Last Sunday, 7 February, all ratings were updated on our MFO Premium site, including MultiSearch, Great Owls, Fund Alarm (Three Alarm and Honor Roll), Averages, Dashboard of Profiled Funds, Portfolios, QuickSearch, and Fund Family Scorecard. The site now includes several analysis tools, including Correlation, Rolling Averages, Trend, Ferguson Metrics, Calendar Year and Period Performance.
Today, we launched a new tool for premium subscribers: "Dashboard of Launch Alerts."
The "Launches Dashboard" compiles and tracks funds first appearing in our "Launch Alert" feature of the monthly MFO commentary. It follows a format similar to the Profiles Dashboard, but lists funds by alert date, most recent on top to oldest on bottom, since MFO launched in May 2011.
Hundreds of new funds are launched annually (e.g., 590 in 2020), but most are not worth mentioning. David highlights just a dozen or so each year.
When a manager with a strong record leaves an established firm to start anew, David lets us know:

• Andrew Foster created Seafarer Capital Partners, LLC and launched Seafarer Overseas Growth and Income (SIGIX), as discussed in the February 2012
  commentary.
  


• Laura Geritz created Rondure Global Advisors, LLC and launched
  Rondure New World (RNWIX) in 2016.

As he does when an established firm of high stewardship launches a fund in a new market:

• Vanguard Emerging Markets Government Bond Index (VWOB) in the March 2013 commentary.


• T Rowe Price Total Return (PTTFX) in December 2016.

Usually, the Launch Alerts contain a paragraph or two describing why the fund may be worthy. Some are longer than others, a kind of mini-profile:

• Towpath Focus (TOWFX) launched by Mark Oelschlager and highlighted in September 2020 feature.
  

Since 2016, MFO breaks-out Launch Alerts in the new magazine format. Before that, they were included in the long-scroll format.
Many of the funds in Launch Alert have gone-on to do quite well, some spectacularly. While about 1-in-6, as of January 2021, end-up in the dust bin (not shown, e.g., Whitebox Funds).
As an adviser or individual investor, I would check this list often.
Premium subscribers can access the new tool here. QuickSearch, Great Owls, Three Alarm, and Profiles tools remain available to the public without subscription.
Enjoy!

Howdy @JonGaltIII
Since the 2010 census, about 10,000 baby boomers a day (retire, too) have crossed the age 65 threshold and by 2030, all boomers will be at least age 65. From 2019 data the boomers are about 72 million in population. Our house is boomers x 2. While there are now and will be failures of individual holdings within healthcare, I still fully consider this a growth area for equity. These folks will require more maintenance than the under 40 age group, yes? There will be the fails of hospitals, health insurance companies and the best laid plans for the next magic drug. There will likely also be continued mergers and acquisitions of big and small companies in many areas. This sector has had its recent funky periods (2015-2016), so it is not a slam dunk; but I still have faith in the broad sectors.
From the devils advocate perspective, One would have to perform an overview of personal holdings to discover how much exposure your holdings have to healthcare now and how much you desire. The 3 below breakdowns give a hint to health sectors from various funds.
Our own personal perspective is provide equity exposure that is meaningful to performance of the entire portfolio. We generally do not hold less than 10% of total portfolio in a given investment area. Performance may allow this number to become 25%; but this is an individuals judgement; based upon portfolio risk and faith in the sector.
Our healthcare holdings travel the road between United Healthcare and genomics and whatever else is in the mix. The healthcare holdings over the years has more than paid for our supplemental insurance plans via United Healthcare. Invest in what you (and many others) use.
Though FSMEX is currently open, the last hard close was a no-notify close at the end of a business; without a grace period.
Lastly, if one were to have a full tour of various medical areas in a large hospital; you'd be able to view a large number of products from companies where you hold investments.
My 2 cents worth.
Take care,
Catch
AS OF 12/31/2020
FSPHX Portfolio Weight
Biotechnology 24.27%
Health Care Equipment 20.25%
Managed Health Care 18.10%
Pharmaceuticals 18.03%
Health Care Services 8.04%
Life Sciences Tools & Services 6.93%
Health Care Technology 1.51%
Health Care Facilities 1.36%
Application Software 0.65%
Research & Consulting Services 0.29%
Other Diversified Financial Services 0.08%
Investment Banking & Brokerage 0.02%
FSMEX Portfolio Weight
Health Care Equipment 55.23%
Life Sciences Tools & Services 23.09%
Managed Health Care 5.75%
Health Care Supplies 3.90%
Health Care Technology 3.79%
Health Care Services 3.46%
Biotechnology 2.34%
Application Software 0.86%
Insurance Brokers 0.52%
Apparel, Accessories & Luxury Goods 0.38%
Research & Consulting Services 0.36%
Textiles 0.22%
Investment Banking & Brokerage 0.03%
FSPGX Portfolio Weight (likely a typical growth index weighting)
Information Technology 44.88%
Consumer Discretionary 16.67%
Health Care 13.49%
Communication Services 10.99%
Consumer Staples 4.53%
Industrials 4.51%
Financials 1.86%
Real Estate 1.61%
Materials 0.80%
Multi Sector 0.54%
Energy 0.08%
Utilities 0.02%

Foreign stuff is still only 10% of my portf. TEN percent, to be exact, and NINE percent of THAT is in PRIDX. It is a SMID fund. I was a bit surprised to see:
21% in Consumer Cycl.
Tech. 17.31
Healthcare 15.32
Industrials 14.45%.
...I'd have figured Healthcare to be on top.
In the old regime before the '08-'09 Crash and prior to Covid, my thinking was that Europe was the "Old World" and was full of "old money," which mostly just sat there, doing... not much of anything. ... But if I'm not mistaken, European gov'ts are putting their markets on a meth-high, just like in the States, and maybe an even stronger dose. Of course, they have the EC to deal with, for member States. And I'm NOT intending anything negative about the EU and how it works. Better than FIGHTING and KILLING in a THIRD World War!
... Years ago, I did some reading about "Red" European bonds and "Blue" European Bonds. I do not think that the EU ITSELF as an entity is issuing any bonds, yet. Which is to say: I don't think there are any "Blue" bonds to buy, yet. Difficult, I suppose, to arrange for such a thing. How would a float like that be funded? In the EU, you have States that are in better health economically than many others....

Interesting reading here. I owned FSELX for a while. I subscribed to the notion that AI will be growing and semiconductors is a prudent long term high growth play. It probably still is but the gyrations with NVidia and Intel - I couldn't take the volatility and sold it. It was probably a mistake. Long term... this is likely a good bet.
Another fund I had was @Puddnhead FSDAX . I bought it 5 years ago before the last administration took office. It was a pure guess that a focus on Defense and build up would be positive for this fund. I did sell it in late 1999 or early 2020 (I can't recall exactly when). Pudd - are you still in it?
I save a little space to speculate in sector funds or "trending" spaces. In 2021 - I'm in EM + Small Cap + Healthcare as my trending...

Why? Not seeing any reason to prefer it to say FTBFX over the last 5-4-3-2-1y

Market timing is difficult and there may be huge opportunity costs if you're wrong.
Link

@bee, thank you for posting. This WealthTrack is particularly informative.
You asked a few questions.
1. Treasury. Low bond yields prevent treasuries to rally on the upside. He suggested holding some longer term treasury since they have lesser correlation to stocks comparing to other bond asset classes.
2. PRWCX is not a risk managed equity fund since all stock and bond positions are long. It is, however, a highly flexible asset allocation fund. Risk managed equity typically have several components within the portfolio to short the market as part of the downside protection. Some examples are listed in Calamos funds below.
https://calamos.com/blogs/investment-ideas/calamos-risk-managed-funds-show-resilience-in-march-madness/
Although Pimco bond funds are not considered hedge funds, they use swaps and other instruments routinely to reduce the drawdowns.
T. Rowe Price does have an alternative fund, Multi-strategy total return fund, TMSRX
quotes.morningstar.com/chart/fund/chart?t=tmsrx
@David Snowball also profiled this fund last year in great details.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/2020/07/t-rowe-price-multi-strategy-total-return-tmsrx/#more-14321
In addition, @Charles Bolin contributed a very nice article in MFO's commentary last year. Table 2 contains lots of alternative funds/ETFs to consider. Charles obtained these information from the MFO Premium Lipper's database.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/2020/09/alternative-and-global-funds-during-a-global-recession/#more-14509

That is quite good news and the immunity works. Similar to the flu vaccine (~50-60% effective) those who caught flu after vaccinated tend to have a milder case than those who are NOT. The antibody created in the body are working against the virus thus the probability of secondary infection (typically bacterial) occurring are greatly reduced.

A quick Google search yielded this :
A total of 371 out of 715,425 Israelis who passed at least a week after receiving two doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine have contracted the virus – 0.04%, with 16 being sent to the hospital – according to a Health Ministry report released on Thursday.
Stay Safe, Derf

GPMCX was started will around 25 Million AUM. Inception was around 10/2015. Total assets now around 55.9 million. Seems that closing this fund has worked.
Stay safe, Derf

Moderna vaccine uses similar mRNA technology to that of Pfizer-BioNTech for generating immune response as new antibody in human against coronavirus. In Phase III trial testing to cover various age and racial demographic in US, the vaccine showed 95% efficiency after the second booster shot.
Israel is the first country to vaccinate their citizen early. The date on the decline of infection and hospitialization are highly encouraging.

Close to 90% of people aged 60 and older in the country have received their first dose of Pfizer’s 2-dose vaccine so far. Now, data collected by Israel’s Ministry of Health show that there was a 41% drop in confirmed COVID-19 infections in that age group, and a 31% drop in hospitalizations from mid-January to early February.

https://nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00316-4
https://vox.com/22262509/israel-covid-19-vaccinations-serious-illness-decline
Concern today is the mutation of coronavirus to other contagious variants (i.e. UK and South Africa). There is no firm data of whether these variants are more lethal. This also implies that the pace of vaccination needs to speed out to minimize the spread of the more contagious variants. Good news is that early data that mRNA-based vaccines work effectively (90%+) against these variants in the laboratory. The older technologies that is used in Astro-Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson have showed to be less effective (50%). Neveretheless these vaccines require only one shot dosage whereas Pfizer and Moderna require two shots. Mixing two different type of vaccines are being considered.
Now Pfizer and Moderna are testing the vaccines for those under 16 so that they will be able to go back to schools with confidence. If the testing is successful, there is a chance of these students will return to school in fall 2021.

LA Times: The FDA didn’t ‘approve’ Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-12-12/why-fda-didnt-approve-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-eua

In the case of a vaccine, authorization can be granted if “the known and potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks,” the FDA says.

Some (most?) people equate that with "generally safe"; I read it as "safe enough".
In anticipation of "look at the evidence" response, here's more from the LA Times:

• It was 95% effective at preventing cases of COVID-19 in both Latinos and non-Latinos.
• It was 100% effective in Black people.
• It was 94% effective in people who were at least 56 years old. (The older you get, the greater the risk of a serious case of COVID-19.)
• It was 95% effective in those who had at least one medical condition that made them more likely to develop a serious case of COVID-19.
• It was 96% effective for people who were obese, another condition that makes people more vulnerable to COVID-19.
Yet none of this was enough for the vaccine to win official FDA approval.

One can certainly disagree with the FDA and assert that the vaccines are "generally safe", i.e. safe for general (not just emergency) use. Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

It's not a matter of how diversified a fund is but how much of a stock the fund, or more broadly the management company, owns. A fund could grow 10x its size and not throw itself off kilter. It could simply buy 10x as much of everything.
As an absurd example, consider a hypothetical fund with 20% in each of the FAANG stocks. Highly concentrated, yet it would have no problem taking in tons of cash, because it wouldn't have an impact on the stocks it held.
GPIOX and GPGOX each hold about 3/4% of Metropolis Healthcare. Not enough to move the needle, but GP as a whole has a fascination with this company. Should GP sour on the company, it might try to unload its 13% ownership. Regarding Dechra Pharmaceuticals, GP holds almost 1/4 of the company.
It's different when a large fund complex owns a sizeable percentage of a company, e.g. Fidelity (FMR) owns nearly 1/5 of Dechra. But that's spread over more funds with more varied objectives (albeit virtually all growth-oriented).
BCSIX has been soft closed since Oct 18, 2013. IMHO that's more a way of limiting hot money than it is to slow the growth of the fund. Forcing new investors to buy directly from Grandeur Peak similarly serves as an obstacle to traders. But additionally, GP's refusal to take money from existing investors through third parties will slow inflows in a way that BCSIX's soft close does not. IMHO the two sets of closures are not that similar.
I share some of your cynicism when it comes to management motives generally in closing funds. Ages ago I read a paper or two on how fund companies optimize profits by closing their funds late enough to allow the garnering of significant AUM, but not too late as to so harm their funds' performance as to induce outflows. Funds' performances were nevertheless harmed to some extent by delaying closures to optimize profits rather than performance. (FMAGX is a poster child for funds that close too late.)
BCOIX played the same game as GP - announcing its closing two weeks before it took effect.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/869351/000120928613000420/e1326.htm
In contrast, when Vanguard announces a fund is closing, it closes that day.

Not to quarrel with accepted wisdom, nevertheless I wonder if GP could show shareholders what advantage it has been to them to close only to re-open several of the funds. When I look at GPIOX and GPGOX, the ones I used to own, I see AUM south of $1B, holdings shading towards mid-cap of 191 and 166 stocks respectively, and no one stock representing more than 2.56% of the fund. Couldn’t the managers add new money to existing positions without throwing things off kilter? ISTM, that money sloshing around because of closure announcements causes more headaches than a steady stream of new regular purchases. I know that I have read of SC funds losing their mojo because the managers could not deal with lots of new money. If GP were running concentrated portfolios of 25-40 SMID stocks, timely closures might be called for. I own BCSIX that has been closed for some time, but I don’t really know if closing helped me. Other members might know of funds whose closings and re-openings amounted to more than management suddenly realizing that a closed fund ain’t making enough dough for the firm. Hope I’m not being quarrelsome.

I receive this weekly by email and it is always very detailed weekly report.
MARKET RECAP
The major market indices finished up this week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.00%.
The S&P 500 Stock Index rose 1.23%.
The Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.73%.
The Russell 2000 small capitalization index gained 2.51% this week.
The Hang Seng Composite gained 3.02%
The KOSPI fell 0.64%.
The 10-year Treasury bond yield rose 4 basis points to 1.206%.
Frank Holmes Investment Commentary:
https://usfunds.com/investor-library/investor-alert

2/12/21 Episode
Topics:
Diversification works well...when you don't need it.
- Stay invested for the long term.
- Diversify for the upside, not the downside.
- How do treasuries and bonds help investors stay invested on the downside?
- Risk Manage Equity Portfolio (Is PRWCX be such a strategy?)

Donuts.
STCG: $0.052/sh
LTCG: $0.377/sh
ex-date: 2/12/21
https://www.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/information/distributions#/?table=estimated

Just saw this posting from @hank in Off-topic section. He seems to be well and relax.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/57730/here-we-go-again-from-ray-charles-nora-jones#latest

And that turnover, despite the fact that futures trading requires more turnover, is still very high.
From the SAI: The [turnover] calculation does not include the turnover of other instruments in which the Fund more commonly invests, such as commodity futures instruments
Hence my statement that "any turnover calculation (even if I could decrypt all of this) wouldn't be meaningful."
With monthly expirations, it would not surprise me to see a 1200% turnover ratio, were futures included in the calculations. That's still a far cry from the very high 4,000-5,000% ratios of this fund, which might be describing the small amount of stocks and bonds that sometimes (and very fleetingly) show up in the portfolio.

I have a small position in FSPHX and have had it for a while. I've been taking a closer look at FSMEX and I can't come up with a reason to keep FSPHX over FSMEX. Using premium... PRHSX and SHSAX along with a newcomer I've been watching ETIHX comes up. But it just seems FSMEX is far and away the consistent performer - looking at APR vs. Peer, Ulcer, Martin and DD. It has been outperforming my current FSPHX which had a tough 2020 in the vs. peer category. That said, it's beaten the S&P 500 consistently since it's inception. But so has FSMEX.
Just wondering if anyone has an opinion.