Re: "The only way this will make sense is if the expense ratios are much lower than the mutual funds."
Now, all we have to do is wait for the 401-k shareholder lawsuits claiming that the custodian overcharged the participants by not offering them the ETMF fund/NextShares equivalents, rather than the "old fashioned" (and higher cost?) mutual funds.
Yippee!

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.wsj.com/video/bill-gross-buy-tips-and-this-closed-end-fund/DEF1EB98-1D92-46D1-A26E-9EE721263B00.html

FYI: (Click On Article title At Top Of Google Search)
Our experts predict sluggish economic growth and subdued gains for stocks. Where to find value around the world.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&site=&source=hp&q=barron's+roundtable:++masters+of+the+game&oq=barron's+roundtable:++masters+of+the+game&gs_l=hp.3...1980.20047.0.20413.43.42.1.0.0.0.203.2766.40j1j1.42.0.msedr...0...1c.1.61.hp..13.30.2099.CQMyuKRzyFE

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://wealthtrack.com/recent-programs/hyman-kim-exclusive-new-year-outlook-part-two/
Part One (Last Week In Case You Missed It)
http://wealthtrack.com/recent-programs/hyman-kim-new-year-outlook-2015-part-one/

---- 312 posts on the MORNINGSTAR CONVERSATION FORUM --- 312 !!!!!!!
INCLUDING 44 IN AN " OPEN LETTER TO M* CIO AND CEO " as follows =
As discussed HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE, the recent crash of the Portfolio Manager is just another example of extremely poor System Testing and User-Acceptance Testing prior to deployment. M* does a lot of things right, but one thing they do VERY POORLY is follow a traditional structured IT lifecycle development and deployment process which would catch 95% of these issues before they affect their customers.
I honestly have never seen another company push out such "buggy" or error-prone code into a live customer-facing environment, and I have worked with dozens of organizations both large and small throughout my consulting career. This has been at least a quarterly, if not monthly occurence for YEARS and shows no sign of changing.
This is a leadership issue, not a technical issue, and has crossed from "mistake" to "problem."
If your IT folks have the authority to make changes to the live production environment without a sign-off first from some sort of business or marketing person, that's a problem.
A complete re-vamp of the pre-deployment QA / Testing process up to normal customer-facing marketplace standards should be underway, as measured by a sharp reduction in customer-impacting outages and post-deployment bug reports.
Ultimately, you're going to lose this Premium customer along with many others if this continues without any hope of systemic changes at the IT leadership level.
Please advise.

@WallStreetRanter
Thank you for the followup.
I recall the beginning of the equity move in August of 1982 while dwelling upon numbers, and listening to discussions from The Nightly Business Report with Paul Kangas.
Regards,
Catch

Just so everyone knows. His very popular chart about never 7 years of positive returns is not correct.

8 years 1982-1989 and 9 years 1991-1999. Just trying to kill the myth .

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
WSJ Slant:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stock-futures-decline-1421414692
Bloomberg Slant:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2015-01-16/u-s-index-futures-sink-as-swiss-currency-fallout-roils-markets.html
Reuters Slant:
http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USKBN0KP1B720150116
MarketWatch Slant:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-end-sharply-higher-but-still-register-weekly-loss-2015-01-16/print
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

Dex, being superstitious, I hope your post doesn't mark some kind of top (low in yields) for the Treasury bond market

Not with stuff like this going on.
Gasoline dampens U.S. inflation; mid-year rate hike in doubt
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/16/us-usa-economy-idUSKBN0KP1H620150116

ducrow, I find their premium membership of value, especially (for me) the premium search tool. BUT, I do not pay for the premium membership. I get it for free thru TROWE PRICE who will pay the fee for you IF you have $100,00 invested with them. I do via two 529 college savings plans.
Just another thought.
Matt

Was just about to add this. You also get M* research and tools at TDAmeritrade, and Schwab just started giving access to M* analyst reports for stocks.
I might pay for the something like what Josh Peters provides. Not so much the rest since you can get it elsewhere.

ducrow, I find their premium membership of value, especially (for me) the premium search tool. BUT, I do not pay for the premium membership. I get it for free thru TROWE PRICE who will pay the fee for you IF you have $100,00 invested with them. I do via two 529 college savings plans.
Just another thought.
Matt

From the article; "One more thing: A bit of history. The last major recession was 1973-1974."
I wonder if she has been sleeping under a rock lately? The comment about MFO is also head shaking.

FYI: I will link interview as soon as it becomes available.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.moneylifeshow.com/upcomingGuests.asp

Morning Coffee,
Per Ms. Dee Lee, from the article related to MFO: "Also utilize the Mutual Fund Observer newsletter for research on funds. They don’t tell you when to buy mutual funds but when to sell a mutual fund.
If only it was this simple, eh? Buy whatever one wants and wait for MFO to indicate a sell signal.
Me thinks she does not grasp the intention(s) of the MFO site.
The full article containing other comments related to investing, is just below
.
WBZ, Dee Lee article
Take care,
Catch

Earlier I received the Q4 and year end commentary for MAPIX. This fund underwent some scrutiny late last year when it announced no dividend. Due to lack of communications, I decided to sell this fund just several days ago.
I was interested to hear why the dividend was not delivered in this commentary. In fact, this was an audio commentary with one of the managers, Yu Zhang. There was no mention of the lack of dividend but there was talk of how important the dividend strategy was to shareholders. Another point clearly made was that total return was a priority for this fund.
I have included the link below. It will ask for name, email, and company and like a lot of these info grabbers I use Noneed Toknow, [email protected] and etc. It is about a ten minute audio file.
http://www.brainshark.com/micm/Asia_Dividend_Strategy_Q42014

FYI: Vanguard Group's decision to publish details about how it uses its huge shareholder clout to influence corporate governance issues is a step in the right direction, but does not go far enough, according to the founder of the mutual fund company.
"We still have a long way to go," said Jack Bogle, who now runs a market research group funded by Vanguard, but no longer has an executive role at the company he founded in 1975.
Regards,
Ted
http://wealthmanagement.com/print/industry/vanguard-should-say-more-how-it-influences-companies-founder

FYI: Some international bond funds, including Vanguard Total International Bond Index Fund, use a traditional hedging strategy to help minimize the risk caused by fluctuations in the value of foreign currencies versus the U.S. dollar. The strategy allows the fund's total return—income plus any principal change—to remain undistorted, for the most part, by changes in the value of foreign currencies against the U.S. dollar.
Regards,
Ted
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/video/int-hedging2014

Regarding the cash component of this fund, M* shows this statistic. The first number is net percentage, second is percentage short, and third is percentage long.
Cash -106.15 237.97 131.83

How many of the 30 are one manager over the 20y? I wager none. Can you parse similarly for 10 and 15y? Can you parse for one manager? Forgive me if I have missed these capabilities.

You try their 2 weeks free trial membership, and then cancel if you don't like. You can also try it a big longer as they remimurse the remaining amount on pro-rate basis. I am also of the view that it is not worth.
At one time, I used to eagerly read their Fun commentaries (Fund Spy, etc.) that normally used to come on Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays. In addition, there was a Fund Times (if I remember the name correctly) that used to have Weekly commentary about Fund Mgr changes and a commentary on significant fund industry events for that Week. It seems they stopped publishing latter now.
I just skim their articles with less enthusiam, but an avid reader and follower of their discussion forums for last 10 years. There were some great posters and still there are some. It is not as friendly forum as MFO, but depth of knowedge is much more there due to number of participants (no slight intended for MFO, as I am also follower of it since FundAlarm days). Their forums lost some great posters since Vanguard Diehards/Bogleheads moved out and started their own discussion forum/Web site.
In my personal opinion, if you are a participant of M* and MFO forums, I don't think you need paid subscription for anything. People discuss, post great links to great articles, Fund Mgr interviews/commentaries and what not. They guide you on how to learn and how to setup an investment portfolio even if you are a novice.