https://www.oakmark.com/Oakmark/web/me.get?WEB.websections.show&OAKMARK_1047
I'm wondering if this is possibly a prelude (read: training period) to Mr. McGregor's retirement. I'm guessing that he's around 60 and his former co-manager retired in 2012. Might bear watching.

I am back to a question that I still have not been able to answer comfortably.
I am a Flagship member with Vanguard and also invest with Schwab. In a retirement account with Schwab I currently hold SGOVX. In a different retirement account at Schwab I hold MAPIX and MACSX. In my taxable account with Schwab I hold ARTKX. I currently do not hold an international fund at Vanguard.
My plan within the six months to a year is to increase my international exposure. I am not looking to make any changes with MAPIX or MACSX.
I hold SGOVX in a retirement account because it is fairly tax inefficient. The problem is, I am out of room in that account and also want more mid cap value exposure, which I can satisfy by selling SGOVX and adding to my ARTQX position in that same account. Of course, when I do this, not only am I not increasing my international exposure, I am decreasing it.
One potential solution is to add to ARTKX, which historically seems to have been fairly tax efficient. The two issues with doing this is besides MAPIX and MACSX, I would be putting over 60% of my international exposure in one fund. Also, per M* ARTKX has about a 25% potential capital gains exposure.
A second way I could go is to purchase UMBWX at either Schwab or Vanguard. It's long term performance has been good, its expense ratio seems reasonable (18 basis points below ARTKX), it's been fairly tax efficient, and it seems like it would be a complement to ARTKX because it has an average market cap about three times the size of ARTKX. However, UMBWX has a potential capital gains exposure of about 19%.
A third way to go is to purchase VGSTX at Vanguard and call it quits ;-). It's tax efficient, it has a low expense ratio at 16 basis points, a low capital gains exposure at about 5%, and a an average market cap about twice ARTKX. However, while about 50% of my domestic exposure is in index funds, I have not been a big fan of indexing international.
With the above in mind, I certainly would appreciate some thoughts.
Mona

Curious if anyone uses BUFBX as a conservative/moderate allocation choice. It has outperformed the moderate benchmark by 2% over 1,3, and 5 year timeframes. Seems to hold a mix of dividend-paying stocks and high-yield bonds.
From related article:
"To limit risks, consider adding a cautious fund to your portfolio. Top choices include Buffalo Flexible Income (BUFBX), Sierra Core Retirement (SIRAX), and Weitz Balanced (WBALX). The funds hold mixes of stocks and bonds, seeking to protect shareholders in downturns. Most often the cautious approaches have worked. All three funds shined during the turmoil of 2008, and they have outdone the S&P 500 by a wide margin during the past five years. "
safe-funds-that-delivered-winning-returns

Link to SEC filing:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/915802/000091580213000011/gp4970408.htm
FINANCIAL INVESTORS TRUST
Grandeur Peak Global Opportunities Fund
Grandeur Peak International Opportunities Fund (the “Funds”)
SUPPLEMENT DATED APRIL 8, 2013 TO THE PROSPECTUS
FOR THE INSTITUTIONAL CLASS SHARES OF THE FUNDS DATED AUGUST 31, 2012
This Supplement updates certain information contained in the Prospectus for the Institutional Class Shares of the Funds dated August 31, 2012. You should retain this Supplement and the Prospectus for future reference. Additional copies of the Prospectus may be obtained free of charge by visiting our web site at www.grandeurpeakglobal.com or calling us at 1.855.377.PEAK (7325).
Effective as of the close of business on May 1, 2013, the Funds will close to new investors, except as described below. This change will affect new investors seeking to purchase shares of a Fund either directly or through third party intermediaries. Existing shareholders of a Fund may continue to purchase additional shares of that Fund.
A financial advisor whose clients have established accounts in a Fund as of May 1, 2013 may continue to open new accounts in that Fund for any of its existing or new clients.
Existing or new participants in a qualified retirement plan, such as a 401(k) plan, profit sharing plan, 403(b) plan or 457 plan, which has an existing position in a Fund as of May 1, 2013, may continue to open new accounts in that Fund. In addition, if such qualified retirement plans have a related retirement plan formed in the future, this plan may also open new accounts in the Fund.
As described in the Prospectus, the Funds’ investment adviser, Grandeur Peak Global Advisors, LLC, retains the right to make exceptions to any action taken to close a Fund or limit inflows into a Fund.
INVESTORS SHOULD RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
FINANCIAL INVESTORS TRUST
Grandeur Peak Global Opportunities Fund
Grandeur Peak International Opportunities Fund (the “Funds”)
SUPPLEMENT DATED APRIL 8, 2013 TO THE PROSPECTUS
FOR THE INVESTOR CLASS SHARES OF THE FUNDS DATED AUGUST 31, 2012

Howdy,
Thought I responded last night but . . .
You all knew that this was coming and you really need to plan for it. Of course they're going to try to raise revenue any and all ways possible. They have no choice. Note, that they will also have to cut benefits and break promises in any and all ways possible. Again, they have no choice. They have over $100T in unfunded liabilities and not even a combination of maximum politically viable tax increases and benefit reductions can cover the tab. That means that in addition to raising taxes and cutting benefits, the remainder will have to be monetized. There is no other option. That's what QE . . . nth is all about.
Now with all this said, they historically have pimped us from long range and I don't see this time being any different. By this I mean that they will grandfather everything so that no one is immediately impacted. This limits the howls of outrage because when you're 40 and they change the SS retirement ages to 67-73 - it doesn't register quite as hideously as it would if you were 55.
So, I really don't see them changing the rules for exisiting retirement accounts - only for new accounts down the road.
Oh, they'll raise taxes in any possible way - fees, surcharges, tweaks here and there, etc. Alas and alack, they won't fix anything, at least not until things break down completely and they have no choice.
I'm still with us staying in a depression until some time around 2023 or so. Planning remains the same - diversify your accounts and your wealth. Give yourself various options for funding your retirement.
peace,
rono

http://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-MJPY8K6TTDSJ01-0URS1QECD2LCN69MJ8519507S0
cut back on muni?
http://www.advisorone.com/2013/04/04/dont-panic-sell-your-bonds-just-yet-vanguard-talks
trow email reads
http://individual.troweprice.com/public/Retail/Planning-&-Research/T.-Rowe-Price-Insights/Personal-Finance/Make-Smart-Choices-for-Your-Retirement-Savings
schwab email reads
http://investing.schwab.com/public/schwab/resource_center/expert_insight/schwab_investing_brief/fed_and_bonds/times_not_yet_right_for_floating_rate_bonds.html
http://investing.schwab.com/public/schwab/resource_center/expert_insight/todays_market/recent_commentary/schwab_market_perspective.html
http://wealthmanagement.com/mutual-funds/highmark-dumps-funds-shift-away-retail
5 active MF managers making a difference
http://investorplace.com/2013/04/5-active-fund-managers-making-a-difference/
buying canadian?
http://www.mfwire.com/article.asp?template=article&storyID=43504&wire=MFWire&wireID=2
tim buckley read
www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-look-at-tim-buckley-chief-investment-officer-of-top-mutual-fund-company-vanguard/2013/04/04/d9eb8a20-9d6d-11e2-9219-51eb8387e8f1_story.html
stockton cram down would serverely test muni market
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20130407/REG/304079972

Here's the full Whitehouse "statement" - apparently a verbal "statement" to Politico:
http://www.politico.com/playbook/0413/playbook10370.html
It looks like Australia is proposing something similar. I'm not familiar with Australian newspapers, so I don't know how "balanced" the link (to an opinion column) below is, but it seems to give a reasonable description of their proposal.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/super-changes-to-hit-rich-retirees-20130405-2haim.html
As near as I can tell from a brief bit of searching, Australia's "superannuation" system is a mix of public pensions (a la SS) and voluntary contributions (a la IRA/401K), though perhaps more investment oriented than our SS. The proposal appears to be to start taxing (at a still reduced rate of 15%) earnings in excess of $100K (AU$) per year on their plans. This seems somewhat analogous to the WH proposal to cap accounts at an amount sufficient to generate an annuity of $205K/year; that is, both are based not on size of account, but size of retirement income generated.
This AU proposal might be somewhat like taxing Roths (rather than imposing a strict cap), except that the money going into our Roths is fully taxed, while contributions to AU accounts get a tax break. (Top Australian ordinary income tax rate appears to be 45%, so contributions, though taxed, are taxed at much reduced rates).
There's there's also a proposal mentioned to tax the contributions at 30% - for those earning over $300K (AU$) - which would still be below the normal tax rate (but above the current 15% for contributions for all earners).
----
Still need to know a lot more about the WH proposal. For example, is the cap on generated income based on nominal or after-tax amounts? If the former, then one can push the after-tax amount higher by doing Roth conversions. By paying the conversion taxes from money in the IRA (not normally recommended), the nominal size of the account would be reduced, but the after-tax value would remain the same (since the money's now post-tax).
Lots of games possible. Need more info.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/932471/000093247113006039/ps111a042013nc.htm
Vanguard Capital Opportunity Fund
Supplement to the Prospectus and the Summary Prospectus
Important Changes to Vanguard Capital Opportunity Fund
Vanguard Capital Opportunity Fund is now open to new accounts for personal investors, and shareholders are no longer subject to a $25,000 annual investment limit. Participants in certain qualified retirement plans may continue to invest in accordance with the terms of their plans. Certain qualifying asset allocation programs may continue to operate in accordance with the program terms.
The Fund will remain closed to all prospective financial advisory, institutional, and intermediary clients (other than clients who invest through a Vanguard brokerage account) until further notice, and there is no specific time frame for when the Fund will reopen for new account registrations by these clients.
During the Fund’s closed period, current institutional shareholders may continue to purchase, exchange, or redeem shares of the Fund online, by telephone, or by mail. Current financial advisory and intermediary clients may not contribute to existing Fund accounts.
The Fund may modify these transaction policies at any time and without prior notice to shareholders. You may call Vanguard for more detailed information about the Fund’s transaction policies. Participants in employer-sponsored plans may call Vanguard Participant Services at 800-523-1188. Investors in nonretirement accounts and IRAs may call Vanguard’s Investor Information Department at 800-662-7447.
© 2013 The Vanguard Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Vanguard Marketing Corporation, Distributor. PS 111A 042013

Reply to @PRESSmUP:
You may not need to rollover your 401k after retirement if you like the choices. Many employers allow you to leave your assets behind. However, IRA is likely to give you more choices unless your 401k plan has a self directed brokerage option.
The retail equivalent of PCVAX is PNVDX. PSVIX is institutional shares. The fund is currently closed to new investors. I used to own PNVDX some time ago.
I recently added VVPSX in this area.

Reply to @Art:
Art...as with you, PCVAX is a 401K choice, which I've held for about 7 years. Planning retirement and a shift of 401K to an IRA, I find that the PCVAX performance is not to be sneezed at....frankly, I am flummoxed as to what to replace it with. Of course, that is a future thread.

Hi Guys,
I resisted as long as I could, but so many of you contributed that I felt obligated to participate from peer pressure considerations alone.
My current senior holding is the Dodge and Cox Balanced (DODBX) mutual fund. I have held the fund without interruption for about 26 years. I still own it.
I have been more than pleased with its overall performance. During my holding period, DODBX delivered a 12.07 % annual average return with a 13.24 % volatility.
That performance beat expectations, especially when contrasted to the S&P 500 (an unfair comparison) which delivered a 10.05 % annual return with a volatility just north of 15 % for that same timeframe.
All values cited include reinvested dividends.
Dodge and Cox was not my first venture into the mutual fund industry. I bought Fidelity’s Magellan fund sometimes in 1984.
I primarily was encouraged to invest in mutual funds by Peter Lynch’s stellar record in earlier years. As a neophyte, I was chasing performance; I was swayed by hot money. That was one of my first lessons in the mutual fund industry. Performance is not persistent.
Peter Lynch’s outsized performance did not persist. In the years just before his retirement around 1990, he struggled to capture equity market rewards. Lynch suffered a two stage career. In the first part he generated scintillating outcomes; in the second part he regressed-to-the-mean. The magic was gone. I was with Magellan fund during the epic struggle phase.
I finally sold Magellan when Fidelity decided to fire Jeff Vinik, who was a second generation replacement for the Famous One, after Vinik made a poor timing decision by selling equity positions and going into the bond market. At that point, Fidelity had decided to honor a consistent fund investment policy rule that they claimed Vinik violated.
There’s a lesson there too since Vinik later developed a successful Hedge Fund management career while Fidelity failed to find and assign a superior manager to their Magellan product.
Best Wishes on April Fool’s Day.

Thanks.
I noted the following sections below:
---
Model Portfolio Changes
We’re dropping commodities from our investment models.
...
We are dropping our exposure to commodities as an alternative asset class based on three factors: (1) It has become much more equity-like in its behavior, reducing its ability to hedge equity risks. (2) Costs and liquidity make it less desirable—we never liked its 85 basis-point operating expense. Nor did we like the three-day hold before cash distribution on sell orders. And (3) the expected return profile is significantly below equities because the return potential is tied more to the inflationary environment than equity market fundamentals.
We’re introducing a new tool for reducing volatility and capturing return for all of our portfolios.
New research by Robert Novy-Marx (2012) has identified a way to capture a dimension of expected returns related to profitability. Novy-Marx found that profitability, as measured by gross profits-to-assets, has roughly the same power as book-to-market in predicting the cross section of average returns. While this changes a very basic premise in the Fama/French value model, controlling for profitability dramatically increases the performance of value strategies, especially among the largest, most liquid stocks. And controlling for book-to-market ratios improves the performance of profitability strategies.
Another way of explaining this is that strategies based on profitability are growth strategies that also provide an excellent hedge for value strategies. Adding profitability on top of a value strategy reduces the strategies’ overall volatility. According to Novy-Marx, both profitability and value strategies generally performed well over the sample time periods, but both had significant periods in which they lost money. However, profitability generally performed well in the periods when value performed poorly, and vice versa. As a result, the mixed profitability-value strategy never experienced a losing five-year period (data set July 1963 – December 2010).
Dimensional Funds has aided in this new research and has identified a way to capture a dimension of expected returns related to profitability. Dimensional has made major advances with research in this area and has found a robust proxy that can be applied to portfolio management.
We have stayed in tune with this research and the recent announcements from Dimensional Funds. We’re excited to bring this new key ingredient to our clients and will be incorporating the profitability strategy into our AssetBuilder portfolios.
We will be introducing model portfolios in distribution.
For most of our lives we accumulate assets. But when we retire, our portfolios go into distribution, distributing interest, dividends and assets as needed. Research has shown that we can make our money (and income) last longer by annuitizing a portion of our assets
Annuitized income doesn’t increase the yield of a portfolio. It defines a guaranteed income stream and works to reduce the demand on the remaining portfolio for distributions in the first years of retirement. That, in turn, increases the odds of portfolio survival7. If you need a relatively high annual withdrawal and don’t have a pension, this solution may work for you. We believe this is a better solution for the income problem than reaching for higher yields and taking higher risks.

a. MAPTX ,OARIX and PCVAX. MAPTX is a money maker and the other 2 are the best choices in 401 where bulk of retirement monies are. Most of the other funds in 401 have been replaced in the last 5 years with for the mostly with better choices.
b. no idea what I will change or do this year much less 10 years out. Right now flexible funds such as FPACX, WPOIX ,IVWIX and MFLDX along with small/mid caps, infrastructure, EM Markets and health care funds dominate our portfolios.
Art

Hmmm ...
Artisan Small Cap Value (ARTVX) - since '97 or '98. I sold my shares of Artisan Small Cap (ARTSX) pretty much as soon as SCV opened and transferred the money. Likewise, Artisan International Value (ARTKX) - since '02, when I did the same thing with my Artisan International (ARTIX) holdings.
From which I recall that I really do rather prefer value to growth and from which I've concluded that active management can work even though there are going to be stretches of explicable or inexplicable weakness.
I suspect that my cash management accounts (RPHYX and RPSIX) are the most secure. Beyond that, it's hard to say. In a decade I'll be able to start thinking about ratcheting back on work which might suggest a more conservative allocation with fewer stock funds. But it's also possible that in a decade stock valuations will be compelling, so ...
Ambivalently,
David
p.s. wasn't thinking about the retirement account. That would likely be Fidelity Low-Priced Stock (FLPSX), around '92 or '93.

Reply to @Ted: Hi Ted:
Thanks in advance. I have been doing DCA inti PRHSX from 2009 or so. At 60 yo, what should be the final weightage (currently at 8%) to aim for?(in a moderate risk portfolio per MF)? No need to withdraw for some years after retirement

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20130328/FREE/130329929?template=printart

2013 1st Q wrap:Four + years into retirement. Retirement accounts breakdown: 30% cash,lucky to get 1.47% in G'ment TSP. 20% international equity led by MSMLX,MAPIX,WAEMX(closed),MAPTX. 19% small growth led by WSCVX (closed) SATMX. 15% core led by BRUFX, FPACX,MFLDX. 8% bond led by RPHYX, DLENX. 5.5% precious metals TGLDX ,DWGOX. And 2% real estate HLPPX. Pretty close to a classic 60/40 portfolio considering the cash yield with no risk from the Gov't TSP G fund.Slowly drawing the cash portion into equities,but in retirement it's no time to go all in!

I am going to devote a portion of retirement monies to the Market Leadership Strategy that Skeeter has mentioned in the past. Looks like Microcap may be the next category to move to a "buy". Buffalo Microcap(BUFOX) is my choice if I were to buy today. So I will do my research and have a few other funds picked out. Recently as part of this strategy I have added to Aston / Fairpoint Mid Cap(CHTTX) for the mid cap value and I have the small cap value covered with Allianz Small Cap Value(PCVAX).
Now that Fidelity has many LW funds available that has significantly added to my research of funds to add to my watch list of funds to buy. May need to rethink some of my existing funds for replacement.
Added Vanguard Health Care(VGHCX) to the accounts at Vanguard this year.
Anyone have thoughts on IVA Worldwide I(IVWIX)? If I want a new fund in my ROTH this is the one I would sell/reduce.
I have wondered of late what type of funds do people put in ROTH's vs IRA's or is that not a consideration for you? My thought would be to put the riskier/more potential growth, such as Wasatch EM Small Cap(WAEMX), in the ROTH due to the no tax policy on earnings.
Art
http://investwithanedge.com/leadership-strategy

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=5005AE6C-9269-11E2-8A9D-002128040CF6

Hey you guy's while reading you for a minute I thought I was listening to CNBC's Fast Money.
But go ahead have a lot of fun. I'm too near retirement age..... although I can still drink beer.
prinx