FYI: (This is a follow-up article)
Lawyers say firm founder's written contract — or lack of one — could be the key
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20151010/FREE/151019999?template=printart

Not much to choose from. Andrew Foster argues that in the emerging markets, value hasn't worked because the corporate structures are so intertwined that the catalysts to unlock value never appear. He thinks that's changing, but slowly.
Pear Tree Polaris Small Cap (USBNX) or Pear Tree Polaris Foreign Value Small Cap (QUSOX) are worth checking; Polaris took over the former fund at the start of 2015. Causeway International Small Cap (CVISX) is new but value leaning and the Causeway folks have a pretty good heritage. Seafarer Overseas Growth & Income (SFGIX) has a much smaller cap than its peers and is, as you know, a favorite of mine.
I'll ponder a bit more.
David

http://news.yahoo.com/falling-gas-prices-means-no-social-security-cola-120530721.html
Low inflation ...
Tell that to my health ins company

Hi @Dex,
In the cash area of my portfolio, which includes money held in currency and on deposit at two banks, I currently have enough cash to live off of for more than three years at my current spending rate should all other forms of income I receive (social security, a small pension and from investments) come to a halt. If I sold out of the markets today, I anticipate I'd have better than twenty years of worth of cash on hand at my current spending rate. Seems, I recall Ted chose to go to mostly to an all cash position this past summer. For me, being age 67 and my wife age 65 I think I am going to stay invested in the capital markets for many years to come. Should my portfolio return what I have projected over the next ten years, as detailed in another blurb and noted below, the returns will most likely be enough to support my lifestyle without a cash drawdown.
For easy reference, below is my post regarding my anticipated portfolio's return. It reads as follows ...
"Hi @MJG,
Thanks for posting your forecast of six percent average annual gain for stocks over the next ten years. Wonder what bonds are going to do? And, then there is cash?
Here is my thinking ... Like you say, I'll use six per cent for stocks, (my call) four percent for bonds and two percent for cash. With this and based upon my current asset allocation of 25% cash, 20% bonds and 55% stocks (which includes the 5% other assets as defined by M* within my portfolio) I can expect between a four to five percent annualized return over the next ten years on my portfolio. Sounds reasonable to me.
So, if I want to make more I will need to continue to employ some spiffs (special investment positions) from time-to-time as I have been doing in this low interest rate environment. Doing this, might add a percent or two. Or, I could take on more risk and raise my allocation to stocks and bonds while lowering my allocation to cash. Think I'll continue to play the spiffs and tweak my asset allocation form time-to-time as to how I am reading the markets. In doing a look back, Morningstar's Portfolio Manager indicates that my current fund possitions have a combinded returned for the past five years of about 8.5% and for the ten year period about 6.5%. With this, some adjustment (downward) would needed to be made to account for my cash position in use with the above percentages. So, let's knock a percent off of these percentages to derive at what the portfolio would have returned adjusting it for current cash held. Probally, not exact but close.
Currently, I think from a TTM P/E Ratio (21.5) stocks are more than fully valued along with most bonds. With this, I am going to stick with being cash heavy for the time being and employ the spiffs.
Thanks again for posting your insight. It is appreciated."
Best regards,
Old_Skeet

TPP and its impact on Global growth talk about here (Frank Holmes):
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
Trade Pac
TPP webpage from US Trade Office:
https://ustr.gov/tpp/

Not sure what you have in mind here, so let's try a simpler question. What would APY for an individual bond mean for you? I see various possibilities:
A bond typically has coupon payments twice a year, so its APY (using compounding, like a bank's APY) would be (1 + r/2) x * (1 + r/2) where r was the APR. r could be either
coupon/face value or coupon/purchase price, depending on what you're looking for.
Either way, that would only represent the compounding of the coupon, and not any change in bond price. For example, a zero coupon bond would have an APY of zero if APY only included coupon payments. But I doubt that's what you have in mind.
What I personally care about (especially if I were holding until maturity or call, which is somewhat implied by computing a compound yield) is yield to worst (yield to maturity or yield to call, whichever were lower). That's a calculation (like amortization) that includes both the coupon rate and the change in price to maturity.
If this is the figure of interest, then a zero coupon bond with a price of $50 (face value of $100) that matured in 12 years would have a yield to maturity of 6% (rule of 72).
The best approximation of yield to worst for a portfolio of bonds (such as a mutual fund) is the SEC yield. It incorporates the price changes in the underlying bonds and their coupon rates. It's my figure of choice, because it includes all factors instead of looking only at interest payments which can be misleading.
Here's a pretty clear article from Forbes on current yield and SEC yield.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickferri/2012/07/19/the-yield-trap/

I want to jump in before this thread gets too large. http://www.capgainsvalet.com/ is out of hibernation! It's early in the season, but I expect to have 185+ fund families available for searching as well as some thoughts on various capital gains distributions strategies that may leave more dollars in your pockets.
I value the input of MFO readers. Please let me know if you have any recommendations to make the site better.

81! How cool! Go with the spending!

Thanks to ron for sharing and to Old Joe for re-affirming that spending does take place here.
Sometimes I get the impression that either (1) everyone here is 55 or younger and still in the accumulation/growth stage or (2) we're a bunch of old misers hanging on to accumulated $$ for dear life. (A third possibility is we've all been highly unsuccessful at investing and so have little now to spend). :)
Ways of spending money and methods of withdrawing it from investments do receive some attention from time to time, but not enough IMHO.

DS,
Thanks. Waggoner did go back 25y (though not analyzing discrete years), and there was followup too that might be of interest:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/02/27/investing-do-you-want-to-send-your-money-abroad/24077415/
Interesting about 10%, wow.

I suppose if you were writing this article in 1980 or 1990 or 2010, the question would be "what kind of fool wastes his money on U.S. stocks?" Indeed, the ICI 2015 Factbook suggests that much of the apparent U.S. dominance was driven by the performance disparity just in 2014: the U.S. was up 13%, non-US was down 3%. There's an okay visual in a Rick Ferri article that shows a longer-term pattern.
In general, we invest when markets are rising. While I don't know for sure what has driven recent flows, that same ICI Factbook shows that only about 10% of the industry's assets are invested internationally. Maybe the shock of the 2007-09 collapse, precipitated mostly by the poor behavior of Wall Street, caused some recalibration?
In general and over the long term, value wins, small wins, unpopular wins. Small, valuable and unpopular are not universally and eternally the province of a single national market. That's mostly the reason that I rarely invest in "pure" funds; most of my equity funds are some combination of global or hybrid rather than domestic or international.
As ever,
David

@rjb112 Yes sir, that'll do it for controlling interest; whether 80, 65, or 50.1%. Thanks.
@Shostakovich I dunno. We've certainly seen this before and, soon or later, it seems to not work out so well for MF shareholders, about ...what...half the time? "Blackstone and Corsair Capital’s investment also ensures that First Eagle will continue to operate independently. It will maintain its investment-centric culture." "John Arnhold, Chairman and CIO of First Eagle, said the founding family is pleased with the investment because it provides long-term stability to the firm and its clients." The usual questions arise: how so? and, was that somewhat in doubt before and nothing was said?
@scott So, does that make you, in a sense, Shostakovich's overlord? :)

Did they buy the whole enchilada? I thought they only bought a 20% stake in First Eagle. That would be similar to Oaktree's ~20% stake in DoubleLine (which has been quite lucrative for them).

http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/07/blackstone-corsair-capital-acquire-majority-stake-in-first-eagle/
Blackstone, Corsair Capital Acquire Majority Stake in First Eagle
Posted By: Marie Cabural Posted date: July 21, 2015

Predictably, several of "the Bears" on the link were in the 1920s & '30s..
Was the S&P 500 around in the 1930's? I thought that index was started in the mid/late 1950s.

Here's how the WSJ "self reported" the incident.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/dow-jones-discloses-customer-data-breach-1444406517
"Data breaches have become increasingly common among private companies and government organizations. Last year, 43% of the 567 executives surveyed by the Ponemon Institute said they experienced a data breach in the past year."
Yet all these institutions continue to pretend that your SSN is "secret" and provides "security".

Don't know who else has seen this, so here it is.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/10/09/barrons-hacked-ceo-warns-wider-plot/73663568/

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1423227/000119312515341145/d45141d497.htm
497 1 d45141d497.htm ALLIANZ FUNDS MULTI-STRATEGY TRUST
Filed pursuant to Rule 497(e)
File Nos. 333-148624 and 811-22167
ALLIANZ FUNDS MULTI-STRATEGY TRUST
Supplement Dated October 9, 2015 to the
Statutory Prospectus for Class A, Class B, Class C, Class R, Class R6,
Institutional Class, Class P, Administrative Class and Class D Shares of
Allianz Funds Multi-Strategy Trust,
Dated April 1, 2015 (as supplemented thereafter)
Disclosure Relating to AllianzGI Global Managed Volatility Fund (for purposes of this section only, the “Fund”)
Liquidation of the Fund
Effective on or about December 11, 2015 (the “Liquidation Date”), the Fund will be liquidated and dissolved. Any shares of the Fund outstanding on the Liquidation Date will be automatically redeemed on the Liquidation Date. The proceeds of any such redemption will be equal to the net asset value of such shares after dividend distributions required to eliminate any Fund-level taxes are made and the expenses and liabilities of the Fund have been paid or otherwise provided for. Allianz Global Investors Distributors LLC, the Fund’s distributor (the “Distributor”), will waive contingent deferred sales charges applicable to redemptions beginning five (5) business days prior to the Liquidation Date, including such Liquidation Date.
At any time prior to the Liquidation Date, shareholders may redeem their shares of the Fund and receive the net asset value thereof, pursuant to the procedures set forth under “How to Buy and Sell Shares” in the Prospectus. Shareholders may also exchange their shares of the Fund for shares of the same class of any other series of Allianz Funds Multi-Strategy Trust (the “Trust”) or Allianz Funds that offers that class, as described under “How to Buy and Sell Shares—Exchanging Shares” in the Prospectus. Such exchanges will be taxable transactions for shareholders who hold shares in taxable accounts.
Redemptions on the Liquidation Date will generally be treated like any other redemption of shares and may result in a gain or loss for U.S. federal income tax purposes. Any gain or loss will be a capital gain or loss for shareholders who hold their shares as capital assets. Capital gains or losses will be short- or long-term depending on how long a shareholder has held his or her Fund shares. Shareholders should consult their own tax advisors regarding their particular situation and the possible application of state, local or non-U.S. tax laws.
Restrictions on New Purchases and Exchanges for Shares of the Fund
The Board of Trustees (“Board”) of the Trust has imposed the following restrictions on new purchases of, and exchanges for, shares of the Fund:
Effective as of the close of business on December 4, 2015, shares of the Fund will no longer be available for purchase by current or new investors in the Fund, other than through the automatic reinvestment of distributions by current shareholders, and shareholders of other series of the Trust and shareholders of series of Allianz Funds will no longer be permitted to exchange any of their shares for shares of the Fund, as described in the Prospectus under “How to Buy and Sell Shares—Exchanging Shares.”
The Board and the Distributor each reserves the right at any time to modify or eliminate the terms described above, including on a case-by-case basis.
Disclosure Relating to AllianzGI Global Allocation Fund (for purposes of this section only, the “Fund”)
On October 8, 2015, the Board of the Trust approved the elimination of all Class B shares of the Fund, to be accomplished through the accelerated conversion of Class B shares into Class A shares of the Fund (the “Class B Conversion”). Class B shares have not been available for purchase since November 1, 2009, other than through the reinvestment of distributions by current Class B shareholders.
The Class B Conversion will be effected on the basis of the relative net asset values of the Class B and Class A shares involved and, following the conversion, the Fund will cease to have any Class B shares authorized or outstanding. The Class B Conversion will take place pursuant to the Tenth Amended and Restated Multi-Class Plan of the Trust, which was approved by the Board at its October 8, 2015 meeting, and is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2015. After the Class B Conversion, the Fund will cease to offer Class B shares.
Please retain this Supplement for future reference.

Hmmmmm..... don't know what the advisers are doing with "other peoples money".
--- U.S. started and kept the QE money machine running from late 2008. So, U.S. was the best of the breed at that time.
--- Europe was in the restrictive mode as I recall and there were a series of equity "fits", mostly during the springtime months (May). Greece was a concern and then Mr. Draghi did the "whatever it takes" thing with the European QE.
--- China got rolling again after the melt and bought every commodity in sight. That was good for a few years and of benefit to the Aussies (iron) and some folks in South America for awhile.
--- Japan began (again and/or still) their version of QE.
--- Some central banks continue to reduce rates here and there; I suspect, with the aspect of slow spending and the thought of deflation.
So, there was a strong dollar (commodity pricing globally), fracking finally started to produce changes in this countries energy reserves. The Euro and Japan QE provided a positive boost for investors, especially with tools like HEDJ and DXJ type funds. Recalling that the Euro/dollar was just about $1.60:$1 in 2008 and now runs around $1.14, more or less.
Don't know that anything disrupting has been provided. Just a few trinkets from the past several years that have shaped where some money travels and why.
Not included is anything that is military, social or the particular changes of status in many middle eastern countries.
Lots of stuff going on that we know about, and as much that we don't know about.
The U.S. is likely still the best of the economic turd piles for investing, but there are always investment gems here and there that come to life for a period of time.
Take care,
Catch

Would appreciate seeing some substantive disputing of this column:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/01/16/investing-international-funds/21825245/

81! How cool! Go with the spending!

At age 81 I am through saving but doing some spending. We do have a cash/checking account at Schwab.