I bought MACSX when Foster was there and stayed with it. I have always wanted to trade the position for SFGIX, but the absolute returns and risk of MACSX haven't given me any reason to leave. SFGIX has a wider reach and a much lower aum, but last I checked the returns of MACSX have been slightly higher.
Edit, looks like the sea farer pop in January has put it slightly ahead of MACSX

SFGIX. REALLY caught fire since mid-January. I bought-in during Sept, 2012. Glad I did, every day.

Today's was Seafarer Overseas Growth & Income (SFGIX) fund's third anniversary; it launched February 15, 2012. Steady asset growth despite a tough stretch for the emerging markets. Annual returns since inception are, per Morningstar, 8%. The category average for the same period is 1%. The big gains came in the first year but he's steadily outperformed since then, too.
I'm not sure why the fund won't debut as a Five Star, Great Owl but I've been surprised before.
With luck, Andrew will join us for a conference call in April. You'd certainly be welcome to join if you'd like to talk with him.
As ever,
David

David,
In your opinion would SFGIX (SIGIX) be a replacement for MAPIX?
I currently own MAPIX and MACSX.
Mona

Today's was Seafarer Overseas Growth & Income (SFGIX) fund's third anniversary; it launched February 15, 2012. Steady asset growth despite a tough stretch for the emerging markets. Annual returns since inception are, per Morningstar, 8%. The category average for the same period is 1%. The big gains came in the first year but he's steadily outperformed since then, too.
I'm not sure why the fund won't debut as a Five Star, Great Owl but I've been surprised before.
With luck, Andrew will join us for a conference call in April. You'd certainly be welcome to join if you'd like to talk with him.
As ever,
David

I gave up on PRLAX a buncha years ago. Andrew Foster at SFGIX seems to think highly of Valid Solucoes eServicos de Seguranca em Meios de Pagamento e Identificacao. It's in Brasil, best I can figure. It may no longer be a value-play. Over the past year, it's come from 28 up to over 40. (Is that dollars? It's a M* chart.) In SFGIX, it's the 3rd-largest holding. Morningstar dates the SFGIX portfolio to 31st December, 2014. In SFGIX, Latin America = 16.3% of holdings. SFGIX is up over the past year by +10.24%.
I don't have any money in Latin America at all. I've just "cleaned house." In my own portf. I'm now holding 7% cash, 29% USA equity, 25% foreign, 37% bonds. "OTHER:" 2%. Japan, hardly a thing. 29% is in Asia. In US/Canada, the number is 54.25%. No more Matthews at all. Asia is covered with PRASX.

A new artisan fund has been an automatic buy for me. However given I actually have SFGIX and MAPIX(ira) and have pointedly stayed away from Artisan's EM fund.
In some areas, even good managers/teams cannot excel, and they do realize that sometimes. Anyone remember Oakmark Small Cap? They finally realized they don't have skill picking small cap stocks and closed the fund. I guess Artisan realized they don't have skills and are looking for outside talent. Let's see who they hire, then one can decide whether to give them a chance.

With respect to furrin' stuff, SFGIX is my best current performer. I came close to cutting loose from MAPIX due to the dividend issue, but now that's up 2.8% YTD, so looking decent. If they resume dividends will most likely stay with that one too. Of course, using YTD is a purely arbitrary time frame, and essentially meaningless, as shown by a look at the "reversals" in SFGIX, ARTGX, GPROX, and MAPIX since the beginning of this year.
YTD:
SFGIX 3.4%
WAFMX -1.3%
ARTGX -0.2%
GPROX -0.4%
MAPIX 2.8%
Last year's results:
SFGIX -0.9%
WAFMX 0.6%
ARTGX 3.9%
GPROX 6.4%
MAPIX 0.5%
... which was a pretty sorry set of numbers, compared to the US stuff. The foreign stuff comprises about 23% of the portfolio, and in aggregate was up a huge +0.06% last year, and YTD is also +0.06%.
Some days I want to just send all of my money to Ted and let him run with it. :-(

I'm in SFGIX along with others here. Not unhappy with it.

Just for reference against some MFO faves:
2014 returns for:
EAFE: -4.9%
ACWI ex US: -3.87%
ARTKX: -0.59%
PRIDX: -0.43%
DODFX: 0.08%
SFGIX: -0.52%
GPIOX: 2.36%
FMIJX: 4.62%

@Charles: Thanks for sharing your (relative) pain, I too am way behind the S&P this year after a few years outperforming. Fairholme hit me hard, and great performance from Primecap and decent performance from Bridgeway (my other two big positions) weren't enough to compensate. My foreign funds (ARTKX, SFGIX, GPIOX) outpeformed their benchmarks but underperformed, of course, the S&P.
Getting back to this general topic, I intend to remain close to fully invested in equities. The economy seems to be picking up speed, not slowing down, so I don't see any reason for a bear market any time soon. And as to the inevitable 5-10% corrections, I've learned that I'm not smart enough to time those, though I do have a little dry powder just in case some bargains appear.

That's an interesting discussion...if you agree with the conclusions, that puts SFGIX in the spotlight given their Brazilian exposure, plus a higher % of assets allocated to India than any of the Matthews funds managed by Kevin Lowe.

Those were Nadel's conclusions only. Lowe's answer about India was that there's no margin of safety in stock prices there anymore, and Matthews as conservative-quality investors can't find much there that fits their criteria after the big runup.

That's an interesting discussion...if you agree with the conclusions, that puts SFGIX in the spotlight given their Brazilian exposure, plus a higher % of assets allocated to India than any of the Matthews funds managed by Kevin Lowe.

Seafarer Fund
http://www.seafarerfunds.com/fund/distributions
Good tax-efficient management of SFGIX in 2014. Shareholder conference call on Dec 11th.

JohnChisum, thank you. .....I'm back again looking at my portfolio, as well as other things. Of course, by now, at midnight (Fri-Sat) the numbers are updated--- though for some, "rank in category" are not updated: DLFNX MAPIX MAINX MEASX SFGIX TRAMX (although the category it is put into at Morningstar is a non-category.) PREMX PRESX NAESX. How much does Morningstar want to pay me for pointing out what it needs to do, I wonder? I can't use an app. No cell phone. Don't want one. :)

Max, they want specifics......if you call them, the rep will go to your portfolio(s) and address all your specific concerns. The more specific details you can give them about your account and portfolio, what issues came up and when/what time, the better. You can send them screenshots documenting issues, via email, while the rep is on the phone with you, etc.

JohnChisum, thank you. .....I'm back again looking at my portfolio, as well as other things. Of course, by now, at midnight (Fri-Sat) the numbers are updated--- though for some, "rank in category" are not updated: DLFNX MAPIX MAINX MEASX SFGIX TRAMX (although the category it is put into at Morningstar is a non-category.) PREMX PRESX NAESX. How much does Morningstar want to pay me for pointing out what it needs to do, I wonder? I can't use an app. No cell phone. Don't want one. :)

At 5:35pm PST it looks as if M* finally caught up to Google, except for ARTGX, which is down 55¢ because of a distribution today.

M*
.INX 	2048.72	OK	-	
ABNDX 	12.75	OK	-	AF
AIBAX 	13.53	OK	-	AF
AHITX 	10.99	OK	-	AF
ABALX 	26.11	OK	-	AF
ANCFX 	55.54	OK	-	AF
SMCWX 	49.47	OK	-	AF
CWGIX 	47.28	OK	-	AF
ANEFX 	39.97	OK	-	AF
TAFTX 	17.73	OK	-	AF
AMHIX 	15.45	OK	-	AF
AMCPX 	29.69	OK	-	AF
ACMVX 	17.8	OK	-	AC
TWSMX 	7.59	OK	-	AC
ABHIX 	6.02	OK	-	AC
BUFBX 	14.87	OK	-	
PRBLX 	41.09	OK	-	
VVPSX 	19.3	OK	-	
GABAX 	68	OK	-	
MAPIX 	15.62	OK	-	
LSBRX 	15.42	OK	-	
SFGIX 	11.52	OK	-	
MFLDX 	16.47	OK	-	
GASFX 	31.2	OK	-	
ARTGX 	16.05	Error	No Update	
RSIVX 	10.23	OK	-	
RPHYX 	9.95	OK	-	
WAFMX 	3.23	OK	-	
GPROX 	12.71	OK	-	
SCHD 	40.19	OK	-	

As you can see, at 4:15pm PST google has it's act together. M* certainly does not. Note the unevenness even within the AF (American Fund) and AC (American Century) fund families.

M*		
.INX 	2048.72	OK	-
ABNDX 	12.75	OK	-		AF
AIBAX 	13.53	OK	-		AF
AHITX 	10.99	OK	-		AF
ABALX 	26.11	OK	-		AF
ANCFX 	55.6	Error	No Update	AF
SMCWX 	49.7	Error	No Update	AF
CWGIX 	47.38	Error	No Update	AF
ANEFX 	39.97	OK	-		AF
TAFTX 	17.72	Error	No Update	AF
AMHIX 	15.44	Error	No Update	AF
AMCPX 	29.81	Error	No Update	AF
ACMVX 	17.84	Error	No Update	AC
TWSMX 	7.59	OK	-		AC
ABHIX 	6.04	Error	No Update	AC
BUFBX 	14.87	OK	-	
PRBLX 	41.21	Error	No Update	
VVPSX 	19.37	Error	No Update	
GABAX 	68	OK	-	
MAPIX 	15.62	OK	-	
LSBRX 	15.42	OK	-	
SFGIX 	11.52	OK	-	
MFLDX 	16.47	OK	-	
GASFX 	31.08	Error	No Update	
ARTGX 	16.05	Error	No Update	
RSIVX 	10.23	OK	-	
RPHYX 	9.95	OK	-	
WAFMX 	3.23	OK	-	
GPROX 	12.71	OK	-	
SCHD 	40.19	OK	-	

Perhaps M* isnt the only one with reporting issues. Yesterday, after 8:00 pm PST, I updated my spreadsheet using Google Finance. I happened to check Google again a few minutes ago, and look at the discrepancies! I also happened to download the same report from M* yesterday, again after 8:00pm local. Note that yesterday's M* agrees with "today's" Google posting:

Was:	Now:		M*
ABNDX 	12.76	12.76	OK	12.76
AIBAX 	13.53	13.54	Error	13.54
AHITX 	11.11	11.04	Error	11.04
ABALX 	25.96	26.04	Error	26.04
ANCFX 	55.23	55.32	Error	55.32
SMCWX 	49.73	49.35	Error	49.35
CWGIX 	47.01	46.99	Error	46.99
ANEFX 	39.85	39.85	OK	39.85
TAFTX 	17.74	17.73	Error	17.73
AMHIX 	15.46	15.45	Error	15.45
AMCPX 	29.71	29.58	Error	29.58
ACMVX 	17.75	17.74	Error	17.74
TWSMX 	7.58	7.57	Error	7.57
ABHIX 	6.08	6.05	Error	6.05
BUFBX 	14.81	14.87	Error	14.87
PRBLX 	40.92	40.92	OK	40.92
VVPSX 	19.53	19.29	Error	19.29
GABAX 	67.72	67.73	Error	67.73
MAPIX 	15.69	15.62	Error	15.62
LSBRX 	15.42	15.45	Error	15.45
SFGIX 	11.53	11.45	Error	11.45
MFLDX 	16.56	16.43	Error	16.43
GASFX 	31.11	31.01	Error	31.01
ARTGX 	15.89	15.95	Error	15.95
RSIVX 	10.24	10.25	Error	10.25
RPHYX 	9.94	9.95	Error	9.95
WAFMX 	3.24	3.23	Error	3.23
GPROX 	12.82	12.71	Error	12.71
SCHD 	40.01	40.1	Error	40.01

WTF!!

Add-on, @catch22:
>>>>>"Not sure what you mean by "We'll do our SERIOUS investing elsewhere."
Does this mean that monies that are not invested in the workplace 403b are instead invested in a trad. or ROTH IRA?
One aspect of workplace retirement accounts is reducing gross taxable income during the tax year, which some folks consider a benefit to saving by this method."
**********
By "serious" investing, I just meant that we won't be putting our OWN money into the 403b. We get the deduction from our IRAs, still. We've not even begun to withdraw from our IRAs, and are still adding to them. Traditional. (Wife still is working, though lately cut to part-time.) There were a couple of years in which I inherited more than the $6,500.00 Trad. IRA maximum and so we bought a couple of funds as taxable investment accounts, but they remain quite small: SFGIX and DLFNX. Whether taxable or not, I think they were solid choices. :) Thank you for your concern, which I know is genuine. Typo above: we own NAESX Vang. Small-cap, not NEASX.

Can't find much fault with your portfolio, but however...
I sold AKREX. Discussion in another thread.
I own WAEMX, but it is on thin ice. I've decided not to get so focused (emerging AND small cap). You own an even more focused Wasatch fund.
I own SFGIX and added to it.
I took profits in ARTKX but hold it
I own MACSX and GPGOX in IRA.
Two things. Vanguard Global Equity. I suggest VMVFX instead.
TRF? Sorry, just go with some broadly diversified international fund with heavy investment in Eastern Europe (just like I don't like buying MINDX but buy SFGIX or MACSX).