follows an aggressive strategy. Management looks for companies whose prices are artificially low, often due to short-term losses of momentum. Management follows a highly compact strategy, which tends to push the fund's returns toward the extremes. The fund is heavily invested in foreign companies and, relative to its peers, in small-cap stocks. Management does quite a bit of trading, as is reflected in the fund's high turnover ratio. Meanwhile, when management doesn't see opportunities, it is willing to sit on a fairly substantial cash stake.

"CGM Focus Fund is for investors who believe that a smart manager can beat the market by picking stocks"
"I've never found a manager or a fund that consistently beats the market, although many certainly try."
"Back in 2009, Morningstar's Christine Benz looked at the reported returns and investor returns for CGM Focus, which had produced off-the-charts performance for years. She calculated that in the 10 years ended July 31, 2009, an investment of $10,000 would have grown to $51,633.
But when she studied the fund's investor returns, she found that an initial $10,000 investment would have shriveled to $1,585.
The fund could legally report a 10-year gain (not annualized) of more than 400%. Actual investors, on the other hand, lost more than 84% of their money in that same 10 years.
This discrepancy, while it is extreme, isn't limited to this fund. It's typical of investor behavior in general, as a research company named DALBAR has reported over and over.
Over 10 years, this difference between $51,633 and $1,585 was all due to investors' performance chasing while they repeatedly mistimed their purchases and sales, Benz wrote.
As this shows, impatient investors who are intent on beating the market can turn a mutual fund manager's superb 10-year performance (17.8% annualized) into awful returns for themselves (annualized losses of 16.8% over 10 years!)."

...I should feel good, then. PRESX is 15% of my portf. (?) The French billboard and media company mentioned in the article is indeed in the fund.....At a P/E of over 60!

Interesting to chart china-centric funds or ETFs over the last three years. Here's FXI and MCHFX charted. They seems to be stuck in a sideways range with cyclical lows edging higher from previous cycle lows, but bump up against resistance on the high side:

Within three three year period the highs and lows seem to be consistently a little higher each cycle.

If this persists the next cycle high would be about 15% from today's price.

This fund, CAMAX, has always intrigue me with its agressiveness and relative success. I have notice some shorting going on in the portfolio,

and would like any insight readers have on shorting as a strategy for a mutual fund or an overall portfolio.
CAMAX seens to be using SSO as it's largest short position (-5.38% of portfolio wt). I would imagine there is some secret sauce to this strategy which again certain fund managers (in this case, Brain Barish) implenent.
Finally, CAMAX recent lack of volitility and performance over the last two years is impressive when compared it to funds like YACKX:

FYI: Many Americans are making smart moves with their investment portfolios. They just might not know it.
With U.S. stocks at records and many commentators saying they're overpriced, American investors are diversifying into cheaper international stocks. Investors have pulled a net $6.3 billion from U.S. stock funds this year, according to Investment Company Institute (ICI) data, while putting $60.5 billion in foreign stock funds
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2014-07-22/why-u-s-investors-are-buying-foreign-stocks.html

FYI: One of the most fascinating mutual funds to watch over the past 15 years has been CGM Focus Fund.
I disagree with most of the things this fund does. I don't recommend it to anyone. And yet sometimes CGM Focus (MFD:CGMFX) is an amazing performer.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/top-funds-shareholders-missed-the-party-2014-07-23/print?guid=58338099-4139-4521-8BD8-0B535591F0C6
M* Snapshot Of CGMFX: http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/cgmfx/f?t=cgmfx
Lipper Snapshot OF CGMFX: http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/cgmfx
CGMFX Is Ranked # 248 In The (LCB) Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/large-blend/cgm-focus-fund/cgmfx

FPI is another farmland REIT - FPI - http://seekingalpha.com/article/2291113-farmland-is-the-next-big-thing-in-reits - article also mentions LAND.

You know, I want to like these companies, but I find issues with FPI, such as a significant concentration in the Midwest and specifically one state (33 out of 38 farms in Illinois.) The comments section under the SA article also throws out a number of other concerns. I like LAND a little better (which has farms in Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Oregon totaling 5,990 acres) but currently dont own either.
Article related to both:
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/cash-crops-with-dividends-financiers-transforming-strawberries-into-securities/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
Additionally, article mentions Whitebox owning ag investments in 2008 - a lot of those assets wound up going public as Ceres Global Ag, which is a traded entity in Canada (CERGF.PK in the US.)

More Options/Opportunity for World Investors Coming Next Year
Saudi Arabian stock markets will open to more foreign investment in 2015
Foreigners are at present believed to own no more than about 5 percent of the Saudi market, and to account for a smaller fraction of stock trading turnover.
Potential foreign interest in Saudi stocks is huge, because of the country's strong economy - the International Monetary Fund on Monday raised its forecast for Saudi growth this year to 4.6 percent - and the presence of some of the region's top blue-chip firms.
Foreign investors are estimated to own about 15 percent of other, much smaller stock markets in the Gulf such as Dubai. If foreigners raise their ownership of Saudi Arabia to that level, it could mean an inflow of some $50 billion into the country.
"This is a massive move for Saudi and for the region," said Rami Sidani
Sidani estimated Saudi Arabia could ultimately account for around 3 to 5 percent of MSCI's emerging market index.
"This is a potential game changer for the region – a very important milestone that people have been waiting for," said Salah Shamma, co-head of regional equities at U.S. fund management giant Franklin Templeton.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/22/us-saudi-stocks-investment-idUSKBN0FR0IQ20140722

FYI: Net cash flow into stock funds turned positive in 2013 — that is, the second half of 2013 and the first half of 2014 — as investors' confidence in the stock market returned
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTgzMDg5NTg=

From Julie Koeninger of GMO (the investment firm):
"Farmland investments consist of direct investments in rural land along with crop and livestock assets that produce food, fiber, and energy. Farmland investments focus on the productive capacity of the land base, and returns are based on the biological growth of crops and livestock, as well as appreciation of land and related assets. By their nature, farmland investments are long-term illiquid investments in real assets."

and,
"Investment Vehicles
Investors can participate in the farmland asset class through direct investments or through the use of a specialist farmland investment manager, that may offer funds, co-investments, or separately managed accounts. For most investors, developing a well-diversified portfolio of direct investments is prohibitively complex and time-consuming. Investing in farmland through a farmland investment manager can provide the benefits of diversification, experience, and scale. Closed-end funds have a fixed term with some potential for extension, but are generally illiquid for the term. As with private equity, fund terms can vary widely. Open-ended funds and publicly-traded REITs provide more liquidity, but valuation at entry and exit can be an issue in open-ended funds, and the performance of public REITs can be influenced by capital market trends and other factors apart from the underlying farmland investment. Co- investments and managed accounts often require a larger minimum investment, but offer investors a greater measure of control."
Full Primer:
advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/gmo_072114.php?WT.rss_f=CommentaRSS&WT.rss_ev=a&WT.rss_a=A_Farmland_Investment_Primer
Related Article from Barron's:
blogs.barrons.com/penta/2012/06/15/investing-in-timber-and-farmland/tab/print/

While the study's general conclusion is correct (few funds land in the top 25% every single year), it has from my perspective four serious problems.
1. The baseline period is March 2009 to 2010, which is to say they looked at the funds that had the greatest returns coming off a profound market bottom. The broad market return in those 12 months was 56%.
2. By picking a mid-year measurement period, they make it hard to test their conclusions since few public data sources allow you to screen for periods other than calendar years and trailing periods
3. There's no explanation for why the metric is reasonable. Few funds land in the top 25% every year, without exception. (a) Duh. (b) Who cares? If, hypothetically, a market is frothy and valuations stretched, do you really want a fund that's at the top of the heap? If you "win," by whatever standard you use with your portfolio, more often than you lose, does the "not every year" thing have any meaning?
4. S&P, author of the study and writer of indexes, uses the paper to justify investing in index funds. And so, we ask, how many index funds satisfied the researchers' criteria? That is, if the test is "top quarter every year," which of their preferred vehicles meet the standard? I suspect I can count the winners on the thumbs of one foot.
Just grumbling,
David

Maybe I can say this better than what I posted and deleted over the weekend. If you held this fund since inception you are ahead of the S&P. But besides being -4.54% YTD it has also underperformed the S&P by 8.12% and 6.65% per annum over the past three and five years respectively. Yes, I know its benchmark is not the S&P and I realize we have been in a long term bull since March of 09. But retirement and old age comes quicker than you might think and looking back in my younger years I would have hated to have been stuck in such an underperformer to the overall market over the past many years. Not my idea of building long term wealth. Then again, I admit to be biased against all these alternative/bear, and long/short funds that have sprung up out of nowhere since 2000.

A lot of dire forecasts for junk bonds in the various links of Ted original link above. Here's some more negative comments, these coming from Michael Aneiro's column in this week's Barron's. Mr. Aneiro has been a regular Cassandra on junk bonds for well over a year now. You know the broken clock analogy, so maybe Mr. Aneiro's time has finally arrived.
>>>Among current pockets of risk, as I've warned in this column before, is the corporate bond market. Not only are corporates rich, but they can also be harder to sell than they were just a few years ago. Since the financial crisis, banks have cut their corporate-bond holdings to keep pace with regulations. Inventory is down by 40% to 75%, according to various estimates, and if there's ever a rush to sell, fewer willing buyers could mean steeper losses, affecting bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs alike.
"THERE'S NO QUESTION that liquidity has decreased," says Gershon Distenfeld, director of high yield at AlianceBernstein, who says increased capital requirements have curtailed risk appetite among banks and dealers and made it more costly to maintain bond inventories. He adds that Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch used to represent more than a third of U.S. high-yield trading volume, and none of them exist as a stand-alone entity today.
Fixed-income trading at banks "is evaporating," says James Swanson, chief investment strategist at MFS Investment Management. He sees corporate bonds, particularly high yield, as increasingly perilous for investors. "Are those markets, given how low yields are, compensating you for the risk of illiquidity?"
Corporate bonds are often pulled in two directions: When equity prices fell amid last week's turmoil, riskier corporates slid, too, but the losses were tempered by gains in underlying Treasury bonds. That pattern can hold up for short periods but will be challenged during more protracted downturns, especially if nobody really wants to buy.<<<

FYI: Weeks of falling junk bond prices have started to spook some bond investors, signalling that the record run for the riskiest part of corporate debt may be ending.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-junk-bond-warning-investors-exit-as-yields-rise-2014-07-21/print?guid=58CC8F44-0E95-11E4-98A7-00212803FAD6

FYI: A look at some Morningstar Medalists with remarkable longevity and results
Regards,
Ted
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=656504

Thanks BobC for your comment I will add you as a hold in the poll. Always enjoy reading your comments. Last year I owned All Asset which was a topic on the board. At the time it was faltering and I gave it a full year to get its act together ... and, it did. Currently, ytd, it is the third best performing member of its six member sleeve. I am glad I continued to hold. As you say Mr. Arronstein is no doubt a very skilled manager but just how much money can one manager handle? Seems to me, Mainstay opened the gates and continued to build assets which results in more fees for themselves and makes it more difficult for the manager to effectively position.
I remember when Duke Energy merged with Progress Energy in North Carolina things seemed to be in flux when Mr. Johnson the then to become the CEO was fired within hours after the merge. Team Marketfield went short DUK and this little move had a good impact on the funds overall performance because of its much smaller asset base. Today, this would amount to no more than a drop in a big bucket. With its size today it has to look for much bigger macro opportunity.
Bob, I really value you comments that you make on the board ... but, it gets down to each of us have to do what we feel is best. For me MFLDX is a small holding overall within my portfolio, but it does equal about 25% of its five member specialty sleeve. And, it is currently the faltering fund member both within its sleeve and within the portfolio. I have some short term bond funds that are currently outperforming it. I just feel it is taking the manager too long to position the fund based upon ever changing macro themes ... and, that spells asset bloat as it is no longer the nimble fund that it was when I first purchased it. If I felt Mainstay would put a hard close on the fund ... I'd stay. I don't see this happening.
For me, it is now time to move on to something else. For those that wish to continue to hold it ... I wish all well.
Old_Skeet

Hmmm. Available in my retirement account. $5M minimum investment. Closed to new investors.
Sorry if I pry, but are you guys such high flyers that you trade in and out of a $5M minimum fund? Or maybe the minimum has not always been that high?

Minimum definitely wasn't $5M.

Hmmm. Available in my retirement account. $5M minimum investment. Closed to new investors.
Sorry if I pry, but are you guys such high flyers that you trade in and out of a $5M minimum fund? Or maybe the minimum has not always been that high?
There are several classes of this fund - including load classes and an investor class MFNDX at a $2500 minimum, apparently open. Are you invested in one of these lesser classes, and using MFLDX as a proxy for what you own?
JMO - I'd expect an investor with above $5M in MFLDX would be in the super-$25M investable assets range, and I would expect them to employ professional money management services. Maybe not ...