@staycalm https://google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/widely-followed-risk-return-measure-for-stock-portfolios-is-debunked-after-55-years-2019-08-07

Another use for VIX to aid with deciding about "getting off the sidelines"...

The buy signal is triggered when the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) rises by more than 50% of its 1-month moving average, which it last did Jan. 25, according to the strategists led by Mislav Matejka. The indicator has proven 100% accurate outside of recessions over the last three decades....Data show the VIX signal has been triggered 21 times since 1990, with the S&P 500 Index gaining an average 9% in the six months afterwards.

JPMorgan Strategists See Sure-Fire Sign It’s Time to Buy Stocks

There have been a number of studies showing that manager investment does matter, although how much it matters varies by fund category for I suspect the reasons Yogi described regarding, say, bond fund managers. Here’s one I found just now: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2024119
But the one statistic that has been shown to matter consistently to future outperformance is the one generally least discussed on this board—fees. There are legions of studies showing how much it matters in almost every fund category except I think one or two small-cap ones.
Yet discussing the research here raises a larger question as the posters haven’t been talking about performance but “risk control.” For most managers if their fund category is down 30% and they’re down 25%, that is actually deemed a victory from the point of risk control, but I doubt some of the posters here think that way. They say they want funds that don’t lose money but funds like that are often the least exciting and largely overlooked. FPA New Income comes to mind. The problem is people often want the best of both worlds, something that goes up 15% a year and never goes down, I.e, a fantasy or a fraud. I know people here are more sophisticated than that, but there is still that desire lurking beneath the surface of every investor.
One thing many studies show is that performance chasing generally doesn’t work, but sadly performance is the statistic most cited pretty much everywhere, including here.

Even moderately successful managers are making more than $500K annual. A million dollars isn't really a big deal for a manager to swing. Analysts make $300 - 400K annual.

What LB said.
Otherwise,
>> ... if M* says a manager invests $1M+ in a $B AUM fund, it does not impress me. More often than not a Manager's yearly compensation from the fund far exceeds their investment in the fund. (Some fund managers start a fund with $5M of their own money ....
... huh. How much do you think these guys make? Danoff may make $15M and Giroux close, presumably, but I expect the vast majority of even successful managers do not make what you might be thinking here, and a mil in one's own fund would be pretty impressive.

Agreed, the manager investment should be more specific as for experienced managers $1 million isn’t much, but I think many investors would be surprised to learn how many managers don’t even invest that much. Moreover, whenever any regulator suggests creating a $5 million or $10 million band for investment disclosure, the industry fights it tooth and mail. In fact, they fought the original disclosure requirements, an irony as many managers look at insider ownership at stocks they’re considering as a key indicator and would surely be angry if that ownership disclosure was taken away. Still, given how few managers eat their own cooking in a meaningful way, the $1 million threshold is significant. The younger and less experienced the manager, the more meaningful it is as that $1 million is potentially a more significant part of their net worth.
As for risk control, the point Yogi is making regarding suitability proves the other point I made. If you’re a 22 year old bond fund manager, you’re going to invest in bonds even if you think bonds are dramatically overvalued and your personal portfolio is 100% stocks and you invest nothing in your fund. And if you’re a growth stock manager, you’re going to buy growth stocks even if your own portfolio is 100% cash and you think the market will crash. Sure, prospectuses often provide leeway for risk control, but in practice it rarely happens. And with good reason if you consider that many funds are designed to stick to a portion of the style box for financial advisors to build bespoke portfolios for clients and for specific allocations in 401ks. The best place to find such risk control is in flexible allocation funds and boutique funds where the manager owns the fund company and has complete control over the firm so he/she won’t be fired if that defensive positioning is wrong.

Not a critique of anybody here -
Personally, if M* says a manager invests $1M+ in a $B AUM fund, it does not impress me. More often than not a Manager's yearly compensation from the fund far exceeds their investment in the fund. (Some fund managers start a fund with $5M of their own money and I can treat that as constituting informational value.)
Mutual fund prospectus mandates are usually very broad. Even when they say small cap, they can still drift to the edge of mid cap or into micro cap.
Why some managers are found not to do a better risk management job than the rest of us? They suffer from the same human limitations as the rest of us. Moreover, obtaining knowledge and acting on it are entirely different skills.
IMO, it is better to find managers that do a better job than others. As an aside, I am willing to give managers a pass for their performance in 2020.
As an example, I would say David Giroux does a good risk management job. Of course, he has to contend with the size of PRWCX, a limitation.

Summary
° Analyzing the US (and broadly, global developed market) sovereign debt market.
° A nuanced overview of why and how public debt matters in various ways, and why it becomes a problem over 100% of GDP.
° Bondholders and cash-savers are unlikely to maintain purchasing power over the coming decade.
Lyn Alden Schwartzer on SeekingAlpha.

Thinking gets a bit muddled with advancing years. Caution looms. 2007-2009 was a “hoot” for many of us. Those under 60 or 65 at the time made out very well in the end, buying in at lower prices or (in my own case) converting a substantial sum to a Roth. Alas, “Father Time …. You can’t buy down like you did 10-15 years ago. Losses sting more.
Good thread. Thanks for all who contribute.
The markets? Hell … I don’t know. My guess is there are both bargains and trap-doors out there. Spread it around. Don’t buy what’s been hot. Consider foreign markets. Maintain a buffer in cash or short duration fixed income. Personally, I’m wary enough to maintain a small counter-position in TAIL - lending some credence to @rono’s concerns.

--
Well, sure, but I suspect that for those funds which have outside advisers, Vanguard is purposefully slotting multiple managers, not just to provide diversification of returns, but as a very clever means of controlling costs: If a fund has 4 managers, Vanguard can threaten to yank any manager off the fund if those managers don't agree to keep fees low. -- its all about keeping those managers in a state of relative disadvantage when it comes to renegotiating fees. More managers keeps the fee levels down.
Probably explains why TMSRX has 5 managers. Those guys must be working for peanuts.

@hank - how's your stake in PRPFX holding up?

PRPFX? Not bad. Off 3.7% YTD. Up an average of 8.5% over 5 years. It’s quite diversified, but gold, silver & miners have the greatest impact because they’re so volatile. Exposure to the Swiss Franc has hurt a bit. Helped by natural resources. Hurt by stocks & bonds. After transferring it to Fido I shaved off 30+% to allocate the $$ elsewhere. Probably worked for the better. It’s a hard fit for a portfolio. I keep it as 1 of 4 alternative funds. All total they comprise 30%.
I don’t mind volatility in some assets if I understand the rationale. With PSMM it’s the downside emanating, I think, from fixed income that has me concerned. Bonds may best be described today as “Return free risk.”
Here’s PRPFX’s chart from Lipper.

Thanks @MrRuffles. You aren’t confused. I was. I’ve lost track of the years. Checking the App store, the DejaOffice program was purchased in July 2011. It updates frequently of course. So have used it more like 11 or 12 years.
It’s hard to imagine life before ipads and iphones. I remember buying something produced by Dell maybe 20 years ago that fit in a shirt pocket and stored contact information. No phone function. Used to actually “wow” some people when I’d whip it out to look up a phone number, flight information or other stuff.
And my 5th generation ipad is running IOS 15.2.1 With automatic updates which load overnight I pay no attention. Probably should. No. Not planning to reach out to anyone at this time. I ran a test this morning and was able to save the files to DropBox and than retrieve them on a different device. And, as I suspect you know, all the contents of ipads (including files) can be backed up to Apple’s cloud. But if necessary, I will reach out.
I see 2 possibilities here (1) It’s a software glitch that will clear up in time or (2) Apple notified developers of the change months back - because I first noticed the “Drop Box” backup option in the Deja App only a month or two ago. They may have added it in anticipation of the change, There’s also the possibility that using an email other than icloud would work. But that’s a last resort because most of them scan your email. I’d rather trust Apple with my trove of data.
PS - There appears to be a “contact us” option inside the Deja app. If I run into any issues I’ll contact them. This has been an extremely reliable app.

@hank I’m a little confused by your post - iPads have only been around since 2010 and the most current version of iOS is 15. Have you reached out to the developer of DejaOffice to let them know of your issues?

Thanks for the reminder about PURIX.
"Publicly available information on Fisher's funds and strategies showed mixed performance.
The Purisima Total Return Fund, for example, returned well under half of the S&P 500 Index
in its final 10 years before it was liquidated in 2016, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."
Link

While I'm hardly defending Fisher here, comparing PURIX (Purisima Total Return Fund) with the S&P 500, as done in the cited article, is misleading.
From the fund's final prospectus, dated Dec 31, 2015:
"The Fund seeks to achieve its objective by investing in a portfolio allocated between domestic and foreign common stocks and other equity-like securities ..."
The benchmark given in the prospectus is the MSCI World Index. The fund still significantly underperformed that benchmark (by around 0%-25% depending on timeframe). Lackluster at best, but nowhere near as great an underperformance as the article asserted in comparing the fund with the wrong benchmark.
FWIW, from that prospectus, the performance of PURIX ("The Fund’s year-to-date return as of September 30, 2015 was -5.43%"):

Liquidation was about six months after the prospectus:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1019946/000089418916009530/purisma_497e.htm

replying to @hank, "where to hide?" Maybe, who knows listed below?
PMEFX Penn Mutual AM 1847 Income (am a bit concerned about bond portfolio side of fund, lower rated bonds, not sure?)
TSUMX Thornburg Summit, been watching this one for a while, you can finally get in with an IRA at Schwab under the $1MM initial investment, I'm in
HSAFX, Hussy allocation...if the stuff really hits the fan this year,likely good place to hide
PVCMX, Palm Valley...lot of cash, absolute return investment
BLNDX, as profiled by Prof Snowball a few months back, I didn't like the one day drop of ~5% back in November? and bailed but now thinking if any fund is going to make high single digits+ this year, it could be this one? I've waded back in...we'll see what happens
FMSDX, Fidelity Mult Asset Income, hanging in there
We talked about I bonds prior
I bailed on TANDX, Tandem, ~ 30% in cash, drawdown NOT to my liking, disappointing
Good Luck to all,
Baseball Fan

I'm buying VGSH and VGIT each time they hit 52 week lows. Looking to capture decent yield for the first time in years, and treasury's will still be inverse to equities in a real crises as opposed to just rising rates. Feeling good about this, short-term pain for long term gain. I'll start nibbling at EDV when the 10 year crosses over 2%.

Good entertainment but dreadful substance. I watch CNBC every morning and have for years. Before the big run in energy Cramer was calling big oil dead money and uninvestable, said that ESG meant these could not be in mutual fund portfolios. This week he was praising Exxon like it's Apple from 15 years ago.

Thanks for the reminder about PURIX.
"Publicly available information on Fisher's funds and strategies showed mixed performance.
The Purisima Total Return Fund, for example, returned well under half of the S&P 500 Index
in its final 10 years before it was liquidated in 2016, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."
Link

Looks like CTFAX has outperformed PSMM and AOK ytd, but even FIKFX is down 2.65%. Unsure if even bank loan funds will provide positive returns this year !

@Mark,
Thanks for the link.
Market prognosticators make predictions that are often forgotten by investors.
These individuals' past prediction history can be very revealing.
The majority of "gurus" listed on the Guru Grades site have an accuracy rating of less than 50%*.
I was surprised to learn that Ken Fisher had the second highest accuracy rating (66.4%).
I've been bombarded with ads from his firm, Fisher Investments, over the years.
*I haven't researched Guru Grades' grading methodolgy.