Sure, Jim O'Shaughnessy ignores politics:
https://opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000054896&type=&sort=&cycle=2012

So many mutual fund ideas have past through this web-site and it's predecessor FundAlarm since I started visiting 11+ years ago. Some ended up being stinkers, but others have ended up being staples in my portfolio. With that, I was wondering what fund ideas were found here by others here at MFO/FundAlarm that were either bad buys or those that were great. These come quickly to mind for me:
The 3 best for me have been: (in no particular order):
PRWCX, SFGIX, and PONDX (DSENX is quickly finding it's way up the list, just haven't owned it as long).
3 stinkers I wish I didn't gamble on:
USAGX, ARIVX, WASYX

Haven't looked in a while, but I see SFGIX is now 15% in Latin America also. I'd like to say I wish Mr. Foster would lighten up on Asia, but what the heck do I know. I wouldn't trade this EM fund for any other.

@MFO Members: Here's Prudential's.
Regards,
Ted
https://investment.prudential.com/util/common/get?file=1D065355D2CC360385257B7D00536F8A

Hi @Mark,
I too am thinking a nearterm pullback is brewing. However, reported corporate earnings are improving along with full year forward estimates being raised. I have read of some being in the low $130's for the 500 Index. Should this come to be then the S&P 500 Index perhaps from an earnings perspective is not overvalued although all the others feeds in my market barometer reflect overbought conditions. Currently, about 80% of the stocks within the Index are above their 200 day moving average indicating this is a broad based rally not driven by a rally of few but many stocks. With this in thought stocks can and most likely will move higher through the year. At the beginning of the year I targeted the Index to reach 2475 at some point during the year. I am still with this thought and if it should surpass this mark ... Well, that's even better.
I have ample cash to do some equity buying should a nearterm stock market pullback come. Currently, I rate the market as a hold due to TTM earnings valuation. Forward estimates are just that ... estimates ... and, they usually get trimmed.
I watched the market trade down much of the day Friday; but, in its last minute of trading it closed up! Go figure! It takes big money to do that! So, it looks as though, for now, corporate America is backing Trump.

Hi @MikeM2,
I am not sure how you have your portfolio allocated now. Do you know?
If not, perhaps you can perform an Instant Xray on it? If so, this will tell you what you have along with how much of it. I use this tool often to check my own asset allocation by investment sleeve, by investment area and for the portfolio as a whole.
For me, I hold both emerging markets and small cap funds in the growth area of my portfolio. The growth area of the portfolio accounts for about 30% of my overall equity allocation. In the growth area I have five investment sleeves. I have a global sleeve, a large/mid cap sleeve, a small/mid cap sleeve, a specialty sleeve and a spiff sleeve for special investment positions when I wish to overweight equities.
Each sleeve in the growth area ranges from 20% to 35% in assets held with the exception being the spiff sleeve that can hold form 0% to no more than 10%. The small/mid cap sleeve currently has about a 25% weighting. My emerging markets fund is held in the specialty sleeve. The specialty sleeve comprises about 35% of the growth area with my emerging market fund having about a 40% weighting within its sleeve. I also hold a private equity fund and infrustructure fund in this sleeve as well with about a 30% weighting in each of these funds. Within the past couple of months the specialty sleeve has been one of my top performing sleeves, last year it lagged. In the third and fourth quarters of last year my small/mid cap sleeve was a top performer while it lags so far this year.
In addition, I have other funds that contain some emerging market and small cap positions. So, I feel it really important to know what I have overall to better determine if I should be considering adding funds designed to overweight certain themes.
I believe, that the TSP has five investment options. U. S. Small Caps being one of them.
Xray will help you in this review process and perhaps the table will help in finding the themes you might wish to overweight.
Good luck,
Old_Skeet

SC value and EM are in the top 3, 16/20 years. Not a surprise but that pattern has me wondering if I should boost my allocations to those two areas. I can get neither directly in my Federal TSP at work.

FYI: U.S. stocks have screamed to records since Election Day because investors are expecting Donald Trump’s White House to cut taxes for business, make regulations easier for them and goose more growth out of the economy. But investors around the world are questioning whether the rally is exhausting itself.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/doubts-grow-over-stock-markets-trump-inspired-surge/2017/02/24/b22e1c02-fa87-11e6-aa1e-5f735ee31334_story.html?utm_term=.c283bbf2d199

FYI: In the last few years, it's become less common for a person to enter a company right out of college, learn the business from the inside and ultimately rise to the top position. But Morningstar's new chief executive, Kunal Kapoor, bucked the changing trend.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-morningstar-ceo-kunal-kapoor-exec-qa-0226-biz-20170223-story.html

One of @Scott's often mentioned EM funds, RIMIX has also had a good start YTD after a lackluster 2016.PRMSX probably helped by the analysts in the T R P Latin American office.PRLAX up near 47% last 52 weeks.RIMIX remains an emerging Asia-centric fund with low turnover /rotation.

FYI: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett devoted a substantial portion of his annual letter to deepen his long-running critique of investment fees.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-25/buffett-says-100-billion-has-been-wasted-on-investment-fees

Different business model in mutual fund business. It is a very tough act to follow for Fidelity and T. Rowe Price on fee alone. T. Rowe Price has a number of excellent actively managed funds but many are closed to new investors. Between my 401(K) and IRA I use both T. Rowe Price and Vanguard.

@johnN: Sorry old buddy, but I beat you to it !
Regards,
Ted
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/31483/vanguard-cuts-fees-again#latest

Sorry. If you bought any of those funds in 2009, you would come out okay and wouldn't really have any reason to complain if you didn't buy the highest performing one of the lot.
Question now is how will they do next 10 years. I'm buying ICMAX and PVFIX.

I've got to agree with our Professor. Without more information, naming funds is not particularly productive. (Even limited to blend/growth small cap, tossing out names without knowing the objective is hit or miss.) In addition, tossing up funds without any explanation of why you think it is a good suggestion isn't all that helpful.
Kudos to Crash for adding a little text (and for editing out the original suggestion of MSCFX). I'm curious - since Vanguard small cap index and Vanguard small cap growth are listed, but Vanguard small cap value (VSIAX / VSIVX) isn't, does this imply a suggestion that one lean toward growth, or at least away from value?
Regarding purchasing Vanguard index funds - there are few brokers where you can purchase Admiral class shares outside of Vanguard. (I used to say none, but someone posted otherwise, though I forget where.) So I'm skeptical that you can purchase them for under $10K even in an IRA.
However, you can purchase the ETF class shares with a minimum of one share. VB (for VSMAX) and VBK (for VSGAX). Same ERs, much easier access.
Since we're tossing out random funds, I'll play the game. ASVIX. (Lipper classifies this as small cap core.)
- Solid performance
- Truly small cap ($1.6B average, vs. $1.9B median for small cap funds per M*)
- Fairly diversified (21% in top 10 stocks; some may prefer concentrated funds)
- Stable management (since 2008/2010)
- Not too volatile, relatively speaking (which I consider important for small cap funds that can have wild rides)
- Respectable 2008 (-27.6% vs. -32% for peers, -37% for S&P 500) albeit under old management
- Soft close - the fund is fairly sizeable ($1.6B), but this is mitigated in part by a broad portfolio (100+ securities), and in part by closing the fund to some investors.

Hi @Old_Skeet
As to this article from Dr. Madell; I ask, "and the point is ???".
From the article: " So the data presented below are merely intended to show what might be able to be achieved with some luck, and perhaps, by investing going forward mainly in funds that appear to be undervalued at the time investments are initiated."
>>>A check of a most simple ETF, being VTI; indicates that during the same holding period noted in the article (using the 10-8-2010 start date for a few entries), that VTI had a total return of 128.8% or an annulized rate for this period of 11.25%. For this ETF, $10,000 became $22,880, during the time period in the article.
I didn't find anything in his write that was pointing or leading an investor into a conclusion of what he documented. Perhaps a buy and hold of certain equity/bond funds?
What would be the take away of learning for a new investor attempting to understand more about investing decisions from this article? OR perhaps to rely on "luck" and hoping to understand when an investment is "undervalued". Okay, good luck with all of that.....
My honest 2 cents worth.
Regards,
Catch

FYI: Annual Returns For Key Indices Ranked In Order Of Performance.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.callan.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Callan-PeriodicTbl_KeyInd_2017.pdf

psuche98: From U.S. News & World Report here are 677 funds for you to review.
Regards,
Ted
1. Small Cap Growth Funds:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/rankings/small-growth
2. Small Cap Value Funds:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/rankings/small-value
3. Small Cap Blends Funds:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/rankings/small-blend
4. Foreign Small/Mid Value Funds
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/rankings/foreign-small-mid-value
5. Foreign Small/ Mid Growth Funds:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/rankings/foreign-small-mid-growth:
6. Foreign Small/Mid Blend Funds:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/rankings/foreign-small-mid-blend

Thanks, johnN.
Not sure why you posted this or where you found it, but the M* ratings are generally positive (3****, 1 ***), and all seem to be above 30%tile over time. Since I have a residual 403b with TIAA , although the university (and business school, I suspect) extorted access to a selection of non-TIAA funds that seemed superior at the time, these do offer the relatively conservative approach that we geezerly baby boomers need with fairly modest expenses. (And, btw, I resent the comment posted a few days ago that "no one under 75 reads newspapers anymore", since i am under 75, and have been known to peruse newsprint relatively often.)
I'll compare the ERs with the non-TIAA funds, but there seem to be some relative winners here.

Just noticed. ON FIRE. +10.92, YTD, 2/23/2017. PRMSX. Don't own it. I do own SFGIX, and it lags PRMSX these days. But look back 5 years: SFGIX wins, hands-down. SFGIX is closed, anyhow. If you're not already in, I'd say PRMSX deserves a look. Eh?