In Jan 2015 Richard Wiggins wrote a fascinating article at the Journal of Indexes called "Cloning DFA".
This "must read" article is available here: http://tinyurl.com/cloning-dfa
As noted by Mr Wiggins in his article:

However, low-cost funds, especially ETFs, now occupy every asset category offered by DFA. As new indexes have come to market, investors can get the unloved and unwanted part of the market for a lot less. Today DFA offerings are very close to what other major market benchmark providers deliver; the DFA U.S. Small Cap Value [DFSVX], for example, is not dissimilar from the iShares SmallCap 600 Value Index Fund (IJS|A-87). Where there’s not a perfect substitute, it’s rather easy to combine two less expensive funds and create an effective clone.

The article then proceeds to show how DFSVX can be cloned with a combination of two ETFs: VBR and IWC, the Vanguard Small Cap Value and the iShares Micro Cap, respectively. While DFA funds may only be available through financial advisors that have been approved by DFA, and can charge additional fees, the ETFs are open to anyone with a brokerage account.
Below are the current (Sep 2016) expense ratios of DFSVX, and the two ETFs used in the article. At the time that the article was published (Jan 2015) the ER of DFSVX was 52 bps, and the blended ER of the Vanguard and iShares ETFs was 17 bps.

DFSVX: 52 bps
VBR:    8 bps
IWC:   60 bps

A footnote to the conclusion of the article noted that:

The authors [of the JoI article] are working with Silicon Cloud Technologies, LLC which will offer software at PortfolioVisualizer.com that computes these factors automatically.

As originally noted by MJG in Feb 2014, that site - [https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com] - is available to all. Today, it contains (among other things) the following tools:
Fama French Factor Regression Analysis (For individual funds or ETFs)
Match Factor Analysis
Once you have identified a set of potential similar funds or ETFs - based on fundamental or factor analysis - to a target fund, you can use the latter tool to derive a two-investment "clone", based on either the results of factor regressions or historical performance. The site then provides various metrics that can be used to assess the quality (i.e. accuracy) and performance of the clone versus the target fund or investment.
Here, for example, is a clone as inspired by the article: http://tinyurl.com/dfsvx-vbr-iwc
Thought that others might find the website and Jan 2015 JofI article interesting.

FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search)
Investors tired of earning next to nothing on their savings are finally getting some relief.
Even as short-term Treasury rates stay excruciatingly low, interest earned on many kinds of short-term securities has been rising in recent months. Yields on ultrashort bond funds, which buy debt maturing in less than a year, have increased about 30% in the past 12 months. The average yield in the category is 0.5%, according to Morningstar, but many of them are yielding more than 1%.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=Ultrashort+Bond+Funds:+Better+Yields,+Lower+Risk+Barron's
M*: Short-Term Bond Fund Returns:
http://news.morningstar.com/fund-category-returns/short-term-bond/$FOCA$CS.aspx

What a change from 2015 when MSCI index was down 15.4%. So taking the long term view and staying the course would help to invest in this volatile asset class.

FYI: The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is up 14.8% this year through August, including dividends, while the S&P 500 is up 7.8%
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20160902/BLOG09/160909987?template=printart

FYI: ETFs are shutting down at a record clip, but the shakeout is seen by some financial advisers as the natural evolution of a market saturated with too many funds.
Last month, 41 ETFs shut down, and 11 more are already slated to close in September. That compares to 40 closings through the first seven months of the year
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20160902/FREE/160909986?template=printart
Ron Rowland's August 2016 ETF Deathwatch:
http://investwithanedge.com/etf-deathwatch/august-2016

MFO profiled QUSIX here: http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2015/02/pear-tree-polaris-foreign-value-small-cap-qusoxqusix-february-2015/
That said, if you like the thinking behind QUSIX, you might be more interested in their global strategy PGVFX: http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2014/12/polaris-global-value-pgvfx-december-2014/
WAIOX has been a successful fund for a long time, defying its very high expenses.

I use VTMSX as my small-cap holding in a taxable account. IMO, it is very difficult to find consistent performers in actively managed small cap funds. It is easy to see who has hit home runs in the past... but not so easy to figure out who will hit the next home run going forward.
As gmarceau stated, this is not Bogleheads and index funds are not particularly interesting to write about. But I'm sure every reader here knows that index funds are always a valid option, especially when you lack the conviction or risk tolerance for the actively managed alternatives.
A few other small cap funds that I've looked at:
- Brown Company Management Small Company BCSIX: One of the few consistent performers and a frequent MFO Great Owl. Currently closed but has reopened from time to time.
- Pear Tree/Polaris Small Cap USBNX run by the Polaris team (disregard its prior performance, since Polaris only took over at the beginning of this year). Looks promising but I prefer their all-in-one strategy PGVFX, which was profiled on MFO.
- Artisan Global Small Cap ARTWX, run by the team behind ARTJX. Also profiled on MFO. Last year, I thought it looked volatile but potentially rewarding. Since then, it's been relatively disastrous. It might yet redeem itself eventually... or it might not.
- Driehaus Micro Cap Growth DMCRX: If February, this fund was -20% for the year (i.e. past two months). Now, it's almost +13% for the year. If you like volatility, check it out.

Robert Cochran's column, in its use of mean reversion and inflation/real return, has left me befuddled.
"Reversion to the mean" simply expresses the tendency of next year's returns to be closer to the long term mean than the current year's returns are.
Underlying mean reversion is the assumption that each year's performance is independent of the previous one's. That is, mean reversion applies to random variables.
Assuming a long term mean of 9-10% for stocks (as stated in the opening sentence), and assuming 2016's return comes out about 12% (extrapolating from 8% YTD), mean reversion suggests that it is more likely next year's returns will be lower (closer to the mean of 10%) than higher (further from the mean). That's all.
Many prognosticators suggest that stock returns going forward will average around 4-5% (with an assortment of solid reasons backing this up). Mean reversion would seem to cut against this, as it implies, quite literally, reversion (coming closer) to the mean of 10%. IMHO this just shows that mean reversion doesn't apply here - yearly returns are not random variables.
Regarding real returns and inflation - if inflation is assumed to run at 2-3% (it isn't now, but it is expected to increase), then SS should also increase in nominal terms 2-3%, not the 1% projected. In real terms (as measured by CPI-W), SS payments do not decrease.
The 5% average figure for bonds over the past 15 years suggests that "bonds" means 10 year bonds. See here (geometric average over past ten years was 4.71% for 10 year bonds). That same source also shows an average near 5% (4.96%) for the past 85 years. Arithmetic averages are similar, though slightly higher (a small fraction above 5%).
So it seems fair to use last century's (100 year) average real returns for 10 year bonds as "normal" returns. That average real return was around 1.6% in the US:

If you prefer, 1.7% real return for 1900-2002 (based on Shiller data)
So I don't understand what the big deal is about a 0-2% real return going forward. That sounds about normal.
If anything, achieving typical real returns with lower nominal returns and lower inflation is beneficial to fixed income investors. That's because taxes are based on nominal returns, not real returns. So achieving the same real returns and paying less in taxes (lower nominal returns) seems like a plus.
In the broad picture, I agree with the expectation that both stock and bond returns will be lower going forward. But not as explained. Stocks may violate mean reversion (i.e. overshoot the mean on the low side, rather than simply dropping closer to the mean). Parallel increases in prices and rates would keep bond real returns closer to zero.

Since Aug 2011, SCMFX could have been substituted with a fixed portfolio of ETFs: ~47% IJJ, 20% XLB, 8% XRT, 7% IGN, 7% PJP, 7% UUP, 5% FXL. Through Jul 2016, the ETF portfolio produced a ~23% higher cumulative return with a slightly lower volatility.
Similarly, SPMIX could have been substituted with an ETF portfolio of ~46% IJK, 44% IJJ, 5% FTC, 3% FNX, 3% IVOO, which by Jul 2016 produced a ~2% higher cumulative return with a slightly lower volatility. See goo.gl/2Z3V5Q

From Aug 2013 onwards, you could have substituted MSCFX with a fixed portfolio of ETFs: ~34% IJR, 15% PSCT, 13% KRE, 7% SLY, 7% FXR, 7% VPU, and a few smaller positions, of comparable return and smaller volatility. See goo.gl/2Z3V5Q

Cash is a sizeable amount within my portfolio's asset allocation with a range of 15% to 25%. According to a recent Xray analysis it is at its upper limit at 25% without being overweight cash. In the nearterm, it might just become overweight.

Take a look at the detailed analysis at goo.gl/pB1mTk

Hi steppinrazor,
I agree that reading 500 pages per day is a challenge beyond the reach of most folks. Especially elusive if some comprehension is a target goal. Doubly elusive if, like me, your education and experience are in the scientific or engineering fields.
For most folks a reading speed between 300' and 600 words per minute is the standard. Let's use 500 WPM as a good yardstick. An average page contains 500 words so that makes the calculation easy. It takes 1 minute to read a page. A 500 page reading assignment will absorb 500 minutes or 8.3 hours. That's a heavy load each day. I would fail that assignment.
My job demanded responding to government's Request for Proposal (RFP). Often there was a page limit specified. To say more, we used small type, almost zero margins, and multiple foldout pages. Those tricks increased our word count. I doubt it ever increased the odds of our team winning a contract.
Best Regards.

Some Roth distributions are federally taxable (e.g. earnings if your Roths are less than five years old). "Any portion of your Roth IRA distribution that is included in your federal adjusted gross income (AGI), is subject to Michigan tax."
http://www.michigan.gov/taxes/0,4676,7-238-75545_43715-154072--,00.html
"if part of the [Roth] distribution is taxable, then Michigan pension withholding would be required on the taxable portion of the distribution."
http://www.michigan.gov/taxes/0,4676,7-238-43513_59451-263747--,00.html
As far as other fund houses go - there are a lot of wrong answers out there. My experience with front line customer reps is that some may give answers without checking details.
Sometimes it's hard to get past front line reps. I once spent six months arguing with an electric supplier because they were charging tax to residential customers, when the city law explicitly exempted residential customers from tax. (They ultimately stopped collecting the tax but said it would take awhile to compute refunds.)
I got an answer from Fidelity earlier this year that I believed was wrong (again, a tax question). It happens. I was able to work around that answer, so it wasn't worth a fight. But I did email them a link to an IRS page directly contradicting what they told me.

Hello,
A good article on rebalancing covering the why's and how to's.
For me, the best thing I did, years back, was to determine an asset allocation consisting of cash, bonds, stocks and other assets with target percentages being set for each asset class allowing for some range movement based upon market conditions, my needs and most important my risk tolerance. Over time, I developed a matrix that helps me determine just how much stocks, the most risky asset class, to hold from time-to-time based upon certain market condidtions but keeping within my asset allocation range for stocks.
Currently, my range allocations are as follows: Cash Allocation range 15% to 25% with target currently being set at 20% ... Income Allocation range 25% to 35% with target currently being set at 30% ... Growth & Income Allocation range 30% to 40% with target being set at 35% ... and Growth Allocation range 10% to 20% with target being set at 15%. In doing a recent Morningstar Instant Xray analysis on my portfolio the results were cash 25%, bonds 25%, domestic stocks 30%, foreign stocks 15% and other assets 5%. With this, I am currently light in my income allocation due to an anticipated rising interest rate environment, neutral in my stock allocation and heavy in my cash allocation. Note, some of my hybrid funds must have recently bought stocks because not too long ago I was light in stocks as well as bonds.
In general, my market valuation matrix determines how much stocks I will hold from time-to-time on the investment positions that I set the allocation on and is based, in most part, on some valuations measures I use to gague the market. These include both technical and fundamental measures along with some room for my other measure that allows for some reasoning and is known, by me, as my SWAG mythology, Scientific Wild Ass Guess, which includes some investment folklore. For the hybrid funds that I own, I let the fund manages determine what assets to hold and how much of each while I determine how much of my portfolio is to be invested in hybrid type funds. In doing this, this allows for some adaptive allocation movement, within the portfolio, through asset movement and repositioning within the hybrid funds held. Currnetly, the hybrid funds make up about 40% of the overall portfolio.
For me, rebalaning form time-to-time has indeed, I feel, been beneficial.
I really did enjoyed reading the article.
Thanks @Ted for posting.
I wish all ... "Good Investing."

Thanks for all of your responses.
Gmarceau, thanks. I actually already own DSEEX (institutional shares of DSENX) . Great fund.
VintageFreak, thanks. One of the main catalysts for a market pullback should be a rise in interest rates IMHO. Looking at the top holdings, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America make up 3 of the top 13. One of the reasons these stocks have not kept up is interest rates remaining low. If the market goes down due to a rise in interest rates, I would think these financial stocks should benefit (or at least not go down as much as the rest of the market). Other top holdings have low PE's, which I would think would not go down as much as higher PE stocks in a downturn...but who knows.
AndyJ. Thanks. I do not know much about the longer history of the fund as far as it's holdings are concerned. I just assumed the fund was concentrated in financials, consumer cyclicals, and healthcare because that is where the fund mangers currently see value. It is good to know that you say the fund is always in those sectors, and that its previous outperformance was due to that. Something to consider.

FYI: The markets have a way of making investors fearful whether stocks are up (they can’t rise any further can they?) or down (surely the worst is yet to come, right?). It’s always something which is what makes the markets equal parts fascinating and gut-wrenching.
Regards,
Ted
http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2016/09/a-pressure-release-valve-for-your-portfolio/

A quick search shows virtually every doc saying that Michigan IRAs are considered pensions for tax purposes, and are subject to withholding.
Older folk (those who were born earlier than 1953 or have spouses that old) may be able to avoid some or all of the withholding by filing form MI W-4P. I'm sure you know all this - I'm just reading up on Michigan, since I didn't know that any state required IRA withholding if the taxpayer didn't elect withholding for the IRS.
I suspect no one knows exactly how things will work, but a possibility (check with TRP):
- keep enough in PRRXX (Gov. MMF, formerly Prime Reserve) to cover withholding
- keep remainder in a prime fund earning a bit more interest (TSCXX)
If TRP will cooperate, then you may not have to worry about the redemption fee and/or gating on the prime fund. See if TRP will let you use the PRRXX shares for the withholding, and distribute the TSCXX shares in kind to your taxable account
You could then wait until redemption restrictions were lifted on the TSCXX shares in the taxable account and cash out.
Or you could keep everything in TSCXX, so long as redemption restrictions were not likely. This would entail monitoring the weekly liquidity of the prime fund here. No gates or redemption fees unless this drops below 30%. (It's currently 36.61%)
This would get you an extra 15 basis points - admittedly it may not be worth the effort. Maybe it would be easier to move out of Michigan :-)

Hi, LLJB. Thnx for reading my report and commenting. Re your question about where the two Primecaps are: Primecap Odyssey Aggressive Growth was No. 11 among all US diversified stock mutual funds with at least $100 million in asset in the post Brexit period I looked at. It had a 13.97% return. Its stablemate, Primecap Odyssey Growth, was sixteenth best, with a 12.83% return. As you pointed out, the table that accompanied the story only listed the top 10.
Re your questions about Composite Ratings: I'll look into the historical data.
Re your sell trigger question: There are several. It depends on what the stock is doing. I'll look for links that explain which sell signals to look for in which circumstances and post them here or in another report.
Again, thnx for your interest. And have a good labor day holiday.

"Nothing about retail prime funds being especially prone to risk"
I believe all MM's carry risk. The possibility of losing .01c means prone to risk in my mind compared to the history of MM's (for the most part) holding the buck in past years.