http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/315774/000143510915001154/golden497e.htm
497 1 golden497e.htm
FORUM FUNDS
GOLDEN LARGE CAP CORE FUND
GOLDEN SMALL CAP CORE FUND
Supplement dated December 14, 2015 to the Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information dated November 1, 2015
IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING FUND REORGANIZATION
At a meeting held on December 11, 2015, the Board of Trustees of Forum Funds (“Board”) approved, subject to shareholder approval, a proposal to reorganize the Golden Large Cap Core Fund and Golden Small Cap Core Fund (together, the “Acquired Portfolios”), each a series of Forum Funds, into the Wells Fargo Large Cap Core Fund and the Wells Fargo Small Cap Core Fund (together, the “Acquiring Portfolios”), respectively, each a series of the Wells Fargo Advantage Funds. Golden Capital Management, LLC (“Golden”), the investment adviser to the Acquired Portfolios, recommended the reorganization to the Board.
In order to accomplish the reorganizations, the Board voted to submit an agreement and plan of reorganization to shareholders of each Acquired Portfolio’s shareholders for their approval. If the shareholders of an Acquired Portfolio approve the reorganization proposal, then the Acquired Portfolio will transfer all of its assets and liabilities to the respective Acquiring Portfolio in exchange for shares of the Acquiring Portfolio and the Acquired Portfolio’s shareholders will receive shares of the Acquiring Portfolio in exchange for their Acquired Portfolio shares. The reorganizations are intended to qualify as tax-free transactions for federal income tax purposes.
The Board has called a shareholder meeting to take place in March 2016 where the shareholders will consider and vote on the agreement and plan of reorganization. This meeting will occur at the offices of Forum Funds, Three Canal Plaza, Suite 600, Portland, Maine 04101. If approved by shareholders, the reorganizations are expected to occur in May 2016.
* * *
For more information, please contact a Fund customer service representative toll free at (800) 206-8610.
PLEASE RETAIN FOR FUTURE REFERENCE.

@PRESSmUP My initial buy was in the March/April 2015 time frame, so this will be my first CG distribution for the fund (12/17 or 12/18, I think). I have read several articles about the fund and manager, but the article Ted posted is the first time the ETF inefficiency strategy has been revealed. In the other articles I read, it seemed like the manager primarily utilized an options strategy. At this point, I really don't care...as long as it works! ;) The last few days have been unusually benign for the fund...it has declined a little, but nothing like the market...and nothing like the wild swings over the last few months. The rest of my portfolio is boring, so the small positions I own of the fund in my taxable account and Roth have been entertaining. I wish I were brave enough to buy more!

I wonder how many shareholders hung on from start to finish during the January 2015 time period. Quite the ride.

There is, I think, some evidence that Mr. Barse was hard to love. It's not clear that "CEO for 24 years" was exactly correct (there were a couple firms, a couple titles and a gap). It's pretty clear that TAM has been in turmoil for years, which makes a "fire the coach" reaction understandable - especially if the coach has been assuring the board that there was no problem with values on the illiquid securities ... or the concentration in the illiquid securities. And, in this case, over half of the board had a substantial investment in - which means lost a lot of their own money in - the Focused Credit fund.
Here's the sort of caution we'd written back in February:
In sum, the firm’s five mutual funds are down by $11 billion from their peak asset levels and nearly 50% of the investment professionals on staff five years ago, including the managers of four funds, are gone. At the same time, only one of the five funds has had performance that meets the firm’s long-held standards of excellence.
Many outsiders noted not just the departure of long-tenured members of the Third Avenue community, but also the tendency to replace those folks with outsiders. The most prominent change was the arrival, in 2014, of Robert Rewey, the new head of the “value equity team” and formerly a portfolio manager at Cramer Rosenthal McGlynn, LLC, where his funds’ performance trailed their benchmark (CRM Mid Cap Value CRMMX, CRM All Cap Value CRMEX and CRM Large Cap Opportunity CRMGX) or exceeded it modestly (CRM Small/Mid Cap Value CRMAX). Industry professionals we talked with spoke of “a rolling coup,” the intentional marginalization of Mr. Whitman within the firm he created and the influx of outsiders.
David

FYI:
In a year that is shaping up to be the worst for hedge funds since at least 2011, one little-known long-short mutual fund manager is beating some of Wall Street’s biggest names at their own game.
David Miller, 35, is doing so largely by using options to short leveraged exchange traded funds which are ETFs that offer two or three times the daily positive or negative return of an index and which have become increasingly popular among hedge funds and other traders as the broad U.S. market has flatlined. Leveraged ETFs have seen inflows of $9.5 billion this year, according to Lipper data.
In what may be a cautionary tale for investors who have been drawn to leveraged funds, Miller's $155.6 million Catalyst Macro Strategy fund, has posted returns of nearly 47 percent over the last year by focusing on their flaws. That performance makes Miller's fund the best performer among all actively-managed equity funds tracked by Morningstar this year, and nearly 20 percentage points greater than the next-best performing fund.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-catalyst-fund-etf-idUSKBN0TW0TX20151213
MM* Snapshot MCXCX: http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/MCXCX/quote.html
Lipper SnapshotMCXCX: http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Fund/MCXCX?countrycode=US

No comments on the fund, but as a tactical matter you might want to keep a toehold.
When Third Ave Value added 12b-1 retail shares (12/31/2009), it increased the min to open its original (now labeled "institutional") class shares. So you may have a harder time getting back into this share class if you sell off completely and the fund turns out to be okay.

FYI: The junk bond market came under further pressure Friday after news spread that Third Avenue Focused Credit Fund halted shareholder withdrawals as it liquidates its beleaguered portfolio of high-yield bonds.
The decline in junk bonds raises questions over whether the Fed will feel comfortable going ahead with its intention to begin raising interest rates on Dec. 16.
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MjExMzA2MDg=
Enlarged Graphic:
http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=A1_2c_151214.png&docId=785085&xmpSource=&width=406&height=625&caption=&id=785084

Also I would prefer my manager had some principles when he invests. It is a matter of opinion whether one is being anal about it or not. Let's not kid ourselves. Other fund managers have sold BRK using mumbo jumbo finance jingo, but we wouldn't notice unless fund was widely held or popular. Just as we wouldn't care if WGRNX performance hadn't stunk. I would very much like to know the person who sold the fund because Winters sold BRK.

Wouldn't sell because Wintergreen sold BRK. Would sell (If I owned it) because Winters mounted a futile and ridiculous campaign against Coke and then proceeded to have Buffett go on air on CNBC and say in no uncertain terms that people would be better off with a Vanguard index fund. (which I posted about earlier this year: http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/19369/buffett-on-david-winters-wintergreen)
The Coke campaign by Winters was a futile waste of shareholder time that wound up not only not working, but getting him terrible press when one of the world's most renowned investors basically said on CNBC that people would be better off in an index fund. Also, I think the Winters reasoning for selling Berkshire was poor at best - he was basically having a hissy fit after his campaign against Coke went less well than he somehow expected.
That's all. That's why I wouldn't invest in a fund I've considered in the past.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/809593/000080959315000080/amrextension_12_14_15.htm
497 1 amrextension_12_14_15.htm
Supplement dated December 14, 2015, to the prospectus and summary prospectuses for the following funds and share class, each as previously amended or supplemented:
American Beacon Balanced Fund
American Beacon International Equity Fund
American Beacon Large Cap Value Fund
AMR Class
Prospectus and Summary Prospectuses dated February 27, 2015
The termination and liquidation of the AMR Class shares of the American Beacon Balanced Fund, American Beacon International Equity Fund, and American Beacon Large Cap Value Fund, which were scheduled to occur on or about December 15, 2015, are now scheduled to occur on or about March 15, 2016.
***********************************************************
PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

I just realized that I may have too many domestic large cap funds ! Currently, I own FCNTX in my 401K, POSKX in my taxable, along with USMV and SPHD in taxable accounts. I realize that FCNTX does branch out into international areas but generally, it is a large cap domestic fund. Any room for consolidation here? I did buy SPHD for the large cap value slant with the dividend payers. It does seem to offset FCNTX and POSKX nicely. I"m not so sure USMV is necessary.

Howard Marks: I've never seen the world so uncertain
By Howard Marks 14 Dec, 2015 at 12:02
Investors and strategists have to worry about two main risks. The first is the risk of losing money. The second is the risk of missing opportunities.
You cannot avoid both risks at the same time, so the real question is how you balance the two: 100:0, 0:100, 50:50 or something else? Today, I would be 65% towards the defensive....
....The ultimate solution to illiquidity is to buy things you can hold for the long run.
I think the secret to success in investing is to be a long-term holder. Reduced liquidity can make life more difficult, but it should not change what you ultimately do. If you buy good assets at good prices with good prospects, you could close your trading desk and just hold them. I do not believe we make money from what we buy or sell, but from what we hold.
People ask me if we are in a high yield bond bubble. My answer is: ‘No, we are in a bond bubble.’ The pricing or yield spread of high yield bonds relative to other bonds is attractive.
We face record low interest rates. Thus we all have an interest rate problem - whether you are a bondholder or not. Prices of most assets are elevated because the Federal Reserve and other central banks set rates at zero, creating a bull market that has rewarded asset owners and borrowers, and penalised non-asset owners, savers and lenders.
This is the main reason the central banks should get out of the interest rate pegging business – because the free market is the best allocator of resources. And we do not have a free market in money. We have an administered market in money with distortions. This makes it easier for bad deals to get done and for uncreditworthy borrowers to borrow.
http://citywireglobal.com/news/howard-marks-ive-never-seen-the-world-so-uncertain/a865855?ref=citywire-global-latest-news-list
Also
Not only are investors losing confidence in lower-quality paper, they're also unloading the companies that most actively deal in the paper.
Waddell & Reed (NYSE:WDR) - whose $6.2B Ivy High Income Fund (MUTF:WHIAX) has suffered the largest outflows this year of any junk-bond fund - fell 7.5% today, and nearly 15% over the past week.
The manager of the $5.8B AB High Income Advisor Fund, AllianceBernstein (NYSE:AB) tumbled 7.1% on the session, and major Third Avenue Management investor Affiliated Managers Group (NYSE:AMG) brought its two-day decline to more than 13% with a 5.8% fall today. http://seekingalpha.com/news/2983296-asset-managers-punished-in-high-yield-selloff
WDR
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:WDR&ei=IJRvVoHfCoay2AbG3riYBg
AB
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:AB&ei=LJRvVpHQKYvnjAHgxYLoCA
AMG
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:AMG&ei=dpRvVpGeEJeS2AbGxYOIBA
Artisan APAM
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:APAM&ei=uJRvVqm5LsS02AbzpYuQCQ
referred to as Franklin Templeton Investments,BEN
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:BEN&ei=65RvVsjSMNS5jAGt64mACQ
iShares Dow Jones US Brok-Dea. Ind.E T F
Exposure Breakdowns
Investment Banking & Brokerage
70.65%
Specialized Finance
27.31%
Asset Management & Custody Banks
1.74%
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA:IAI&ei=95ZvVrmQLMOkjAGCiZP4CA

Here is the definition of market timing from investopedia.com . I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it. Some, like Old_skeet with his 'spiffs' and others with their systems do well with it. But on average, it doesn't work well for me. So sorry, by definition, ...you HAVE to Time your Buys., is market timing.

DEFINITION of 'Market Timing'
1. The act of attempting to predict the future direction of the market, typically through the use of technical indicators or economic data.
2. The practice of switching among mutual fund asset classes in an attempt to profit from the changes in their market outlook.
BREAKING DOWN 'Market Timing'
Some investors, especially academics, believe it is impossible to time the market. Other investors, notably active traders, believe strongly in market timing. Thus, whether market timing is possible is really a matter of opinion.
What we can say with certainty is that it's very difficult to be successful at market timing continuously over the long-run. For the average investor who doesn't have the time (or desire) to watch the market on a daily basis, there are good reasons to avoid market timing and focus on investing for the long-run.

ZH behind the times, again:
This dramatic escalation now means that every single hedge and mutual funds will spend all Sunday night and Monday morning trying to ferret out any bonds that are especially illiquid or are mispriced
Meanwhile, the WSJ article it quotes (admittedly updated) said that this ferreting out was already done last week:
On Dec. 10, the day the firm announced it was halting withdrawals, traders at Wall Street banks circulated a list of bonds offered for sale by a single seller that matched many of the largest holdings reported by Third Avenue, said several hedge-fund managers who saw the list. Most hedge funds passed on the portfolio, which contained deeply distressed bonds and private equity investments that are hard to trade.
My two takeaways (from the WSJ article):
1) (Quoting one of the commenters): "Now consider that the CEO was in that position for 24 years and swiftly shown the door. There is a lot more going on here to warrant this type of draconian action by the BOD."
2) The fund did not technically prevent redemptions - it redeemed in kind, by distributing shares of a trust that was created to hold and liquidate the portfolio. It is the terms of the trust that bar its owners from cashing out.

As mostly a long term investor I have found it is as important as when I buy as much as when I sell for good gains. In today's market climate I am building cash over buying or adding to existing positions in what I consider to be a peaking and overvalued stock market. I'd much rather be buying in a market that has a TTM P/E Ratio of 14, 15 or 16 rather than the current 22 reading. I have found that the returns are greater when bought at reasonable valuations rather in an expensive and/or towards the top of a market.
With the above in mind, I am keeping both my bonds (due to anticipated rising rates) and equities (due to high valuations) towards their mid to low range while keeping my cash towards its high end within my portfolio's asset allocation.
As I noted above, a fund that trades on equity market volatility is CTFAX. And, since my cash is currently towards the top of its allocation limit, I thinking of buying more of CTFAX with all of this years mutual fund capital gain distributions.

@heezsafe: You wish is my command !
Regards,
Ted
(Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search)
https://www.google.com/#q=Third+Avenue+CEO+David+Barse+Departs+wsj
MutualFundWire.Com Slant:
http://www.mfwire.com/common/artprint2007.asp?storyID=53119&wireid=2

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-thirdavenue-ceo-idUSKBN0TW0U720151214
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/third-avenue-parts-ceo-barse-220520694.html;_ylt=AwrTcceNlW5WwmQA0l0nnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByNWU4cGh1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--
Third Avenue Management is parting ways with Chief Executive Officer David M. Barse after he announced plans last week to freeze redemptions in its troubled high-yield mutual fund, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. Barse was let go and isn’t allowed back in the building, the newspaper said, citing a security guard at the firm’s New York headquarters.
And, of course, some ZH snarkiness to mix with your Monday morning java, if you please:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-13/dramatic-twist-ceo-gating-third-avenue-was-just-fired-isnt-allowed-back-building
@Ted After you get yourself booted and strapped in, could you check out the WSJ source story here
http://www.wsj.com/articles/third-avenue-parts-ways-with-ceo-barse-1450040681
and maybe do your Google thing-y with it if you feel it adds something substantive? Thanks.

Vanguard data updated. No change to the link, but the final estimates, including dividends, are now posted.
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/article/estimated-yearend-distributions-122015

It will be interesting to see how the headlines read tomorrow: reasonably prudent, or hysterical and perilous? Friday's surprise came too late for not so many people to react. More have had a weekend to mull it over now, and it's possible a reassessment has been done, and there may be more activity at the exits.
Josh Brown forwards to his blog readers a notice he just received from Blackrock re. HYG. No reason to worry, performance as expected, no problems. Everything's cool. Uh-huh.
http://thereformedbroker.com/2015/12/13/blackrock-our-high-yield-fund-is-doing-what-it-says-it-does/

Hi @Junkster
No longer an "investor" in HY from about 1 1/2 years ago; but I indeed pay attention.
I took a peek at some old numbers today just for the hell of it using only the etf HYG, although I never had monies in this holding.
I wanted to take a look back as I recall watching the yield numbers in the junk bond areas and shaking my head. Just a few numbers from the time frame of December, 2008; through December of 2010.
---December, 2008 found the yields running around the 20% area, including this number until mid March of 2009. There were a few fits and starts in this period, but a good general number. By December of 2010 the yields were wandering around the 8% range.
I didn't take a close look at pricing, but generally; this is the result of this two year time frame:
---yields decreased by about 60% in these two years
---pricing increased by about 60% in these two years
Just a few quick numbers.
I remain mostly of the consideration not so much about any bonds being an income stream, but being about appreciation in value to my monies, no matter how that appreciation arrives.
'Course, today's wacky and perverted world of central banks and all the rest make for some most interesting investing in bonds of whatever flavor, eh?
Take care,
Catch

You might take a look at VWIAX ( VWINX ). Its one of the best conservative allocation funds with about 60 to 65% in investment grade bonds and 35 to 40% in dividend producing stocks. It will provide you with some potential for growth going forward to go along with the income it produces (currently about a 3% yield). Its been around since 1970. So, its approach has been tested through time.