Bank of Japan and target inflation not likely to happen.
This has been discussed here, wondering how the plain and simple QE could or would help the CPI rate in Japan; especially with adding a consumer tax after the last round of QE........a duh??? is my thought. Folks need to have the money to spend if a government wants spending to increase inflation; but taxation won't do it, eh?
Anyway, anothers opinion in the article "thinks" the yen will devalue further.
Article link

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.mfwire.com/common/artprint2007.asp?storyID=51591&wireid=2

Hi, andiel049,
My two sons and I all own WSCVX in our Roths, and since we are all under 59 1/2, we can't help you, but I would like to know how the whole transfer process works. Maybe if you can explain it, you would get an offer. I think some people would be concerned about security, getting repaid, etc.

@catch22, yes, plenty of time...head over to Wisdom Tree and choose your investment...
Yes, looks like very few have called the bond market correctly........
+++++++++++++++
@LLJB, don't know their record.
I do recall that their chief investment strategist was the darling of Wall Street until she botched her call on the US equities market at the beginning of 2000. I saw the show on Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street Week. The call in Jan 2000 was for "supertanker USA" to keep steaming ahead. Worked out well for about 2 1/2 months..........then, well....you know what happened....

Rumor has it the Micro Cap might only be open for a day to keep the assets at under $50MM...I may have misunderstood, but I was under the impression these funds would likely only be opening to current shareholders. At the very least there would be no advertising with the new funds. They are concerned more about satisfying tenured shareholders than new shareholders.
Given that the stalwart funds will be more SMid-Large Cap offerings, the capacity won't be much of a concern here. I think $4 billion will be the likely mark where all funds are closed.
I traveled to Salt Lake City last year and had the opportunity to sit in on a few meetings they had with companies they were considering investing in...I am very impressed with their due diligence and process. Hope their funds reward all of you who have positions. The micro cap should be a fun high risk high reward fund. His micro cap at Wasatch was one of the best funds of all time while Robert ran it through the late 90s/early 2000s.
@LLJB I think GP is a real winner in terms of small cap stock picking! The firm was hoping to reach the asset base they are currently at 10 years after launch. Money just flooded in so rapidly given the Blake and Robert's track records that they were put in a tough spot. I think they are nimble enough to be a winning shop for long term investors. I love the fact that Rob and his team have over $10,000,000 invested directly in the funds...that should make you feel better about trusting them with some of your dollars.

Pretty much every young person I have met that I mentioned saving for retirement to, has said they would start in a few years. Current debt load or just wanting to have fun might be two of the biggest reasons. These were twenty somethings who got into good jobs. ( 70-80k and up. They will end up losing a full decade of investing in my view. (Age 25-35 approx.)
A crash or a downturn midstream does affect you if you drop out. I started in 1986 and stopped in 2008. I had some serious swings there but I was lucky in timing. GNMA's did very well in the early 2000's. So I didn't drop out per say but made a good choice and only lost nominally compared to those who lost half
Discipline and luck.

To be fair, I would lump all tax advantage accounts together (and maybe even from spouses) to give you real numbers. I have for instance, had four 401k's but after leaving the companies I worked for, rolled them into IRA's (multiple accounts as a matter of fact). If an employee has several different accounts the odds go down substantially that they would have equity north of $1m in any one account. That seems to coincide with their figure of 34 years with average tenure for those that the average >$1m accounts.
I do agree though, the population of millionaire-retirement account investors, is probably very small overall. But I'm sure it's far greater than 0.6% of workers. I guess it depends on your definition of millionaire too (do you include a spouses accounts in a dual income household?).
As a related side note, I think it's absurd how frequently you hear finance articles, financial planners, etc reference enormous sums needed for retirement. Many times they will make the point that if you don't have $3-4m saved for retirement you will be eating dog food and working at Walmart until your death bed.
The numbers are so out of line with most American workers, that it may actually discourage savings to some degree. For a 45 year old making $50k/yr and $25k saved, it would be discouraging to hear that you needed $3m+ to retire comfortable. So discouraging that I'm sure people have said "what the heck am I saving for then?".

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/401-k-millionaire-ridiculous-idea-050000111.html
6/10 of 1%

Anyone heard what GP is thinking as far as capacity now? $3 billion for the firm was extremely conservative, IMO, so I'm not overly concerned about them raising more assets. However, I definitely would like to see them stay under $10 billion, preferably hard closing everything (and no new funds) at no more than $6-7 billion...
What is everybody else thinking? What would y'all be comfortable with as far as assets go?

I am not going to be surprised at all if global micro-cap gets hard closed very quickly at a small asset base...say $100-150 million or so. For those of us who may be interested in the fund, we better have our money ready to go when the fund becomes available.

@andiel049, thanks for the insight! This is actually part of my concern. I sort of assume, but maybe you can confirm, with, in round terms, $3 billion in capacity and a propensity to hard close funds, they can't be particularly attractive to most institutional money other than the 401(K) plans that are allowed to continue buying shares. I gather that investment advisors, in particular, love funds that are closed but are still available to them to offer to new clients, and they also like the ability to make adjustments to asset allocations to help justify their fees. But the problem doesn't go away by offering these Stalwarts funds. They're either going to hard close those at some higher level of assets or they're going to do exactly what they said they weren't going to do, which is to end up being forced to move up the market cap ladder because they have too many assets. After all, these are all supposed to be overlapping portfolios and small cap stocks. The "Stalwarts" may be the bigger of the small cap names in the portfolio but they're still small cap or small mid cap stocks.
The other thing that bothers me is that they started out saying their capacity was $1.5-$2.0 billion. By the time I was aware of them, roughly 9 months after launch I think, the limit was $3 billion. Now, apparently it's more than that. I thought they were principled and so much so that they were hard closing funds at low levels, which isn't an easy thing to do in this business. But for a relatively small individual shareholder, those are the kinds of things that scream outperformance even considering the above average expense ratios.
Now maybe $1.5-$2.0 billion or $3 billion weren't the right numbers. Maybe $5 billion or $10 billion is really just fine. I don't know. But these guys aren't inexperienced fund managers guessing at capacity. They haven't increased their fund offerings to address different styles or market caps or anything else. This is one small cap global portfolio split up into a bunch of different groupings. I have nothing against institutional investors for sure, but in this case I think their taking value away from me, away from they're existing clients who are invested in the existing funds and I think they've demonstrated that Rob and his team aren't as principled as I thought/hoped they were.
I really hope they'll convince me otherwise.

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
WSJ Slant:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stock-futures-rise-buoyed-by-strong-earnings-reports-1429618699
Bloomberg Slant:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-21/u-s-stock-index-futures-climb-amid-earnings-reports-mylan-bid
Reuters Slant:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/21/us-markets-stocks-idUSKBN0NC16N20150421
MarketWatch Slant;
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-futures-climb-ahead-of-trio-of-dow-earnings-2015-04-21?dist=countdown
WSJ Markets At A Glance:
http://markets.wsj.com/us
Sector Tracker:
http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker
Current Futures:
http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

I work at an RIA firm and could give some insight and my interpretation...They accumulated 2.4 billion and wanted to slow down inflows. At their investor conference this year they had a number of institutional clients that weren't happy with how quickly they closed and at such a small asset size. Therefore, they are opening the Stalwarts funds so that they can take in some addition assets from institutional clients who want more exposure to Rob and his team. I think the Micro Cap will be fun. It says under 1 billion in market cap, but the focus will be companies between 30MM and 300MM if I'm not mistaken.

@rjb112
Based upon their currency forecast, still time for one to purchase their favorite Japan or Europe hedged etf, eh?
Well, we'll see how GS does with their forecast. I recall they and a few others who projected the the 10 year note would already be at a +4% and more yield from a few years ago.
Catch

Great analysis, msf.
Brian W.: "It would be nice if more employers offered 401k plans, but who would use them." At least 80% participate now, per the info from the EBRI paper msf quotes.

Goldman's chief equity strategist David Kostin provides the following slide to sum up the firm's outlook for the major global markets in 2015 and beyond:
businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-global-macro-forecasts-2015-4

FYI: Biotechnology has been one of the best performing industries in the stock market over the past several years. According to S&P Capital IQ, there were numerous catalysts, for this substantial stock outperformance, including several blockbuster drug approvals that drove significant sales and earnings growth. Yet, S&P CIQ thinks the industry’s drivers, including a robust pipeline, remain intact and have a positive fundamental outlook - See more at: http://www.indexologyblog.com/2015/04/17/biotech-has-more-room-to-run/#sthash.O8OC1ZJJ.dpuf
Regards,
Ted
http://www.indexologyblog.com/2015/04/17/biotech-has-more-room-to-run/
ETF Trend Article:
http://www.etftrends.com/2015/04/biotech-etf-run-not-over-yet-says-analyst/

FYI: We generally only share links in this space when we see stories on other sites that we think will benefit our readers. But today marks a rare case where a competitor is offering advice that is so egregiously irresponsible it needs a rebuttal.
James Altucher, in a short video on Business Insider, is telling young people not to invest in a 401(k). This is terrible counsel on many levels. The disappearance of pensions and underfunding of Social Security have made the 401(k) our de-facto national savings plan. Altucher’s recklessness is exacerbated by an implication that 401(k) accounts are some sort of black box – “you have no idea what’s happening to that money,” he says darkly.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2015/04/21/yes-millennials-please-invest-in-your-401k/tab/print/

The India related funds have been weak for the past several weeks; somewhat, perhaps related to profit taking from the previous run in prices.
A note from the article: "India plans to raise about $6.5 billion (Dh24bn) by taxing foreign firms for capital gains they made in previous years."
This article relates some new information relative to taxation of investments towards some organizations, which may of value for your investment decisions.
Regards,
Catch