@MFO Members: Here is today's M* article placing Sequoia "under review" !
Regards,
Ted
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=745818

Sequoia (SEQUX) has always been a Gold fund in the judgment of Morningstar's analysts. Today it was placed "under review." Morningstar offers two reasons for that: (1) investors are bailing out and have pulled $800 million over the past six months. That goofs with both execution and tax efficiency. (2) "[T]he team does not seem to have taken any steps to mitigate the risks of such a large position.... Because of these concerns, we have placed this fund under review."
Oddly, they also placed it "under review" on October 30, 2015. At that point, Valeant was over 30% of the fund, investors had presumably been pulling money and the management team conducted their slightly-freakish public defense of their Valeant stake. Following the review, the analysts reaffirmed their traditional judgment: Gold! The described it as "compelling" in the week before the review and "a top choice" in the week afterward.
There's no evidence in the reaffirmation statement that the analysts actually talked to Sequoia management. If they didn't, they were irresponsible. If they did and asked about risk management, they were either deceived by management ("don't worry, we're clear-eyed value investors and we're acting to control risk") or management was honest ("we're riding out the storm") and the analysts thought "good enough for us!" I don't find any of that reassuring.
Similarly, up until quite recently Morningstar's stock analyst assigned to Valeant recognized "near-term pain" while praising the firms "flawless execution" of its acquisition strategy and the "opportunities [that] exist for Valeant long term."
David

FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search)
The US public continues to vote decisively against traditional fund management, which attempts to manage equities actively, and beat broad benchmarks, in return for a fee. In the 12 months to the end of January, according to Morningstar, some $245bn flowed out of active funds while $408bn flowed into passive funds, which merely seek to match the returns of a benchmark and to minimise their fees. Once a niche category, passive funds now account for 32.5 per cent of US assets managed in mutual and exchange traded funds.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=active+fund+managers+find+their+voice+FT

@MFO Members: From 2012-YTD the S&P 500 Index has outperformed SEQEX. I agree with BobC, its time to move on.
Regards,
Ted

Here are the 2/29 holdings (from RiverPark):
http://www.riverparkfunds.com/Funds/ShortTermHighYield/FullHoldings.aspx
90.06% are securities. There are not sufficient details given to completely identify the securities, but based on M*'s analysis a reasonable guess would be that all but 2% are bonds, and the remainder are convertibles.
From one of M*'s methodology papers: "Morningstar includes securities that mature in less than one year in the definition of cash."
M*'s analysis of the fund portfolio says that its average effective maturity of bonds is 1.83 years. So we can guess that M* is calling about half of the bonds "cash". Possibly a bit less, depending on the distribution of bonds. Let's say it's 40%.
So M* describes 40% of the 90% of bonds as cash. That's 36%. Add in the 10% that Riverpark says is not held as securities, and we've got 46% cash (by M*'s definition).
One can call these short term bonds whatever one wants - cash, ultrashort bonds, securities. Regardless of what one calls them, recognize them for what they are - bonds maturing in under a year, that have better-than-cash yield but also retain credit risk.

VRX dropped 51% today.

Didn't SEQUX go down 7.69% today, 3/15?

Looks like the fund went down by 15% today. At first, I thought they had sold Valeant but the quote from Morningstar was 3/14. When I saw the quote was old, I searched and found today's.

Asset Allocation RPHYX
Type %
Net %
Short %
Long Bench-
mark Cat
Avg
As of 02/29/2016
Cash 46.66 — 46.66 — 4.42
US Stock 0.00 — 0.00 — 1.33
Non US Stock 0.00 — 0.00 — 0.01
Bond 51.02 — 51.02 — 92.87
Other 2.32 — 2.32 — 1.36

Hi Carefree. If you didn't own SEQUX, would you buy it to fill that space? I always thought I would like to buy that fund if it ever opened up again, but I now feel like it is not the same fund it was 5-10 years ago. Trust in management and stewardship, a term borrowed from M* is not there for me, even though M* still ranks the fund gold for that aspect.
What's your gut say? For me. the best fund in the world is now in question. There are plenty of good funds to choose from.

@bee Thanks for the info, keep on buzzing !
Regards,
Ted

For those who might like to listen in:
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
3p.m. ET
30-Minute Live Webcast Followed by Q&A
Current market fluctuations may have you concerned — particularly as you approach or are in retirement. T. Rowe Price can help you take steps to more confidently manage your investments despite market uncertainty.
Sign up here:
TRP event webcast

FYI: Morningstar manager research analysts upgraded the Morningstar Analyst Ratings of one fund and four target-date series in February, but downgraded 11 funds and three target-date series. We also initiated coverage on two funds and two target-date series. Some notable changes are highlighted here; a complete list can be found in the tables below.
Regards,
Ted
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=745317

Good evening all,
An interesting subject: "Cash Is Now A Sin."
Even though I think of myself as a good Christian according to this article I am a big sinner by holding such a sizeable cash position within my portfolio.
In review of a few recent Xray analysis the funds within my portfolio, which consists of forty seven, currently hold an average of 3% in cash which is down from the year ending analysis number of about 5% in cash back in December. My fixed income funds usually hold more cash than my equity funds.
As I entered 2016, combined, my portfolio was holding about 25% in cash. Now, my cash bubbles at about 22% due to the buys I made during the recent market selling stampede, scheduled retirement distributions plus the funds themselves are now holding less cash than they were at year end. My portfolio, on average, generates about 1.25% in cash (yield) per quarter on amount invested. With this, I could easily be close to a 23% cash allocation by the end of the first quarter.
I'll continue to hold the large cash allocation as I am thinking of selling some of my equities since the S&P 500 Index is currently selling at a TTM P/E Ratio of 23 according to the WSJ. With this, stocks are not currently cheap and are richly priced from my perspective using the Rule of Twenty. Since, I am above my target allocation (50%) to stocks, now at about 53%, soon might be a good time to pair back a few of my equity positions and rebalance as summer approaches.
I am thinking my sizeable cash allocation is a blessing and orginates from Biblical teaching. Besides, when I make harvest of my plantings, and book profits, the Lord gets his share.
Have a good evening,
Old_Skeet

Actually, Wesley Gray and Co. are innovators in the Robo advisory space with the advent of an active managed method that "may" actually produce alpha beyond benchmark. This through exposure to just two stock universes (based on Fama French factors) and combined with trend following component ( vs. the others that are based on the Modern Portfolio Theory model and are "over" diversified, IMO, in REITS, emerging / international equities, emerging / international debt, domestic equities, etc ) blog.alphaarchitect.com/2016/03/03/why-we-built-an-active-robo-advisor-and-why-you-should-too/#gs.06MOFCs

Funds can't raise cash because of manager "career risk" ( they have to be careful to at least match the "benchmark" from year to year / quarter to quarter). This is one of the dilemmas of investing in mutual funds. Others are fees, various rates of portfolio turnover, manager turnover. Investing in index ETFs eliminates these factors ( DIY investors can go to cash when they want and fees/expenses can be very low). Mutual funds and individual stock portfolios are the product of the 20th century investment landscape. ETFs represent the 21st century landscape ...

Can't access the article, so here's a shot in the dark:
Observing my funds, especially at T. Rowe Price, I've observed over several years that they have been avoiding holding cash if cash is defined as a money market fund or bank deposit. Obviously, they don't want money earning near 0. However, many funds do hold suitable higher yielding proxies for cash (that is unless your investing horizon is extremely short). Here's three low risk funds you're likely to find in place of cash, often in substantial percentages, in T. Rowe Price 's allocation and balanced funds.
Limited Duration Inflation Focused Bond Fund TRBFX
Ultra Short Term Bond Fund TRBUX
Short Term Bond Fund PRWBX
(Correction to my earlier comments: PRWCX does not invest in the above funds from what I can tell. But, interestingly, as of last December the fund held 14.9% in Price's "Reserve Investment Fund", a money market fund apparently designed to serve their own uses.)
So, I wonder if Zweig is including these types of investments as cash in whatever numbers he's floating around? Additionally, recognizing that more and more individual investors now use allocation, balanced and target date funds, fund houses and managers may feel a bit more freedom to keep their equity funds aggressively invested.

Most fund managers also need to show performance in order to attract more AUM. Even if they wanted to hold more cash for a rainy day, they don't dare show 'drag' in a rising market lest potential customers put their $$$ into a competitor's fund instead.
Thankfully, us individual investors don't need to compete with an arbitrary benchmark to attract assets, so if we're holding large cash-like piles for prolonged periods[1], and our other holdings are doing just fine and meeting our goals/needs, at least WE will be in a position to buy hand-over-fist when quality stuff 'goes on sale.'
[1] I am. While I have many existing long-term positions/accounts and have added new stuff over time -- holding nice Sleep Well At Night equity-heavy portfolios -- I've had a hard time willingly committing large amounts of inherited funds into the market in recent years. There are few good values in my view. Ergo, I wait patiently.

You can access the article from the Google search
https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=hts&oq=&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4AVNH_enUS648US649&q=Cash+Is+Now+a+Sin

FYI: Talk to some traders right now and you’ll hear the smartest ones talking about fading each edge of the range – the market-wide breakouts and breakdowns are all false.
Only amateurs are making high-conviction moves these days. They get bearish at SPX 1970 and bullish as we approach 2000. The market is chopping them up.
Regards,
Ted
http://thereformedbroker.com/2016/03/11/welcome-to-the-chop-shop/
When Do You Want Your Risk, Now Or Later?:
http://thereformedbroker.com/2016/03/10/when-do-you-want-your-risk-now-or-later/

Didn't we close at 2022 today? Hasn't oil rocketed ahead over 50% off its lows. Aren't junk bonds leading stocks and many after today's big move up in the 2.5% to 3% YTD range? I just love these so called professionals who talk down to the amateurs. I guess the difference between a professional and an amateur is the amount of capital involved? And as we saw earlier today, those huge sums of capital managed by the hedge funds have had dismal returns the past 7 years.