The article is from 2008. You can tell from the copyright at the bottom of the article. Or the fact that it talks about management investment in Schwab Yield Plus, that ultrashort disaster that serves as a poster child warning for fads and "safe" investments.
Here are current M* columns that Ted has linked to here and here:
Why You Should Invest With Managers Who Eat Their Own Cooking (M* March 31, 2015)
Fund Managers Who Spit Out Their Own Cooking (M* May 26, 2015)

I actually try and go one step further. It is not just about manager investment. It is about having SKIN in the game. It is not necessarily the same thing.
For instance...
Bill Miller having $1M in LMVTX and buying $70M yacht is NOT Skin in the Game.
Berkowitz having $106M (by my last calculation some time back) in FAIRX IS Skin in the Game.
I look at fund assets and try to make good faith determination if manager has invested token "pennies" in the fund or "real money". For a lot of managers even $1M is a drop in the bucket. It is not about $1M, it is about substantial net worth invested.

@little5bee: I believe the study was done in late 2014. Further to find managers who invest in their own funds, go to M*, put in fund symbol, click on filings tap at top right of fund snapshot, look at SAI

FYI: International stock mutual funds outperformed the U.S. stock market for much of the past 10 years. But international funds fell behind in the past year amid difficulties in stimulating moribund economies in Europe and China as well as Greece's debt problems.
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MjAxMjE2NzI=
Enlarged Graphic:
http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=webLV080615.jpg&docId=765330&xmpSource=&width=1000&height=1063&caption=&id=765246

@MrRuffles #6 and #7 on @LewisBraham 's list for 90 - 95% of money; whatever is hottest for 5 - 10% of money...just to keep portfolio interesting.

Wed, 8/5/15...
S&P + 0.31%; TCHVX (0.21%) (negative).
The market goes down, Gargoyle loses money; the market goes up, Gargoyle also loses money.
You gotta hand it to the new managers --- they are consistent...

MJG and Lewis have pretty much hit the factors I use (along with several I don't place as much weight in). Of the factors given, the ones I consider most important (not in any particular order):
1. Cost - I'll pay transaction fees for institutional shares, because over the long term that's going to save me money. I also have (soft) cost limits in mind for bond funds, domestic equity, etc. I'll stretch 10, maybe 20 basis points if a fund is otherwise very attractive.
2. Funds that are more flexible, but also disciplined (don't use techniques just because they are allowed to). Examples might be FPNIX and funds managed by Michael Hasenstab. Or funds that have a distinctive approach that seems to have more substance than a fad (e.g. RPHYX). "Unconstrained" doesn't impress me - that's saying what's allowed, not what to expect.
3. Does it fit well into my portfolio - in an area that is underrepresented, or as a potential replacement for a long term disappointment?
4. Is the long term performance (with the current management team) solid? A fund needn't do well year by year - different management will do better in different markets - but it should not gyrate all over the place, and management should show some degree of adaptability. (Don't ride Enron down to zero because it looks like a better and better bargain.)
5. Management diversification. I'm disinclined to buy a fund managed by the same team as a fund I already own, or a second fund from a small shop (assuming the funds share analyst research and have similar styles).
6. A fund company that has a record of good management transitions. That could mean team managed funds, or just a family with good practices like T. Rowe Price.
7. Low to moderate turnover.
8. Low to moderate size (but see, e.g. FLPSX).
I'm less inclined than some to look at metrics like alpha. Since I'm seeking funds that are more distinctive, they may not correlate well with the "typical" fund. Lower correlation can severely distorts some of these metrics. Related to that, a fund may be grouped together with the "wrong" funds.
Metrics like Sharpe ratio avoid the benchmark selection question. (But you have to pick the right funds to compare. Otherwise, the Sharpe ratio may suffer the same problem of bad grouping.)

hank said
August 2 edited August 2 Flag
A few morsels from Ed:
"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. - Joseph Heller"
Will this be mediocroty thrust upon us? As in;
Hi ! I'm from the government,and I'm here to help you.
The New School's Teresa Ghilarducci weighs in on mandated savings, risk aversion and avoiding fees
Aug 5, 2015 @ 10:46 am
By Bloomberg News
Retirement policy wonks don't usually get hate mail. But in 2008, Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at the New School for Social Research, proposed replacing 401(k) plans and their income tax break with a mandated government savings plan for all workers. The blowback from some Tea Partyers was so intense that the school's chief of security gave her his cell phone number.
The plan called for mandatory savings of 5% of salary, with the government handling all investment decisions, guaranteeing a rate of return above inflation, and ultimately paying out the retirement money in a lifelong annuity. It's pretty radical. Conservatives hate it. She continues to advocate for it, though she won't comment on whether she has discussed it as one of the cadre of economists advising Hillary Clinton in her presidential bid.
About 15 years ago, Ms. Ghilarducci started to focus on getting to retirement in fighting shape.
“It was a pure money play,” she said. “I lost some weight and am devoted to my seven-minute workout app and weight training at the gym." It's not about vanity, she said, "but the money I hope to save if I can avoid illnesses such as diabetes and osteoporosis.”
Ms. Ghilarducci said if she didn't have access to TIAA-CREF she'd park her money in Vanguard index funds.
“It's against my religion to invest in actively managed funds,” she said. "I suspected they were fishy when I was younger, and now we have plenty of evidence that passive [investing] is better."
After doing some intensive research on long-term care insurance, she decided to pass. She cites the high premiums on the policies and new research that suggests that budget-busting extended care will be needed by fewer elderly people than previously thought.
“Pushing for Medicare to expand to cover long-term care is my best bet, and honestly, it's everyone's best bet,” she said.
Many retirement experts and myriad online tools suggest aiming for retirement income that can replace 70% to 80% of your pre-retirement income. Ms. Ghilarducci, who has based her plan on living until 92, is out to replace 100%.
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20150805/FREE/150809967/this-retirement-expert-got-death-threats-for-her-policy-reform-ideas
WHO INVITED TERESA GHILARDUCCI TO THE TABLE?
Lunch and populism with Hillary Clinton’s least-likely adviser.
BY NANCY COOK
This article appears in the June 27, 2015 edition of National Journal Magazine as Who Invited Teresa Ghilarducci to the Table?.
Ghilarducci's big idea, then and now, is to create government-run, guaranteed retirement accounts ("GRAs," for short). Taxpayers would be required to put 5 percent of their annual income into savings, with the money managed by the Social Security Administration. They could only opt out if their employer offered a traditional pension, and they wouldn't be able to withdraw the money as readily and early as with a 401(k). The government would invest the money and guarantee a rate of return, adjusted to inflation.
To pay for the program, Ghilarducci calls for ending tax breaks for people with 401(k)s —breaks that, according to her and others' research, now go primarily toward wealthier Americans. Instead, every taxpayer would receive a $600 refundable tax credit that would go toward the 5 percent annual contribution.
Plenty of economists and policymakers—especially on the state and local levels—have proposed some version of government-run retirement accounts. But no plan has been quite so grandly liberal as Ghilarducci's, which would create a new federal program easily as massive as the one wrought by the Affordable Care Act—and do it by mandating that Americans contribute 5 percent of their earnings. "You don't like mandates? Get real," she wrote in a 2012 Times op-ed. "Just as a voluntary Social Security system would have been a disaster, a voluntary retirement account plan is a disaster."
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/teresa-ghilarducci-hillary-clinton-adviser-20150626

Among things worth mentioning aside from your own personal need for the fund, which is paramount:
1. Low costs but not just by expense ratio, but by dollar amount. A large fund with a lower expense ratio but a higher dollar amount in fees than a smaller nimbler fund may not be such a bargain. Large funds tend to get bloated and are not run as efficiently.
2. Manager investment in the fund. Managers who eat their own cooking tend to treat shareholders well. Look for greater than $1 million for the manager.
3. Low portfolio turnover or low assets or both. Trading costs money so low turnover is generally better, but if you like a manager who trades aggressively, then look for a fund with a small asset base. Trading has a market impact cost so a bloated fund that trades aggressively will suffer.
4. Fund shops that are not publicly traded. Fund companies that are traded on the stock market have two sets of shareholders--the shareholders of their funds and the shareholders of the fund company. Those two sets of shareholders have conflicting interests. Fund company shareholders want funds to get as big as possible to collect as much management fees as possible. Bloated funds tend to underperform, so fund shareholders want smaller nimbler funds.
5. A willingness to close funds at an appropriate size.
6. Consistent outperformance as opposed to volatile outperformance. Some funds with great returns are too streaky and just have a few great periods and a lot of terrible or mediocre ones.
7. A low downside capture ratio and a high upside one. Less downside with more upside is generally the way to go.
8. A high active share ratio. If you're going to pay extra for active management, better to have one who deviates from the index as much as possible.
9. Buying when a great manager underperforms. while investors routinely chase hot performance, it is often better to find a good manager and wait till he or she underperforms before buying. Most good managers have slow periods and when they're hot they tend to cool off. You don't want to buy at the peak.
10. Tax Considerations. If you are investing in a taxable account, pay attention to how tax efficient the fund has been in the past.
11. A deep and talented analyst pool. Don't just look at the manager, see if there is a research team to back that up and see if that team is long tenured.
12. A manager owner of fund company. A manager who owns the fund company will probably stick around. A manager who is an employee of the firm may jump ship at any time.
Hope this helps.

Hi MrRuffles,
I do not have a rigid formulaic set of rules, but I do deploy a generic set that serve as guidelines to reduce the selection field to manageable proportions.
Here is my candidate set, not necessarily in order of importance and it is not necessary that all need to be satisfied. Flexibility and gut feelings are important contributors to the final judgment. Here are my golden 11 rules:
1. A mutual fund that fits nicely into the more important asset allocation plan. Check the Morningstar fund asset distribution.
2. Low costs, like below the category average by at least 25%.
3. Low turnover rate, like 50% annually or less. I want a decisive management that is committed to its decisions.
4. Positive Excess Returns above appropriate benchmark for various, but not necessarily all, longer-term timeframes. That means mostly positive Alphas and Information Ratios above zero after examining different timeframes.
5. An understandable investment selection policy that offers the potential for market outperformance. Something unique that warrants the extra costs.
6. Seasoned and stable fund managers with quantifiable track records.
7. Trustworthy fund firm with deep pockets to hire superior fund managers and research teams.
8. Gut feeling that this fund will deliver the goods over time.
9. A commitment to stay the course with the selected fund to allow a proper test period, like maybe at least 3 years unless circumstances drastically change.
10. A default option to hire an Index fund if nothing satisfactorily surfaces.
11. The fund should have a near zero cash position. I’ll do my own cash management.
12. I’m sure I forgot something. Others will add to this incomplete list. No great discoveries in my golden 11.
Please keep in mind that I’m a very senior investor in the Required Minimum Withdrawal phase of my investment life. On average, I probably adjust my portfolio about twice a year. I’ve never been a very active trader. I am slowly moving my portfolio towards a higher percentage of Index products primarily motivated by cost considerations.
Each of us have different goals, timeframes, and portfolio ambitions. What I do might not mesh in any way with your investment and financial profiles whatsoever. When investing, nothing is ever cast in stone.
I wish you the very best success in your mutual fund decisions. But remember that in the long scheme of happenings, it is really a small matter. Your asset allocation decision has far more influence on your investment success.
Best Regards.

@David_Snowball
Good point - I was being broad to elicit a variety of responses.
Along your lines, how about limiting it to either of these circumstances:
(1) I need (or I think I need) a new fund in an existing fund category.
(2) I've decided to change my allocation and add a fund in a new category.
In both cases, how do I determine the best fund for me to invest in?

Geez - I'm surprised. I wonder if they're excluding short and ultrashort-term paper in their results? My conservative allocation funds (mostly at Price) have held hardly any cash for a long time. But they hold a lot of short term obligations - perhaps a year or less in duration. I tend to think of that as cash for all practical purposes. By going out a little in maturity and buying in large lots they're able to get perhaps 1% or more on money that would otherwise be earning near 0.
As I noted recently OAKBX appears to have divested itself of almost all long term debt in favor of this short duration type paper. Overall allocation to fixed income has remained about the same.

My Morningstar Instant Xray monthly analysis indicates that cash levels have been increasing , within funds held inside my portfolio, since the first part of 2015. I can not speak to the whole universe of all mutual funds as a whole. However, some of my hybrid funds have reduced their bond allocation while raising their allocation to some combination of both stocks and cash while the other asset category has remained about the same. In addition, short positions have increased from about six percent to about eight percent.

Here's a list of internet funds from 2001. Very familiar names from the dot com era. Was M* wrong to pan this subcategory en masse, given that the vast majority of these funds are no longer with us?
If M* was going to pick one, should they have picked a fund with unproven management (all newbies), or followed the manager (Ryan Jacobs) who built that fund's record (a la Gundlach, but also Winters)?
Hindsight is wonderful. Since the M* "dissing" was in the 1999-2005 era, wouldn't it be more relevant to look at the fund's performance in, say, the decade of the 2000s? (So that we can see whether it would have been worthwhile avoiding the fund prospectively.)
VF suggested using VFINX for comparison. I'm okay with that (of course, since that stacks the deck :-) ) Using the same M* charts, we can get what $10K would be worth at the end of that decade. For WWWFX, it was $6527. VFINX lost only 1/3 as much, winding up with $9,045.
I'm in complete agreement that M* tends to fawn over some funds and managers; PIMCO/Gross is indeed a fine example of that. There, you can look at M*'s comments vs. performance over the next 1-3 years and see the disconnect.

Apple breaking through 50 day for the first time since 2013.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=AAPL&p=W&b=5&g=0&id=p28537992230

RSIVX has struggled this year, that's for sure. I see other funds as better alternatives for total return, such as DLINX, ASHDX and OSTIX.

+1. The funds Will mentioned have considerably better Sharpes and up-down capture than RSIVX. (It's in the same overall credit-risk category (~B) as those other funds, so it's an entirely appropriate comparison.)

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
WSJ Slant:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stock-futures-european-equities-drop-as-china-rallies-1438690760
Bloomberg Slant:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-04/u-s-index-futures-little-changed-before-kellogg-disney-results
Reuters Slant:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/04/us-markets-stocks-idUSKCN0Q916Y20150804
MarketWatch Slant:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-set-for-choppy-day-as-traders-wait-for-nonfarm-payrolls-earnings-2015-08-04/print
WSJ Markets at A Glance:
http://markets.wsj.com/us
Sector Tracker:
http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker
Current Futures: (Negative)
http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

FYI: (The Linkster has always favored funds with low cash levels. I like managers to put my investing dollars to work).
Mutual-fund cash levels just shriveled to 3.2%, an all-time low
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/warning-sounds-as-mutual-fund-cash-levels-hit-all-time-low-2015-08-04/print

We made a lot of clients happy for a number of years when we owned MFLDX from late 2007 through 2013. While we are no longer in this fund, I think we learned a few lessons. 1) Independence is crucial. When Marketfield was bought by Mainstay, it was a boutique fund with strong performance record. Mainstay made it their marquee fund, and assets ballooned from $4B to almost $16B in less than a year. No management team with a unique strategy, no matter how smart and talented, can handle this inflow. 2) Our observation is that the team let their risk parameters widen to accomodate the massive flow of cash. That resulted in a 12% loss in 2014, something from which they have not recovered. 3) No longer a boutique fund used by RIAs, hot cash fled the fund, even faster than it went in, with assets dropping to only $3B now. Once the run starts, it feeds on itself. Do not try to stand in the doorway. Interesting to note that the best record in the Equity Long-Short sector belongs to Schwab Hedged Equity SWHEX, that also happens to have one of the smallest asset bases. I am not suggesting folks buy this fund, but if I did own it, I would watch fund flows very carefully. Another strong performer is Gateway GTEYX, which has been around a very long time and now has by far the largest asset base. It has remained independent, though it is part of the Natixis group (Oakmark, Loomis, Vaughn Nelson, et al), and just keeps plugging along. Nothing fancy and has by far the lowest expenses of the group.
As for Hussman, it just boggles the mind to think that HSGFX has lost money in going on 6 of the last 8 years. Shareholders have fled, but there are still some who have stayed (maybe Hussman and his relatives?).

@David_Snowball Oh, I actually thought you were joking. Then, I went and looked it up--- you weren't joking! What a Fun House of Mirrors. Nevertheless, considering the chronic under-performance by most of TCW's stock equity MFs, perhaps TCW's newest control owner, The Carlyle Group, thinks TCW investors need a whole bunch of "alternatives." ;)