@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.

What does uncle Jeffrey say about this? DLFNX is holding 16.53% in cash. DBLTX holds 13.56% cash. (If we can trust that number from Morningstar.) I do think JG knows what he's doing. I remember an interview on Bloomberg tv a few years back. He simply said that he was "exploiting inefficiencies in the Market..... I wish I could teach it." With that latter phrase, he sounds like me, but I don't claim to know the Markets the way he does, though! I'm what you might call a RANK AMATEUR.

Hi LLJB,
Thanks for the link to J P Morgan’s 4th Quarter 2014 Guide to the Markets. Indeed good and useful information is to be found here. I plan to save the link.
I like your idea and it seems very sound to me. As a matter of fact my late father favored dividend paying stocks over traditional fixed income investments. He did carry some bonds for diversification purposes but felt a good dividend stock the better choice as it would over the years, most often, grow its dividend over time plus, in most cases, provide capital appreciation. And, I have not moved away form this concept either as my spiff is paying me a good dividend while I carry it and more so than a short term bond fund would but not what a high yield bond fund would pay.
One of his favorite strategies was taking advantage of the traditional fall and winter stock market rally which I now have now put in play, during the recent October swoon, and have named this special investment position “spiff.”
Putting this spiff into play has tilted my asset allocation somewhat along with the fact that many of my hybrid funds found in the growth & income area of my portfolio are also a little light in bonds and combined has made me light in bonds within my overall portfolio’s asset allocation ranges that I generally follow. My neutral allocation to bonds is about 30% and with me currently managing bonds at the 25% range has already put me at about 5% light. Now, I am at about 22% to 23% in bonds and wanting to work back towards the 25% allocation which I’ll do over the next few months, or so.
According to my quick review of the “Guide” it seems equities are the place to be.
Old_Skeet

Just wondering with no opinion because my choice during the summer was to eliminate bonds from my portfolio, but wouldn't there be an option to allocate some of the fixed income portion of a portfolio to dividend focused funds or etfs? I read in JP Morgan's Q4 Guide to the Markets that there's a positive correlation between stock prices and 10 Yr Treasury interest rates up to 5%. I've linked the guide and the page I'm referring to is page 12.
https://jpmorganfunds.com/cm/Satellite?UserFriendlyURL=diguidetomarkets&pagename=jpmfVanityWrapper
I think the current yield on the 10 Year is about 2.3%, which, in general terms of course, would suggest to me that we should have a decent opportunity in stocks for a while after rates start to rise.
If managers are reducing bond holdings and moving to shorter durations, my assumption would be the yields are also going down. I think, based on M*'s X-ray of my portfolio and reverse calculating, that the dividend yield on the S&P 500 is around 1.7%, which isn't great, but presumably a case could be made that the total return on a dividend focused strategy could match or beat the total return on shorter duration fixed income up to a 5% 10 Year yield if fixed income is losing on the price side.
I haven't gone through all the details enough to convince myself one way or the other (clearly its influenced by the particular stocks chosen) but thought its at least worth throwing it out there as an idea.

Hi Catch and others,
I am working on the coffee this morning too.
Seems, to me, when investors become faint at heart and rush for the exits in an attempt to build their cash positions asset valuations drop. This is one of the reasons Old_Skeet holds ample amount of cash to take advantage of these buying opportunities that usually take place several times a year.
I usually, build my cash position by selling equities into stock market strength. And, I may do this again and lean towards carrying a high level of cash. Currently, I am about neural in cash at about 15%, a little light in fixed income area and heavy in equity area. Come January, I am thinking of starting a sell down process in my equities if the market continues to advance and raise my cash by about 5% above neutral, buy a little fixed income to square the bond allocation to about the 25% range and then bubble equities a little on the light side through the sell down process as we move through the first and second quarters of 2015. I'd like to enter summer being a little light in the equity area by about five percent, or so.
In this way, come fall I can then begin to load equities and reduce cash by starting the "special investment spiff" process all over again to take advantage of the traditional fall and winter stock market strengths. Usually, stocks are the strongest in the fall and winter months and fixed income is strongest during the summer months with a transition period happening in between. However, the central banks have a lot to say about this tradition.
Anyway, this is Old_Skeet's thoughts as we move into December and start to close the year out as I am collecting all mutual fund capital gain distributions in cash. Come January, I’ll revisit this and most likely govern by my late father's old investment playbook.
I wish all … “Good Investing.”
Old_Skeet

Howdy @Old_Skeet and @JohnChisum
Are the equity managers of the groups mentioned in the ariticle also attempting to conclude what they will do if and when their equity holdings also encounter a "liquidity" event?
If high yield bonds and bank loans become illiquid to the point of "folks being scared"; will this not affect the equity sectors, too?
I remain with questions about the October 15, 10 year Treasury yield taking the big plunge. The below link is for your reading pleasure, including the comments section.
Note: You should be able to read this WSJ link with your first linkage. After that (a second read), not unless a subscriber or clear all browser history.
Hey, why did the 10 year T yield drop like a rock on October 15? Dunno, eh?
Other Google search links related to October 15
The musical chairs of investing remain in place.
More coffee please !!!
Catch

regarding MAINX, I found it interesting in the geographical listings that Cayman Islands is number 2 with 18.51% of the portfolio.

Hello, JC! Reassuring, thanks. And your final remark helps me understand why MAINX is not tracking so much higher, along with some other bond funds. M* has it in a "World Bond" category. I think they just didn't bother to look under the hood! My EM bond fund is PREMX, + ytd 6.75%. My domestic bond fund is DLFNX, up + ytd by 6.28%.