Many decades ago I met a stock market specialist who was a Vietnam veteran. He said in Vietnam there was the saying “There’s the quick and the dead.”; then he said “In the stock market there’s the quick and the poor.”. This was a time when people did the trading and there were no HFT or other computer automated schemes. By quick he meant the real-time ticker; by slow he meant the 15 minute delayed ticker - a far cry from the HFT of today.
In general time can be categorized as past, present, or future. The past is all events that have occurred; the future is all possible events that may occur; and the present is the time between the past and the future. For example you plan to have a celebration of the new Government Fiscal Year on Saturday, October 3rd (with hopefully no Government shutdown). Your plan is to have a barbecue steak dinner. In order to determine the number of steaks to order, you send out invitations asking potential attendees to RSVP by September 30. With regard to the number of steaks to order, the time between September 30 and the time you send out the invitations is the present time.
Given the above, as an investor, I conclude that any comments I hear on TV are history. The next day the comments are ancient history and are ignored in favor of the current comment d’jour.
To be a successful trader you would need to be able to imply a future event from a past event and act fast enough before the implied future event becomes a past event. Given computers, the present may only exist for milliseconds. A long-term investor has a very long present: the time between the buy and the sell.

FYI: 1. Market corrections are not unusual.
2. Multiple factors contributed to recent volatility.
3. The U.S. economy remains resilient.
Regards,
Ted
https://pressroom.vanguard.com/content/nonindexed/Commentary_VanguardBlog_Perspective_and_Patience_083115.pdf

FYI: At the risk of overstating the obvious, there are important differences between traders and investors. Their timelines differ, as do their goals, preferred assets and methods. Yet some of what I have been hearing from members of each group suggests they themselves can sometimes become confused about these dissimilarities. Blame the recent market volatility for this.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2015/09/trader-or-investor/print/

In response to the original post, I found an even more deceptive depiction of performance in the most recent Baron Funds quarterly report. I don't know how to insert the table from the report (p. 9 of report). I hope this link works.
baronfunds.com/BaronFunds/media/Quarterly-Reports/Quarterly-Report-063015.pdf
When I looked at the table, I said to myself, "Huh?" There are column headers for 10-year, 5-year, and 3-year returns along with average excess returns. I had to study the table and footnotes for 30 minutes to see what they did. At first (and second) glance, one would get the impression that BSCFX has been performing wonderfully. By using the entire history of the fund, they have whitewashed over its "recent" performance. BSCFX uses the Russell 2000 Growth Index as its primary prospectus benchmark. I looked at returns of BSCFX compared to the ETF IWO (iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF). If you were a new investor, or added to your account in the past 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, or 13 years, you would have trailed the ETF/benchmark, and with a higher tax cost ratio.
Number of Years Cumulative Return BSCFX
Begin Date End Date BSCFX IWO Annualized Underperformance
6/30/2002 6/30/2015 13 226.34% 252.77% -0.66%
6/30/2003 6/30/2015 12 223.88% 250.71% -0.73%
6/30/2004 6/30/2015 11 156.60% 167.07% -0.40%
6/30/2005 6/30/2015 10 120.37% 156.46% -1.65%
6/30/2006 6/30/2015 9 104.96% 124.22% -1.09%
6/30/2007 6/30/2015 8 71.40% 92.24% -1.54%
6/30/2008 6/30/2015 7 99.71% 115.67% -1.22%
6/30/2009 6/30/2015 6 154.73% 186.54% -2.31%
6/30/2010 6/30/2015 5 113.90% 142.93% -3.00%
6/30/2011 6/30/2015 4 51.67% 69.41% -3.11%
6/30/2012 6/30/2015 3 57.98% 73.93% -3.80%
6/30/2013 6/30/2015 2 27.52% 40.43% -5.58%
6/30/2014 6/30/2015 1 4.05% 12.54% -8.49%
I found Baron's report egregiously deceptive. When this fund was new and nimble, it sidestepped the dot.com debacle. Since then, its quacks like an index fund with a grossly high 1.30% ER. Even as assets continue to overwhelm this fund, it continues to charge a 0.25% 12b-1 fee to attract even more assets.

I guess I will plead "ignorance" on the topic..
Apparently "social investing" means shunning fossil-fuel producing energy companies. Yet, all the Top 25 holdings in VFTSX are massive CONSUMERS of fossil fuels, aren't they?
Virtually all MNCs who manufacture products, operate globally using an import-export business model (siting their production in the cheapest locale, then exporting to 1st world nations) rather than manufacturing locally which would minimize consumption of fossil fuels. The import-export model relentlessly consumes untold amounts of fossil fuels as product laden containers are hauled to the developed world, and empty containers are then returned to 3rd world production facilities.
I see ethical drug makers are well-presented in SRI screens. These companies routinely engage in price-gouging in the USA, and charge much less for the identical drug in other countries. Are those practices "socially responsible"?
Banks seem to be well-represented too. Of course, the banks engaged in an orgy of shoddy underwriting practices which permitted the mortgage crisis/Great Recession.
I see PepsiCo is a top VFTSX holding. Along with Coke, their products are among the greatest contributor to diabetes in this country and around the world. Socially-responsible? -- I guess it helps the business of those "socially responsible" diabetes-drug makers -- a "virtuous circle/feedback loop" if ever there was one.
[edit: Many of the tech companies ID'd as 'Socially responsible" engage in extremely aggressive & contorted accounting fictions designed solely to move 'accounting income' to offshore locations --- thereby legally dodging their tax bills (again its "legal" because they bribed legislators and hired lobbyists to make it legal). Is this "socially responsible" or is it sneaky, greedy, and serve to drain govt revenues, which impedes spending on "socially responsible" infrastructure, and health programs...?...]
My point -- all corporations are greedy b@$t@ard$. They conduct their operations, to one extent or another, in socially IR-responsible --albeit legal -- means. And often what they do is legal because they pay lobbyists and bribe legislatures (here and abroad) to turn a blind eye.
All business enterprises (of any scale) are "dirty" to one extent or another.
As far investing based on "religious" concepts --- I'm no clergy, but a certain philosopher/man of god, once stated its easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into heaven. That philosopher would probably have suggested giving your money to the poor and skip investing altogether. (A philosophy which I certainly would NOT advocate!)

FYI: Tuesday’s market selloff comes just as some investors had thought the market tumult of the last week and a half might be behind us. They were wrong.
For now, the key is to keep stock of your portfolio and these five factors weighing on sentiment, as none of them is likely to go away soon.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2015/09/01/5-forces-driving-the-global-stock-selloff/tab/print/

@msf
Thanks msf for your comment. I'll give it consideration. My portfolio was born and grown, for the most part except for my 401k, profit sharing and health savings account, with A share development through the past forty years, or so; and, as such, I can now buy a good number of A shares funds at nav or at a discounted price.
One of the crafty ways I found, years ago, was to buy A shares in a family's fixed income funds that usualy had a lower sales load, hold them for the required period of time (usually 90 days), and then do a nav exhange to the equity fund product that most often had a higher sales load. In some cases, this created a tax loss for me if done in a taxable account. In this way, some or most of the commisions paid became tax deductable if a loss took place as the nav exchange is considered a taxable event if done within a taxable account.
Thus far this form of buying has worked out well for me. I am sure if this method of purchase becomes too widely used then steps will be taken to slow or discourage this type of purchase. However, these purchases, at the time made, conformed to the rules found within the fund's perspectus and current tax laws.
This is one of the "many things" I learned from my late father as how he went about opening his special investment position with a fixed income fund, usually holding it through the summer months, and then, come fall, did a nav exchange into an equity fund for his traditional fall stock market special investment (spiff). Any losses he had incurred thus far which would usually include the commission paid became a tax loss for him when he made the nav exchange. Kinda clever? Yes.
Thanks again for making comment. It is indeed appreciated.

I plan to split some of my BWLAX off through American Becon's nav exchange program once Bridgeway Large Cap Growth gets moved over. I'll go with the A shares in this fund since this will be a nav exchange for me.

If your shares are in a tax-advantaged (deferred, exempt) account, or if you can execute a tax-free exchange in a taxable account, it seems you'd be better off with the Investor class shares (BWLIX). Total ER is 8 basis points lower than the A shares. I'd expect a similar situation on the growth side once that fund moves over.
Disregard what I'm suggesting if you're saving up to meet the $100K min for the Y class shares. At 0.84% ER they're still not as cheap as the Institutional class shares BRVLX (0.79%), but close, and I'm guessing you have access to them since you've got access to A shares load-waived.

It took them about a week to get this sorted out and fixed. My VOYA funds that were effected by this were showing a 8/31 closing price on Monday. Hopefully, the nav as posted was correct.

Regarding the global micro cap fund, a 9/1/15 email from Mark Siddoway regarding the Stalwarts funds opening indicated:
"Details of the Global Micro Cap Fund launch will be emailed
to Grandeur Peak shareholders in the next few months. Our
four existing Grandeur Peak Funds remain closed to new investments."
@Ted,
Mark's email gave his cellphone number...I don't think it would be a wise idea to call him on it.

Fact, there is believed to still be a lot of leverage currently remaining in the capital markets.
In a downturn, usually leverage postions of investors get closed before margin calls are made. I have no way of knowing how much leverage is currently out there but it would not surprise me if it was north of 35%. See where I am going with this. A decline of 30% would put the S&P 500 Index somewhere around 1500 from its recent 52 week high of about 2135. This puts its TTM P/E Ratio back in line with what many say is a normal TTM P/E Ratio range of 14 to 16. Some like to streach and use forward estimates or even the Rule of Twenty.
Jill Mislinski currently does a monthly piece on this which I have linked below.
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/PE-Ratios-and-Market-Valuation.php
From review ... It is interesting that TTM Earnings are currently being reported at $94.68 down from prior year ending reporting of $102.31 ... and, they are not expected to improve until sometime in the fourth quarter with a December ending target of $100.59. At the current market close (1914) on September 1 puts the index at a TTM P/E Ratio at 20.2.
Still kina of expensive ... Don't you think? Let's see that is about a decline in TTM Earnings of about 7% thus far this year and 2% decline projected for the full year. Now if we take the prior's year ending closing price of about 2060 and mark it down by 7% we arive at a price of 1915 for the Index. Interesting, is it not? That is about where it closed on September 1. Wonder if it will close some where around 2020 come the end of this year? Indeed interesting if it does. That would be 2% below its 2014 December ending closing price of about 2060 and reflect the 2% anticipated decline in TTM Earnings.
Now some will say let's use the Rule of Twenty and in doing so that currently put's the Index around fair value. Perhaps so ... perhaps not. It depends on what the leveraged investor does. If they continue to close positions to reduce leverage ... Well, its still overvalued by my thinking. Now my engineer high school buddy will most likely put a different spin on my thinking as my dergee was in Economics. But, math is math.
Information about The Rule of Twenty is linked below ...
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-05-01/rule-of-20-is-the-stock-market-fairly-valued
And, for those that like reading a good debate on the Rule of Twenty below is a link to Bogleheads.org ...
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=168118
Comments on my thinking are welcome ... pro or con.

FYI: Recent volatility, which continued Monday, has been a cold reminder of why stocks are generally considered long-term investments.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20150901/FREE/150909992?template=printart

FYI: (This is a follow-up article) (Click On Article Title At Top Og Google Search)
Bank of New York Mellon Corp. said Monday morning that it had finished working through a backlog of mutual and exchange-traded fund-pricing issues before the market opened, ending a weeklong struggle by the company to provide accurate asset values to about 1,200 funds.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=BNY+Catches+Up+With+Pricing+Backlog+wsj

@Old_Joe said

We tend to look at YTD because it's a convenient and fairly common starting point for comparing numbers

Yup, but I noticed something last week, when someone (it may have been you) posted a half-dozen MF returns, all of them slightly positive, YTD. Surprised me, because it seemed several of them would have been negative, so I looked 'em up and the YTD returns were correct. However, not only were the 3 mo returns all negative (as expected) but the 1 yr returns were also all slightly more negative. And, wouldn't ya know it, when I checked several in my potpourri, the same thing--- positive YTD, but negative 1 yr.
Ergo, FWIW, because of that bump-up at the beginning of 2015, we're at one of those points in time where it's probably best to look at the 1 yr, and ignore the YTD, to get the most realistic assessment of how individual investments have been performing recently.

We tend to look at YTD because it's a convenient and fairly common starting point for comparing numbers within a defined period of time. But we tend to forget that as far as the universe is concerned, there's nothing magical or even particularly significant about Jan 1. We might just as well arbitrarily start our comparison period on April 1... in fact, that might actually make more sense given the foolishness of the financial arena.
There's probably a psychological factor there too- it makes it less painful to mentally write off a bad YTD as just a lousy single year, while we remember the good ones (and next year is sure to be better. Maybe.). Skeet is right about looking at the longer view.

This is a rather tiresome old-fashioned view on SRI and ESG--environmental social and governance--based investing that has been refuted by academic evidence. Click here: https://institutional.deutscheawm.com/content/_media/Sustainable_Investing_2012.pdf
A key excerpt from this report is the following:
"100% of the academic studies agree that companies with high ratings for CSR and ESG factors have a lower cost of capital in terms of debt (loans and bonds) and equity. In effect, the market recognizes that these companies are lower risk than other companies and rewards them accordingly....
89% of the studies we examined show that companies with high ratings for ESG factors exhibit market-based outperformance, while 85% of the studies show these types of company’s exhibit accounting-based outperformance. Here again, the market is showing correlation between financial performance of companies and what it perceives as advantageous ESG strategies, at least over the medium (3-5 years) to long term (5-10 years)."
In fact, I think the idea that "personal beliefs don't belong in your retirement account" actually is a reflection of the personal beliefs of many of the authors who routinely bash SRI/ESG without looking at the academic evidence, revealing their own biases. The fact is trillions of dollars are now invested globally according to some sort of SRI/ESG principles with little negative effects and in many cases positive ones:
fa-mag.com/news/sri-assets-up-76--since-2012--study-says-19953.html

"If one believes that solar is the way of the future, hopefully those people have the patience to wait out that long-term view. In other words, if you invest on beliefs in things that you think could do good, you will still likely have your beliefs and patience tested more than a few times along the way."
IMHO, a post child fund for being too early is New Alternatives Fund (NAEFX). Started in 1982; if it isn't the first fund dedicated to solar and alternative energy, it's pretty close. Usually rated 1* (it currently has a 2* rating). I haven't determined whether that's because it was really early with what was then very costly technology, or because it couldn't pick better holdings, or both.
Just this year it finally started a noload share class. But its extra 0.25% 12b-1 fee means that you'll wind up paying the equivalent of the front end load if you hold it a couple of decades.
Definitely not an endorsement of this fund; just pointing out that it has been possible to buy into these ideas for decades. But if you did, you needed a whole lot of patience. The technologies seem much more viable now.
The OP article makes the usual assertion that by definition any restrictions on diversification diminish profits. It doesn't address studies that show one can do well by doing good.
Nor does it explain why, if unconstrained investments should do better, unconstrained bond funds have such a lackluster record. (The freedom to invest anywhere does not mean one has the ability to do that well. Most managers are better sticking with what they know best.)

It's not the vote, but the actions after the vote that matter.
"If Bridgeway Fund’s shareholders approve the Plan, the Reorganization is expected to take effect in the fourth quarter of 2015" (see above).
Having said that, Bridgeway could close the fund at any time (either before, but probably after, the vote) to facilitate the transition to AB. As to the date of that vote:
" A special shareholder meeting is being called for that purpose and shareholders of the Bridgeway Fund will receive proxy solicitation materials". It seems the board still has to set the meeting time/place.

@MFO Members: Fund announcements. Call Eric Huefner @ 801-384-0003, and tell them Ted told you to call.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.grandeurpeakglobal.com/documents/pdfs/grandeurpeakglobal-pr-20150812-1.pdf

Hi, Whak!
In fairness, it's a market neutral fund so you should expect market-like returns, up or down. In general it captures 40% of the upside and 20% of the downside. Since the strategy launched, it's captured 80-some percent of the S&P. Since the mutual fund launched in July 2013, it's captured about 25% of the returns but hasn't had a lot of volatility to work with.
I did ask Morty a similar question last week, about the fund in the recent choppiness. His answer was that it's working about as planned. It can capture as much as 50% of a sudden downdraft but the volatility-driven options should allow a fairly quick recovery. He's asked if I'd like to speak with the managers later this week, but I'm only the road and a bit unsure of my schedule.
More soon.
David