@Crash SFGIX has done really well lately, beating 92% of its peers in the last three years. Still, that is a relative game. Emerging markets in general can be a stressful game for investors who can’t stomach volatility. I feel similarly about these Vulcan funds. They are concentrated and that courts volatility and idiosyncratic stock selection risk, so when the manager makes a mistake, it’s painful. But acknowledging that mistake and seeking to avoid a similar one in the future is essential. It’s a stark comparison to me between this response and others I’ve seen where the manager refuses to acknowledge any problems or change anything. The ARK ETF comes to mind. Still, those who can’t take volatility should generally steer clear of concentrated funds. This is especially so in the small-cap arena where idiosyncratic stock risk is the greatest. The long-term returns may prove great, but when the fund is down 40% one year and the markets are down 20%, psychologically many investors can’t handle it and will sell at the bottom.

Andrew Foster (Seafarer) is known to be candid about missteps. I gave the benefit of the doubt and stuck with SFGIX, until I just didn't, anymore.

While Seafarer has less China exposure than their previous shop, Mathews ( SFGIX 14% per M* vs say MAPIX 22%) SFGIX still lost 4% in the last month vs MAPIX 6%
Mathews has a webcast on the recent turmoil this afternoon ( I wish they would just send out a transcript.... so much more efficient)
https://info.matthewsasia.com/chinas-regulation-update-with-andy-rothman-registration-page.html
Nothing recent from Seafarer

SIGIX (SFGIX) was a disappointment to me. Not a disaster, but I did get out of it. He is a good communicator, but eventually, I tired of him admitting to mis-timed decisions or just bad investments in particular stocks.

As a former SIGIX investor, I agree with you.

SIGIX (SFGIX) was a disappointment to me. Not a disaster, but I did get out of it. After Foster left Matthews, I went over to his new fund. He is a good communicator, but eventually, I tired of him admitting to mis-timed decisions or just bad investments in particular stocks. But the fund had quite a good 2020.
FSEAX had a partial change in management of the fund at the end of 2019 or maybe just into January, 2020. The fund really took off! I think under the current Covid regime, it looks like a "gooder" to me: governments everywhere are doing anything and everything to "juice" their economies. As long as the advanced, industrialized countries continue this way, the EM markets will follow nicely along on the coattails. Just my 2 cents. :)

From a deep value perspective, emerging markets are hard to beat, but one has to be willing to stomach volatility and believe value will come back. Four in the deep value camp I've watched are PRIJX, PXH, FNDE and DVYE. Yet if one wants more quality and more downside protection, one of David Snowball's favorites SFGIX is also interesting.

I stared the year with FMIJX and SFGIX, 2 long time holdings. Back in april-may I moved all of SFGIX and most of FMIJX to ARTYX. I guess that is my favorite. It's worked out well. Also hold a global fund GPGOX.

Interesting tread here for sure. I left FMI funds several years ago to other options perhaps better suit my purpose. FMIJX holds high quality stocks but the growth oriented stocks seem to do better in today environment as value stocks have lagged badly. Swapped FMIJX for Vanguard International Growth, VHIGX several years ago - much better. Also move part of SFGIX to Matthews Asia Asia Innovation, MATFX - so far so good. Will check out TMSRX - available as Transaction fee fund at Fidelity.
@MikeW, Interesting that ARTYX has 20% exposure to US - high growth stocks.

During the down turn, I didn't really sell equity funds but I did rearrange my International holding back in early April. I always hold my breath when I swap funds but this time it paid off. Wondering if anyone else did the same.
I held SFGIX as my EM fund and FMIJX as my International holding for many years. I don't like to hold to many funds in a category so I decided to swap all or some of both funds for one fund that recently became available after being closed for a while, ARTYX. I sold all my SFGIX and put it into ARTYX. I held SFGIX from the start and I think became married to it. But, with a historically better performing fund available I made the switch. I sold all of SFGIX and put it into ARTYX. As I watched this new fund perform I decided to sell most but not all of my FMIJX and add that money to ARTYX. Sooooo happy so far. I held out a long time expecting better results from SFGIX and FMIJX that never came.
Anyone else make adjustments fund-for-fund like this. Again, I held SFGIX and FMIJX for so long and defended their poor performance the past few years. But I bit the bullet and divorced them.
since April 1st:
ARTYX +38%
FMIJX +14%
SFGIX +19%
Anybody else trade like-funds?

@Crash. You know what you might have done right thing. I've successfully transitioned to having a mercenary attitude toward funds. This argument about a funds "potential" is BS. People have to make decisions in the real world at a given point of time and don't have the benefit of hindsight. Shame on people like M* shaming people with "investors are effing stupid and always sell / buy at wrong time". They make their money publishing articles. We have to earn our money and then figure out how to grow it. They don't have to grow their money but grow their revenue stream. Easy to criticize investors and money managers when you are running a business to critique everyone.
You do what you think is right for you. Everyone else can take a flying F. It do own SFGIX because I'm still in the plus column.
PS - Finally feels good to have my single malt this weekend.

Even tonight, I see SFGIX is not doing badly compared to peers, lately. (YTD and 2019.) But as has been noted here often enough, that fund is a rare breed. Hard to compare it with the run of the mill stuff in that category.... My international stuff is virtually ALL in PRIDX these days, and foreign is a small slice now, and going forward, deliberately. (7% of total.) Single Malts. Now, yer talking! Limited selections around here, especially with the virus restricting everything. Lately, I've imbibed the Bushmills "Red Bush" variety of Irish whisky. I do believe it's smoother than the original. But I do miss a swig of The Balvenie. Liquor is so expensive here. The good news is: you can get it at the supermarket along with your eggs and butter and cheese and tofu. ;)

@Crash. You know what you might have done right thing. I've successfully transitioned to having a mercenary attitude toward funds. This argument about a funds "potential" is BS. People have to make decisions in the real world at a given point of time and don't have the benefit of hindsight. Shame on people like M* shaming people with "investors are effing stupid and always sell / buy at wrong time". They make their money publishing articles. We have to earn our money and then figure out how to grow it. They don't have to grow their money but grow their revenue stream. Easy to criticize investors and money managers when you are running a business to critique everyone.
You do what you think is right for you. Everyone else can take a flying F. It do own SFGIX because I'm still in the plus column.
PS - Finally feels good to have my single malt this weekend.

I bailed on SFGIX a couple of years ago. Foster is candid and seems to know his stuff, but it's been quite a laggard. So...

The $USD spiked up from 03/09 and then down and settled around where it was. Not able to discern completely the co-relation, but I suspect "value" and "international" theme did them in, like I have ranted about earlier.
This goes with "the market can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent" theme. First heard about it in the context of SFGIX and that theme simply hasn't worked out.
"Large" and "Growth" has worked better both domestically and internationally, and even right now.

@Charles - you mentioned "Our friend Junkster always touted the importance of having predefined "exit" criteria. He was/is a day trader so he watches for instabilities typically in price movements of what he calls "tight channel" funds. If he sees them, he exits the trade.
Others like Meb Faber practice trend following ... when price drops below say the 10-mo running average, they exit their position, either to cash or something (thought) safer."
Then asked "So curious if any on the board practice, in disciplined fashion, such techniques?
And, perhaps even more curious of whether buy-and-hold investors, especially retired ones, EVER think of exiting. Or, is it always just about re balancing?"
Tough questions but I'll try. NO I do not ever think about exiting. I'm pretty much all invested 99% of the time. While accumulating it was 95/5 figuring that SS would cover my wild abandon. Once retired I drifted down to roughly 75/25 by swapping some REIT's for PCI and PDI. MY portfolio is primarily a mix of individual dividend growth stocks and a handful of equity CEF's for income, PIMCO bond CEF's + IOFIX and 5 mutual funds BIAWX, GLFOX, MGGPX, POAGX and VLAAX. I do hold a pittance in SFGIX but I'm not sure why, maybe in case it ever becomes unstuck from it's funk. It is hard to apply the techniques I use across all holdings equally so I use certain ones for certain types.
I pretty much never touch the mutual funds. That's what I hired their managers for.
Likewise the bond holdings although I do check them occasionally trying to follow Junksters lessons along with a weekly MACD signal. I won't get into what it's all about suffice to say that MACD is an indicator used in technical analysis to identify aspects of a security's overall trend. Most notably these aspects are momentum, as well as trend direction and duration. MACD uses moving averages (trend lines and duration) and plots that difference between the two lines as a histogram which oscillates above and below a center Zero Line. The histogram is a good indication of a security's momentum and so I watch for crossovers signalling buying when moving up from a trough or selling from a peak. Ideally I'd check them more often than I do but I try to pretend I have a life away from watching market action so sometimes I'm behind the curve unless price action screams at me.
My equity holdings are also rarely touched because most were bought during previous market debacles and now have considerable capital gains even after this current hosing. If I found suitable similar replacements I might swap them. Or not.
With these holdings, in addition to the MACD signal I also watch the RSI and the Chaikin Money Flow indicators. Again I am never on top of these 100% of the time but I check them occasionally and whenever Mr. Price beats on me. I use RSI to identify the general trend and watch for divergence especially from overbought or oversold conditions.
The Chaikin Money Flow tells the real story of how much demand there is for a stock whether positive or negative. The concepts of divergences comes into play here as well. If money flow starts to fall while price is rising, then the price will generally follow downward soon. Again, a change in money flow is a signal that something is about to change with price. The weekly and monthly tell you the real big money trend and I want to be on the side of the big money. A day trader could use daily I suppose.
Anyway, in this current meltdown all things seemed to have suffered equally so I see no reason to play with rebalancing and frankly I never look at my portfolio and think that I should. Crazy right? But my portfolio works for me and was planned out to do what I needed it to do which was to provide me with enough income to cover my modest needs along with a little extra to play with. To date I have only had one holding that suspended their dividend (can you say lucky) but I fear that we may be just in the first few innings of this game. Good luck out there.

@Sven. I've held SFGIX since it opened. Owned his growth and income fund, MACSX, before that. Foster's writing is compelling and hopeful and I'll keep holding his fund as a less volatile EM option for diversification purposes. But I'm not a hot fund collector or one to jump on the band wagon of other peoples thoughts. Those days are long past.
All I'm saying is people have been predicting Asia (edit: China in particular) taking over the economic world for decades. Nothing new today. Things are different? That was said then too so lets wait and see. Asia was a huge topic on the FundAlarm board in the late 90s' early 2000s'. Even had it's own daily updated post. I'll ask you this, if hypothetically you could only invest in Asia or the US right now and have to keep the money there for the next 20 years, which would you choose? I guess that would be the answer to really believing the hype that Asia is the future, because of course that would imply the US is not. In my opinion, that's not happening in my life time.

I'll be selling SFGIX in order to buy NEWFX at Fidelity. What is the minimum amount that I need to keep a toehold in SFGIX? Thanks.

Shadow must be taking the day off :-)
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/915802/000139834419017760/fp0046737_497.htm
The fund just reopened a year ago. I wonder if it will reconsider that decision now.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/45333/seafarer-capital-partners-announces-reopening-of-seafarer-overseas-growth-and-income-fund
https://www.seafarerfunds.com/message-to-shareholders/2018/11/13/
Fund tickers: SFGIX (closed), SIGIX (open, $25K min)

Yes, I was patient, but finally decided to leave SFGIX. With the China trade-war, and its knock-on effects toward other Asian countries, MAPIX is up by just a tiny fraction, this year, so far. I track both MAPIX and the bond fund, MAINX. The latter is performing quite well, indeed. It's up 8.29% YTD. It's lost a star or two at Morningstar. And M* has changed its peer category once or twice. And I notice that MAINX paid nothing at year-end in 2018. I'd be unhappy with THAT, if I owned the fund. The same thing happened re: an expected dividend a few years ago, with MAPIX.

Andrew Foster is another manager who went out on his own, with a lot of hype, and failed to match the performance of the fund he left. MAPIX is up 56% since March 2012; SFGIX is up 35%. For the last five years, MAPIX is up 18.43 %; SFGIX is up 6.51%. The fund family ,and its resources, may be more important than its famed managers.

FYI: (Slide mouse to 17:20 minutes for Andrew Foster interview.)
Andrew Foster of Seafarer Capital Partners said that trade and tariff wars have not stopped growth in emerging markets, but they have exacerbated a slowing trend, particularly in China, that will make developing and emerging markets harder to profit from in the near future. Foster noted that valuations in emerging markets are reasonable, but without growth to help drive the market, investors should expect muted returns from emerging markets for the long-term future. Also on the show, Greg McBride of Bankrate.com talks about how many workers are not increasing their set asides to retirement plans, Sam McBride of NewConstructs.com -- no relation -- discusses a stock that is headed for trouble and Greg Woodard of Manning and Napier covers stocks in the Market Cal
Regards,
Ted
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/moneylife-with-chuck-jaffe/e/63468599?autoplay=true
M* Snapshot SFGIX:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/sfgix/quote
M* Snapshot SFVLX:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/sfvlx/quote