Hey. it only took three days, but M* status of my 1 star fund is now current...

Although I would have thought Friday's jump should have earned it a 2nd star...

A side note for those who care (perhaps too much) about who got caught in the 2003ish mutual fund scandal.
Here's a settlement notice from Columbia that pays shareholders of (among other funds) Acorn International, Acorn Select, and funds coming from Stein Roe, Newport, Wanger, and others whose lineage I don't care to track down.
I do recall that one of the more egregious offenders was Nations Bank (which later got merged into Columbia Funds).
I'm not going to sort out which funds were involved; just point out that the scandal appears to have come into present day Columbia from two distinct lines - Nations Bank and Fleet Boston (which bought Liberty which bought Acorn among others). So there were scoundrels on both sides of the "family".

This is not one of NYTimes better articles. It strongly implies that this is a vanilla case of excessive fees for 401(k) services. But that's not what's going on here.
Observe that the trial court awarded $37M. The appeals court reversed the $1.7M judgment against Fidelity, and affirmed $13.4M to be paid by ABB. Notice anything missing, like, say, $22M (actually $21.8M)?
That $22M amount was ruled speculative and excessive (ABB, when it swapped in a series of target date funds to the 401(k) plan, swapped out Wellington, for which the trial court penalized ABB). I believe it was sent back down (remanded) to the trial court for a better analysis.
The only award that was affirmed was the $13.4M. This was not the "usual" high-fees issue. What ABB and Fidelity did here went beyond the pale (IMHO). They agreed that Fidelity would charge above market rates (so the issue is not that prevailing market rates were excessive), and in exchange, Fidelity would not charge ABB fees for other services that Fidelity was providing that had nothing to do with the 401(k) plan.
(Specifically, Fidelity was providing some payroll and record keeping services.)
In short, when the numbers don't add up (literally), it's best to do some fact checking. Here's the appellate ruling, for anyone interested.

Thanks Charles.
Regarding the Sears bonds, are these senior bonds? If so, I wouldn't be as worried. In bankruptcy the senior bonds are ahead of unsecured bonds and common stock.

The bonds in the ridiculously complex rights offering are unsecured. Lampert has secured and I'm not sure what Fairholme currently has (I'm guessing secured?)
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-10-30/sears-has-a-deal-to-offer-its-shareholders
Get a $500 bond (five-year maturity, 8 percent coupon, senior unsecured at Sears Holdings)

Ted, thanks for posting.
I think the article makes some good points.
This is the very reason I recently just opened a starter position in SGGDX as I plan to position cost average this into a full position, over time, within the specialty sleeve of my portfolio.
In review of a recent portfolio Instant Xray analysis I am currently holding about a 5% allocation in the materials sector. In checking some of my reference sites, I am finding that the two most oversold sectors currently are the energy and the materials sectors. Combined these two sectors currently account for about 15% of my equity allocation ... and, in compairing this to the weightings found in the S&P 500 Index (13%) this puts me currently at about a 15% overweight to these two sectors. If I add only one more percent then this will put me at about a 25% overweight to these two sectors when combined.
For long term oriented investors like myself I feel it is better to buy when things are out of favor. So look for me to do a little more buying in funds that have a good weighting in these two sectors. One fund that I own PGUAX has about a 30% weighting to the energy sector and is kicking off about a 4.25% dividend yield and another fund SGGDX is heavly exposed to the materials sector by holding about 70% of its assets in the miners.
I wish all ... "Good Investing."
Old_Skeet

Good Firm to maintain your portfolio with:
Article Highlights:
We're permanent shareholders," good times and bad, McNabb said. So Vanguard, the Malvern-based mutual fund giant that manages $3 trillion in assets, feels obliged to pressure bosses to help "create as much wealth for our investors as we can."
McNabb said that earlier this year Vanguard sent messages to 350 companies saying, "Here's something we don't like."......
About 80 companies "have already made the changes" at Vanguard's request this year, McNabb said. "A bunch more are under discussion," he added.
That's my boys....tb

FYI: Less than 10 percent of 401(k) accounts administered by Fidelity Investments were invested entirely in stocks last quarter. It's the latest step in a yearslong march toward more balanced nest eggs. Fidelity keeps records for 13.1 million 401(k) participants, and its figures reach back to 2001, when the dot-com bubble was deflating and 33 percent of 401(k) plans were entirely in stocks. The percentage has dropped every year since then.
Regards,
Ted
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3d7de4a5cb98423a944a345cde175e95/investors-find-better-balance-their-401ks

FYI: From hot to not and back again, Japanese stocks have been a confusing lot the last couple years.
Japan's stock market is flying after the Bank of Japan surprised the world last week by increasing its bond-buying stimulus program. The Nikkei 225 index jumped nearly 5 percent the day of the announcement, and it's back in the black for the year. In the spring, it was down nearly 15 percent. That follows a stellar 2013, where the Nikkei soared nearly 60 percent.
Underlying all the market moves is investor confidence in whether Japan can jumpstart its economy's too-weak inflation. Japanese shoppers and companies have grown accustomed to prices staying the same, which encourages them to delay purchases and investments. That weighs on consumer spending and restricts the economy.
To raise its inflation rate and jolt Japan, the country's central bank is pushing stimulus. Last week's surprise move caused the value of the yen to drop. That serves to make imported goods more expensive for Japanese shoppers and also boosts revenue for Japanese exporters.
Even after the big jump for Japanese stocks, they remain cheaper than their U.S. counterparts, says Taizo Ishida. He is the lead manager of the Matthews Japan fund, whose $683 million in assets makes it one of the biggest to focus solely on Japan. He recently discussed what U.S. investors can expect from the market. Answers have been edited for clarity.
Regards,
Ted
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/039ca5a0a61e457397f041c017b307fd/what-japans-stimulus-jolt-means-investors
M* Snapshot Of MJFOX: http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/f?t=MJFOX&region=usa&culture=en-US
Lipper Snapshot Of MJFOX; http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Fund/MJFOX?countrycode=US
MJFOX Is Rank #3 In The (JS) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:

"The fund also ranks in the top 1% of its short-term category for the one-, three-and five-year periods. While those results are impressive, the comparison is a bit misleading. The short-term categorization from Morningstar is merely a reflection of the fund’s current portfolio, which has an average effective duration of about three years." (Barron's profile, my emphasis)
FATRX is not a ST bond fund, and neither is THOPX (as some MFOers recently characterized it in another thread); they are total return bond funds which, for now, have chosen to keep their durations short enough, for long enough, that M* has thrown them into the ST bond category (resulting, IMO, in some pretty serious distortions in relative performance and purpose).
Nonetheless, I checked out FATRX awhile back and thought Elswick could become a good one. His core plus portfolio has been and is presently somewhat different than standard fare. Too bad it comes with a FEL=2.25%; just such a turnoff for me

Hello,
As of Sunday October 9, 2014 @ 2:45 AM EST ... SGGDX has yet to update with Friday's closing price in both the M* fund report and their portfolio manager system.
So you can see this with your own eyes I have provided a link to the fund report. Notice it is showing pricing and performance information as of market close of Thursday 10/06/2014.
http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/f?t=SGGDX&region=USA
If there was something broke at my old firm we would have wanted to know ... and, with this I plan to extend this courtesy and call them on Monday. Thanks rjb112 for providing contact numbers.
I'll post an update about this on Monday.
I am thinking ... This is not good. Hopefully, they will have a fix soon?

Sometimes you have to work with the hand you're dealt. My first 403b experience was through a life insurance company that took 5% off the top of all contributions. A few years later the employer switched to another life insurer with better fees up front but heavy penalties for withdrawal before the 7 year vesting period was up.
Don't let these bad policies get at you @MaxBialystock. The benefit of the lowered AGI on your income taxes exceeds the fees they throw at you. Also, time is a great compounder. You lose out a lot by skipping years of contributions. The miracle of compounding as it is called.
Of course max out any other plans you have like IRA's.

Acadian Funds
http://www.acadian-asset.com/~/media/Files/Topics/Mutual Funds/CapGainDistributionAcadianFunds2014.ashx
Causeway Funds
http://www.causewayfunds.com/pdfs/2014_Distribution_Estimates.pdf
Ariel Funds
https://www.arielinvestments.com/content/view/2833/1850/

Bruce Berkowitz is even "all in" with Sears in his Fairholme Focused Income fund, FOCIX.
More than 26% of the portfolio is a Sears bond.

I suspect any responses you get will be from legacy investors like Maurice and myself. Though unlike Maurice, I did invest in a Columbia fund ages ago, when Columbia was a boutique shop in Oregon with a few good growth funds. Got rid of that in 1997 when Columbia was acquired by Fleet Boston (later called Fleet Financial).
The Acorn lineage that Maurice is referring to is almost completely separate. Liberty acquired a bunch of fund companies including Stein Roe (Young Investors fund, Stein Roe Special), Newport Pacific (Newport Tiger Fund), Wanger (Acorn Funds), and others.
Fleet Boston brought these Liberty lines together with Columbia in 2001 (when it acquired Liberty). BofA in turn acquired the whole mess in 2004, subsequently merging some Nations Bank funds into it. (BofA had merged with Nations Bank previously.)
Regarding Excelsior funds - they were acquired by US Trust (which was acquired at some point by Schwab, but sold to BofA in 2007), and rebranded Columbia when BofA acquired them.
BofA has since sold the Columbia line to Ameriprise.
The Acorn funds have been kept somewhat separate, but otherwise, I don't have a clue what "Columbia Funds" means anymore. It's certainly not the low cost growth-oriented boutique I bought years ago.
I do know that they make it exceedingly difficult for "eligible investors" (those who are allowed to purchase noload Z shares like SMGIX). Can't seem to open an account online, can't even find an application to download that includes Z class shares.
Columbia has closed off access to Z shares via supermarkets - you can buy their A shares, but Z share accounts are frozen (no buys allowed, even for grandfathered customers).
You put all that together, and maybe Columbia is of interest for hard-to-find types of funds, but it's not a family I'd be looking to for most categories. All that said, Pope seems to be doing a fine job at SMGIX. It's natural that this resembles the current incarnation of UMBIX, since Pope manages that as well (albeit with others there).
But as M* opines, it's a different style now - not the same as the value-oriented fund you sold off. If that's what you're looking for, it seems you may still need to keep looking.

I've been putting up with this SLOTH with morningstar portfolio manager
for YEARS. It's part of the reason I resigned my M* premium membership BACK
in 2005 !!!!!!!!! -yes that many years and it never really improves. I also use FREE
M* port. mgr @ TRP. AND It's WORSE THERE.!!!
--I generally get fund updates from MARKETWATCH .COM which usually show current
nav shortly after 6PM EST.

Thanks, Ted.
Some others that I own* or track:
PRSVX -0.22
MSCFX 6.37*
PRDSX 3.96
OTCFX 3.88
NAESX 5.34*
Friday was a positive day in general for small-caps, but PRDSX was down, I suppose due to its holding in Salix.
http://quotes.morningstar.com/stock/slxp/s?t=SLXP&exch=XNAS&r=United+States&culture=en-US

@Tampabay: FYI:
Regards,
Ted
YTD As Of 11/07/14:
VTI: 10.67%
TLT: 20.53%
VGSH: 0.54%
IAU: -(2.65)%
4 Fund Average Return: 7.27% - VTI Alone 10.67%

So far in 2014, it(permanent) has gained 6.4 percent to October 24th. Vanguard’s Total Stock Market Index, by comparison, gained 5.45 percent.
VTSMX+10.53ytd Nov 7th (2 weeks later) and Permanent is ___? my guess...

Ok, Darcey you can do corrections..
Lets try investing: Give me 5 advantages of ETFs over Mutual Funds, since your on a mutual fund Site....I'm interested
Warning: My wife can get three of them

The real question is who has the best football team and fight song.
Regards,
Ted
Football: Harvard vs. Yale:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard–Yale_football_rivalry
Harvard:

Yale: