Interesting use of the word survivor. I noticed that the Putnam fund was described as the second oldest (presumably US) fund, not the second oldest surviving fund.
Until a decade ago State Street Research Investment Trust was undeniably the second oldest (US) fund. Managed by State Street Management and Research Company, the firm (and its funds) were sold to MetLife in 1982, who in turn sold it to Blackrock in 2002.
Around 2004 or so, Blackrock decided to clean up its fund offerings by merging several of them, and it merged this fund into an existing Blackrock fund. So the fund survives in the sense that it was not liquidated, it did not go bust, but the assets operate under a different name.
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I found a 2008 talk given by John Bogle, that delves briefly into the beginnings of the mutual fund industry in the US. You'll find the relevant sections around pp. 3-7. Though curiously (and I'm still researching this) he refers to the State Street fund as the industry's third-oldest fund.
I like his description of the demise of this fund:

The merger [of State Street into Met Life in 1982] hurt the fund shareholders. “Performance lagged, and the manager’s position in the industry declined from tops to average.” By 2002, Metropolitan Life abandoned the fund business [to Blackrock] ... Among Blackrock’s first moves was to put State Street Investment Corporation out of its misery, merging the industry’s third-oldest fund into another Blackrock fund. I still refer to this event as “a death in the family.”

Bogle's refers to Incorporated Investors as one of the original "Big Three" of the fund industry (along with the State Street and MFS funds). This is actually a reference to the Putnam fund of this thread. Incorporated Investors was its original name, as Putnam documented in a PR release here.

LEXCX has had to endure a number of adoptions/step parents/foster homes, but its a survivor since 1935

if you include the closed end fund breed, adams express is right there (ADX) since 1929

FYI: Putnam Investors Fund's Jerry Sullivan is flying high above Boston's financial district as airline holdings like Spirit and Southwest rise.
Putnam Investors Fund's Jerry Sullivan is flying high above Boston's financial district as airline holdings like Spirit and Southwest rise. View Enlarged Image
The $1.8 billion Putnam Investors Fund is an old geezer. Its Dec. 1, 1925, inception date makes it the industry's second oldest stock fund
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTg1MjUxNDY=
M* Snapshot Of PINVX: http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/f?t=PINVX&region=usa&culture=en-US
Lipper Snapshot Of PINVX: http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/pinvx
PINVX Is Ranked #76 In The (LCB) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/large-blend/putnam-investors-fund/pinvx
In Case Your Wondering:
Rank Name Date of Creation
1 MFS Massachusetts Investors Fund (MITTX) 1924
2 Putnam Investors Fund (PINVX) 1925
3 Pioneer Fund (PIODX) 1928
4 Century Shares Fund (CENSX) 1928
5 Vanguard Wellington Fund (VWELX) 1929
7 CGM Mutual Fund (LOMMX) 1929
6 Seligman Common Stock Fund (SCSFX) 1930
8 Fidelity Fund (FFIDX) 1930
9 Dodge & Cox Balance Fund (DODBX) 1931

It's too bad that the ER for MSGAX is so high (1.60% at Vanguard). I used to own their Janus fund with a much more reasonable ER.

the kid who picked up the phone @ Vanguard made a mistake. Vanguard does best to train them, but you know how it goes, plus being a bogle-funded truly mutual fund company (i.e. cheap) they can't really get good help like the loaded institutions can - a fact of life... his answer applied to some funds, but not to the open end fund that you described. The related ETF however could have a different dividend accrual rule.

And (frankly, to my surprise) it does. From the ETF share class

prospectus:
"For holders of the Fund’s ETF Shares, income dividends are declared and distributed monthly. "

Thanks msf for the tip on Bloomberg. See, something good has come out of this contentious thread (in no small part due to me) I learned something new. I have never used Bloomberg quotes. I will add it in my research. However because of my obsession to detail I will still want to check my long hand Yahoo historical prices just to verify. As to the above, unless I am mistaken (which I often am) all closed end bond funds and ETFs pay monthly. In fact daily dividend accrual is only a feature of the various open end bond funds (and of course money market funds)

Here's a M* Fund Spy column explaining how a covered call strategy is good for reducing volatility, mediocre for generating additional total return, and potentially poor for generating an income stream.
See in particular Exhibit 2
All this means is that the strategy may work better if you think of it as a means of generating total return (with somewhat reduced volatility), not as generating an income stream alone.
Edit: Here's the MFO thread earlier this year on covered call strategies. (Note that according to the original article Ted cited above, GATEX uses put options also, so it's not quite comparable.)
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/11337/covered-call-strategies-discussions-and-performance

Just saw the latest report and how the markets reacted. Maybe we can finish the week on a up note?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-03/jobless-rate-in-u-s-falls-to-5-9-in-september-payrolls-jump.html

the kid who picked up the phone @ Vanguard made a mistake. Vanguard does best to train them, but you know how it goes, plus being a bogle-funded truly mutual fund company (i.e. cheap) they can't really get good help like the loaded institutions can - a fact of life... his answer applied to some funds, but not to the open end fund that you described. The related ETF however could have a different dividend accrual rule.

And (frankly, to my surprise) it does. From the ETF share class prospectus:
"For holders of the Fund’s ETF Shares, income dividends are declared and distributed monthly. "

I hope my global fund managers are doing their job in finding good value throughout the global universe. At this time, I am making no major hands on positioning within my portfolio. However, I have been buying a little here and there as cash builds, through mutual fund distributions, within my portfolio not wanting to go over a 20% cash threshold.
I think that it is very interesting as to how Kathleen Gaffney has currently positioned EVBAX. As of my last Instant Xray look at her fund it was about 20% cash, 20% equity, 40% income and 20% other. While I am at about 20% cash, 45% equity, 25% income and 10% other within my own portfolio. Thinking of lowering my allocation to cash soon for the anticipated fall stock market rally and do a little equity “spiff” buying. Things are beginning to look interesting.

This is unbelievable. We are making so many intelligent comments here, we should have known why we invested in FAIRX in the first place. No one can feel happy when fund drops 10% in a day. However, one cannot seriously suddenly forget why they bought FAIRX. OR did they even think before they bought it? Which FAIRX shareholder did not see the risk in FAIRX where 1 holding makes up 50% of the portfolio? Suddenly BB is a gambler now?
If you bought FAIRX because of the performance you saw, then just sell without providing any reason, because it is obvious why you are selling. Yes, stock investing IS gambling. Let's not BS each other regarding value vs growth. One makes his projections and hope they come true. Berkowtiz has $160M if his assets in Fairholme. I'm imagining most of them in FAIRX. How do you think he liked that 10% loss the other day?
THIS is the real reason most people should invest in Index funds. It is not active vs passive. It is about us thinking we have this magic formula where we will always buy a fund that will only go up. WHEN vs WHAT people !!! You want to buy an actively managed fund then buy it when you are comfortable and then be prepared to hold it though up and downs and give yourself a long enough time horizon so you can do that. Or just don't buy it.

This idea of trying to beat or even match the averages frustrates investors when it shouldn't in my opinion. If the S&P is up 10% for the year and the investor's portfolio is up only 9%, they should still be happy. That is still much better than what they could get elsewhere.
These ETFs like the one mentioned by rjb112 are a great way to invest. It's just that people are looking at the numbers as some kind of race against each other rather than building their own portfolios.

FYI: Weakening overseas economies, coupled with the end of QE, has helped the dollar index rise
After a weak start to 2014, the U.S. dollar has muscled its way higher this summer and the long-term gains may not be over.
Regards,
Ted
http://wealthmanagement.com/print/mutual-funds/investing-rising-dollar

That is the argument of indexers. It is indeed hard to find active fund managers who can beat the index over long term.

Yes, Bogle is winning a lot of people over to his viewpoint. And in a year like 2014, active funds are generally doing very poorly in relation to index funds. Something like 30% of all fund assets are now indexed [?or is that 30% of all stock market assets, don't recall], compared to hardly anything in the 1990's. When you can get a fund like VTI at 5 basis points expense ratio, it's hard to beat. The Admiral shares of the same fund also have a 5 basis points expense ratio. Buffett is a big fan of the Vanguard S&P 500 index fund.

That is the argument of indexers. It is indeed hard to find active fund managers who can beat the index over long term. Those who take the most risk would have greater
standard deviations in their returns, which means they may appear to be much better than everyone in some years. Having said that I do own active funds, but keep a close eye. The only funds which I have owned for a long time (around 10 years) are FPACX, OAKBX and MACSX. More and more of my portfolio (started off with about 40%, but it has increased to about 50% because it did better than the rest) is in ETFs. There does seem to be some short term persistence in performance which I try to exploit.

I've been watching my (developed) Europe fund in particular: PRESX. I've owned it since Nov, '13. ...It was fun for a while. It's been awful stinky since .....since many months ago. Are they ever going to get the wheels back on the track over there? I've decided anyhow to hold it at the very least until I see what dividends it might pay at the end of the year. I saw something lately, noting that the fund doesn't pay cap. gains? Only dividends....?

David:
Thanks for comment and suggestions.
Portfolio Visualizer ("PV"): http://tinyurl.com/dg-vd-sp-wm-lex
I would not have thought of either MOAT or LEXCX in this context.
In the "don't try this at home" department, putting on my "factor investor" beanie...
Looking (FWIW) at the funds mentioned, plus what I had thought was my "go to" option for quality (VDIGX), and running them through the Portfolio Visualizer factor-analysis tool since SPHQ converted to current index (and using the WMW ETN in lieu of the MOAT ETF, since the ETN has longer history than ETF)....
After expanding PV link above to see the stats re: significance....
DGAGX has negative significant size load, along 3rd highest high quality factor.
VDIGX appears to be the strongest quality 'play'.
SPHQ closely follows VDIGX in its quality load.
MOAT (nee WMW) appears to be 'only' market play, with a pretty poor fitting regression and lots of alpha - must be a slug of 'moatness'.
LEXCX is 'mainly' a market & value play (as opposed to quality, FWIW), having beaten pants off of the others except WMW recently, with high alpha.
Now craning my neck to look (again) out back, I see:
SYMBOL.....DGAGX......VDIGX.......SPHQ.......WMW.......LEXCX
3Y TR *......14.51%......18.31%......19.73%....23.18%....20.49%
RANK.........5.................4................3..............1..............2
* Annualized, Source FT.com
Note: FT Fund comparison: http://funds.ft.com/us/Fund-Comparison
Full disclosure, I have dogs in this hunt, having bought some SPHQ earlier this year, liking the ETF efficiency, expense, diversity and 'story' of SPHQ, versus relatively concentrated WMW or other choices - but have owned VDIGX since forever.
PS: Falling for the fracking fairy tale, also figure that the high industrial weight of SPHQ should do just fine, as our energy gulping economy learns to sneer "Saudi Aray-be who"?
Finally, I wonder if turnover, when fishing in the large cap space, is somewhat over-rated as an attribute. Think (really guessing) that the ETF tax efficiency outweighs the market impact penalty, when comparing a fund to an ETF.

I am a long time FAIRX investor and I sold everything today. this is looking like a replay of 2011 when BB was down over 30% in an up market. I held off selling before because of the tax hiT on my gains over the years but finally decided just to take the hit. What he is doing with a number of positions feels to me like gambling and not value investing

This article raised the hairs on the back of my neck. It blows away my thoughts that this downturn is short term. The source does make sense but I want to share and see what the MFO community has to say.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-02/albert-edwards-says-watch-japanese-yen-and-be-very-very-afraid.html

Hello,
In researching the topic at hand, on daily accrual mutual funds, I have linked below some information I believe will be beneficial in perhaps understanding how daily accural mutual funds make their distributions.
http://blog.fundx.com/blog/2012/11/29/how-bond-funds-make-distributions/