https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stan-druckenmiller-the-bull-market-has-exhausted-itself-210803739.html
Legendary hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller, who runs Duquesne Capital, says that “the bull market has exhausted itself” after eight years of a “radical monetary experiment.”com/news/stan-druckenmiller-the-bull-market-has-exhausted-itself-210803739.html
I'm selling my home and buying a RV to live in instead of buying gold.

Hi, Ben.
Not sure about the 2-3 year holding pattern thing. They crushed the competition 3 years ago and crushed them 2 years ago then trailed for the first 3 quarters of 2015 then outperformed in the 4th quarter. They're trailing this year. Over the whole period from Jan. 2015 to now, they trail their peers by 5% cumulative.
Innovators, to them, do stuff like high levels of employee training and product refinement (think of it as "continual internal upgrades"). But they also look for businesses that won't flame-out which means many quarters of cash-flow growth. Tesla, cool as they are, posted losses of $0.54 share with a share price of $225. They also lose $30,000 on every high-end car they sell. That's not a profile these guys would get within a mile of.
David

If we're including multi-billion funds, one I like is American Century Mid Cap Value, ACMVX. (Before anyone writes that this is closed, look again. It is only closed when purchasing through a third party, e.g. Schwab.)
I ran a search for small funds in the small cap value space, and ran across LSV Small Cap Value (LVAQX). In some senses, similar to TDVFX (tiny AUM, tiny cap). Not quite deep value though. Even lower turnover (15%). And fine performance so far (three years old - see original share class LSVQX).
This seems like a quant fund with training wheels. It keeps its sectors within 5% of its benchmark - I'm guessing that this could explain the low turnover, since quant funds are often whipsawed.

@MFO Members: Let's see now, here is this turkey's track record, enough said !!!
Regards,
Ted
YTD: 76 Percentile
1Yr. 90 "
3Yr. 85 "
5Yr. 98 "
10 Yr. 66 "
15 Yr. 89 "

Thanks for the background. It explains why Putnam is giving up on Voyager.
Years ago, it used to be a well respected, well known fund. For part of the 90s, it was the largest holding in my 401k plan (until my company dumped Putnam for Merrill Lynch).
Looking over the management history, it seems that Marsh & McLennan (former owners of Putnam) made hash of the fund after that, with rapid management turnover and of course with the 2003 timing scandals. The longevity of the immediately preceding manger (2008-2016) might be explained by Putnam having been bought in 2007. Just a guess.
FWIW, Putnam VT Voyager (the VA clone of Voyager) is similarly being merged into Putnam VT Growth Opportunities.

from our May commentary on the merger, for what interest it holds:
Putnam Voyager Fund (PVOYX) is merging into Putnam Growth Opportunities (POGAX) on July 15, 2016. Voyager’s performance was rightly described as “dismal” by Morningstar. Voyager’s manager was replaced in February by Growth Opportunities', after a string of bad bets: in the past six years, he mixed one brilliant year with two dismal ones and three pretty bad ones. He was appointed in late 2008 just before the market blasted off, rewarding all things risky. As soon as that phase passed, Voyager sank in the mud. To their credit, Voyager’s investors stayed with the fund and assets, still north of $3 billion, have only recently begun to slip. The new combined fund’s manager is no Peter Lynch, but he’s earning his keep.
David

Sometimes you can do a distribution in kind from your IRA to your taxable account and bootstrap an institutional share account that way. (Occasionally the fund company will require you to pony up enough to meet the high minimum or it will convert the shares to retail shares.)
If you do a distribution this way, you can even avoid IRA tax consequences by replacing the shares removed with their cash value within 60 days (i.e. a 60 day IRA rollover).
I've posted before that I think the question of whether there's a 12b-1 fee is a red herring.
Retail funds are going to collect money from the fund one way or another to pay for servicing the account. A fund uses this money to pay a third party brokerage to do the selling and generate account statements, or to do these tasks itself if selling direct.
It may or may not break the cost out as a separate line item, but either way, that's a reason why the retail funds cost more. The TRP fund has no 12b-1 fee, but included in "other expenses" are "administrative fees" of up to 0.15%:

The funds may make payments to retirement plan recordkeepers, broker-dealers, and other financial intermediaries (at a rate of up to 0.15% of average daily net assets per year) for transfer agency, recordkeeping, and other administrative services that they provide on behalf of the funds. These administrative services may include services such as maintaining account records for each customer; transmitting net purchase and redemption orders; delivering shareholder confirmations, statements, and tax forms; and providing support to respond to customers’ questions regarding their accounts.

See Prospectus.

FYI: Putnam Investment Management will merge its long-time flagship stock mutual fund out of existence this summer, according to a filing with regulators.
Assets in the $3.3 billion Putnam Voyager Fund (PVOYX) will be absorbed by the $609 million Putnam Growth Opportunities Fund (POGAX) in the middle of July. Robert Brookby, portfolio manager of Growth Opportunities Fund since 2009 and Voyager since February, will run the unified fund, the filing says. Brookby took over for Nick Thakore, who left the firm. He had run Voyager since 2008. From the filing.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2016/05/04/putnam-voyager-fund-will-be-merged-out-of-existence/tab/print/

From year to year, the difference is small between institutional and retail shares as msf pointed out with T. Rowe Price funds. The compounded returns say a 10 or 20 year period is much larger. If the retail shares carry 12-b-1 and other expense, the difference is even more meaningful.
The only barrier to small investors outside of their tax deferred accounts is the large minimum investment, many (but not all) require a $1M even through discount brokerages.

Also review ICMTX (currently up 10.40%). This is a new fund from Intrepid. It has small/mid value stocks (domestic and other). The beta of the fund has been quite remarkable. It is approximately 80% invested.

Many of the top small cap value funds are closed to new investors, and this is an ongoing good news/bad news. Nuveen FSCCX and Wisdom Tree DES are both open and have among the best 3 and 5-year records. Mid cap value is also pretty bare, but Wells Fargo SMCDX has a good track record. ETFs offer more options in PEY, DVY, DON, all of which have out-performed the S&P 400. But, as David says, it depends on what is important to you. Diamond Hill has a great small cap fund, but it is closed.
We use Vanguard Index VIMAX as a core hold, with UMBMX as a concentrated add-on. It has out-performed both midcap blend and value over the last 10 years, mostly it has less downside loss.
For small cap we use SWSSX or VTMSX as a core, with IYSIX in our more aggressive accounts.

"But has acted like a story stock"?
Uhhh ... top 3% of all global funds for the past three, five and ten years. It trailed its peers in 2015 by 1.3% and YTD by 3.5%. Their argument is that they favor firms that generate lots of free cash flow, which they take to be a sign of a sustainable business that can finance its own growth without recourse to borrowing. The market lately has emphatically favored "get big quick" story stocks. The four FANG stocks accounted for all of the S&P 500's gains last year but if you look at Netflix (the "N"), they're trading for $110/share and reporting $0.04 earnings/share. Facebook ("F") reported $0.18/share last year against a share price of $115. They do own Alphabet/Google but not Amazon.
So if "story stocks" are bad and they refuse to own the story stocks, despite their current price momentum, wouldn't that be a good thing?
Puzzled, as is so often the case,
David

FYI: When the going gets rough, the 1 percent start selling.
That’s the finding of a new paper that says people with the highest income bailed from stocks disproportionately on the worst days of the financial crisis. The share of selling by the biggest earners rose “sharply” in days following spikes in volatility, according to data on millions of sales reported to the government in 2008 and 2009.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/super-rich-were-first-to-bail-when-lehman-collapse-ripped-stocks

ep1: In addition to David's suggestions here are U.S. News's Rankings of small and mid cap value funds.
Regards,
Ted
Small Cap Value:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/rankings/small-value
Mid-Cap Value Funds:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/rankings/mid-cap-value

Hi, ep1.
A lot depends on what you're looking for, beyond "small and midcap." Some folks like deep value, some seek low-vol, absolute value or concentrated portfolio. I ran a quick screen through MFO Premium for SC/MC value sorted by highest Sharpe ratio over the full market cycle. Here's the shortlist:
Intrepid Endurance (formerly Intrepid Small Cap, ICMAX) - absolute value which means huge cash holdings until compelling valuations appear. Up 4% YTD despite 67% cash which implies that equity portion was up 12%. Lost 18% in the 2007-09 crash. In a similar vein but without full-cycle performance is Aston/River Road Independent Value (ARIVX) - the former manager of ICMAX is at 85% cash and has still gained 8.5% YTD which implies about a 60% gain in the equity portfolio. Most folks have been pretty caustic about the funds because the managers have been steadily harvesting gains and building cash since about 2011 which means they've missed the current party.
Victory Sycamore Established Value (VETAX) - $4 billion mid-cap fund with a value bias. Nominally has a load though those are often avoidable. Fully invested, consistently top decile performer. Lost 43% in the market crash, substantially less than the index.
Wells Fargo Special Mid Cap Value (WFPAX) - $3.5 billion mid-cap fund with a value bias, same story on the load. Launched in 1998 but the current team has been onboard about seven years, top 5% performer. Down 44% in the crash.
Hennessy Cornerstone Mid Cap 30 (HFMDX) - no-load with about a billion. Substantially more volatile than the two funds above, somewhat higher returns, very low turnover.
Queens Road SCV (QRSVX) - about $135 million, lots of insider ownership, tends toward small blend, top 20% over time. About 20% cash at the moment and up about 5% YTD. Dropped 42% in the crash versus 53% for a comparable index fund.
Intrepid Disciplined Value (ICMCX) - the all-cap value version of Intrepid Endurance. It's about half cash, half stocks now. 4.5% YTD. Lost 37% in the crash. It's a true all-cap value so it's hard to benchmark - most value indexes are mostly large cap and most mid-cap value indexes are mostly midcap. Eyeballing several, I'd say that a comparable passive product might have lost 50-55% compared to this fund's 37%.
One possibility with a bit more risk might be Adirondack Small Cap (ADKSX) which dropped an index-like 52% in the crash but rebounded so sharply that it's now leading its peers by 2.7% annually over the full cycle.
If you're a true believer in the research, you really need to look at Towle Deep Value (TDVFX) which has about the cheapest and smallest-cap portfolio around. Shorter record - just under five years - but very solid returns, vast insider ownership, no marketing, healthy internal culture. Microcap deep value is not, to be clear, a place for the faint of heart.
Just some teasers,
David

Note that 10% of Buffett's money invested bonds would generate enough income to live on while letting the equity portion accumulate. Would investing 10% of your wealth in bonds plus other sources of income (pension,etc.) generate enough income for you to live on? Does this strategy apply to you?

Don't forget that the S&P 500 has a dividend yield of over 2%......
Need to include that in the income, along with the income from the bonds
Cheers

Note that 10% of Buffett's money invested bonds would generate enough income to live on while letting the equity portion accumulate. Would investing 10% of your wealth in bonds plus other sources of income (pension,etc.) generate enough income for you to live on? Does this strategy apply to you?

@msf: Thanks for the sanity check ! I used adjusted close at Yahoo instead of performance. 401-k checks out now.
Derf

According to M*, PRVIX return for Q1 2016 was 3.19%, right on the nose.
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/performance-return.action?t=PRVIX&region=usa&culture=en_US
Likewise, RPTIX for Q1 2016 was -0.38%, again matching what your 401k said.
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/performance-return.action?t=RPTIX&region=usa&culture=en_US
As a sanity check, I went to TRP's site to get the T. Rowe Price Report for Spring 2016. It shows the retail class of Small Cap Value (PRSVX) returned 3.17% in the quarter, just two basis points behind PRVIX.

FYI: Matthews Asia has announced the renaming of the Matthews Asia Science and Technology Fund (Investor Class: MATFX; Institutional Class: MITEX) to the Matthews Asia Innovators Fund.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160503005302/en