Gutless poster who is afraid to post in public forum....and also reinforces my point:
275LB_NY_MCPO, You
"Better to be a Deplorable than a crybaby LOSER!!! You cannot stand all the winning!!! "

@PRESSmUP: If you can't stand the heat from 275LB_NY_MCPO, get out of the kitchen.
Regards,
Ted

The long view, via BAML - more "time" boxes for VintageFreak.
https://twitter.com/TBPInvictus/status/870756893442138116/photo/1

275LB_NY_MCPO just sent me this message:
"There is more collusion between you and your liberal crybaby brethren on this website than between Russia and the current administration! Get a life and a new ideology that can win an election! Stick to investing...you need help there also!"
275LB_NY_MCPO.....do not EVER contact me again. I would ask the moderators to be aware of this type of harassment.

FYI: U.S. stocks edged up on Wednesday on relief that written testimony from former FBI director James Comey did not include any big surprise about an investigation into Russian meddling with the U.S. presidential election.
Regard,
Ted
Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-06/investors-remain-cautious-as-treasuries-gain-markets-wrap?srnd=157391092
Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks-idUSKBN18Y1GG
MarketWatch:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wall-street-stocks-becalmed-as-investors-get-ready-for-super-thursday-2017-06-07/print
IBD:
http://www.investors.com/market-trend/stock-market-today/stocks-dodge-oil-dilemma-end-higher-as-china-names-rally/
CNBC:
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/07/us-stocks-await-comey-uk-election-ecb.html
AP:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FINANCIAL_MARKETS_ASOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Bloomberg Evening Briefing:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-07/your-evening-briefing-j3n69x7f
WSJ: Markets At A Glance:
http://markets.wsj.com/us
SPRR's Sector Tracker:
http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker
SPDR's Bloomberg Sector Performance Pie Chart
https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/sectors
Current Futures: Positive
http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

FYI: Employers, academics, and policymakers all recognize that drawdown is the major challenge facing the 401(k) system.
Participants face the risk of spending their money too quickly and exhausting their assets or hoarding their balances and depriving themselves of necessities.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-a-way-to-get-retirees-to-spend-their-savings-responsibly-2017-06-05/print

FYI: Beating your benchmark as an asset manager anywhere is hard enough. In Turkey, the challenge is to beat returns on parking money in a bank account.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-06/turkey-s-impossible-benchmark-the-15-percent-return-on-deposits
M* TUR One Year Performance 4.10%:
http://performance.morningstar.com/funds/etf/total-returns.action?t=TUR&region=USA&culture=en_US

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/803020/000114420417031272/v468560_497.htm
497 1 v468560_497.htm 497
The OBERWEIS FUNDS
Oberweis International Opportunities Fund
SUPPLEMENT DATED june 6, 2017
TO THE PROSPECTUS DATED MAY 1, 2017
Effective as of the close of business on June 9, 2017, the Oberweis International Opportunities Fund will be closed for investment, except that existing shareholders as of the close of business on June 9, 2017 who own shares of the International Opportunities Fund through (i) a qualified retirement plan account (e.g., IRAs and other tax-advantaged retirement plans, such as 401(k) Plans and 403(b)(7) Plans) and participants in qualified retirement plans that offer the International Opportunities Fund as an investment option may continue to invest in the International Opportunities Fund, and (ii) an account advised by an investment adviser may continue to invest in the International Opportunities Fund if such investments are being made pursuant to a rebalancing program. Employees of Oberweis Asset Management or its affiliated entities or trustees of The Oberweis Funds, and their families, may continue to invest in the International Opportunities Fund. In addition, all existing shareholders of the International Opportunities Fund will be permitted to reinvest any dividends, capital gains or distributions in additional shares of the International Opportunities Fund and may exchange their shares in the International Opportunities Fund for shares of the Oberweis International Opportunities Institutional Fund provided that the exchange meets the minimum investment requirements for the Oberweis International Opportunities Institutional Fund – generally, $1 million. Further all existing shareholders of the Oberweis International Opportunities Institutional Fund may exchange their shares in that Fund for shares of the International Opportunities Fund, subject to a $1,000 minimum. Shares will be exchanged for each other based upon their relative net asset values.
The Oberweis International Opportunities Fund may resume sales of shares to new investors at some future date.
The Oberweis Emerging Growth Fund, the Oberweis Micro-Cap Fund, the Oberweis Small-Cap Opportunities Fund and the Oberweis China Opportunities Fund remain open to both new investors and existing shareholders.
June 6, 2017
THE OBERWEIS FUNDS
3333 Warrenville Road, Suite 500
Lisle, Illinois 60532
1-800-245-7311
Incidentally, here is the supplement to the Prospectus:
http://oberweisfunds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Oberweis_Funds_Prospectus.pdf

As part of this discussion I brought up the comment on PVFIX by David Snowball on the Commentary of May 2015.
"By any rational measure, for long-term investors Pinnacle Value is the best small cap value fund in existence'
I would like to address my original question to David: Since then, have we learned something that would change your March 2015 Commentary on PVFIX?
Thanks

I calculate a tax efficiency number for funds, which for Fidelity Contrafund is 53.6%. Meaning it retains 53.6% of its gain in its share price (as opposed to being paid out as taxable distributions). That's pretty good for an equity fund. Your typical index fund will be 70-75% efficient. Higher turnover funds usually have low efficiency. I think Morningstar also reports if a fund is carrying a tax-loss forward (which makes it more desirable for purchase) or a potential tax-gain (which might make you avoid it). But I'm not sure where to find that.

I cannot see paying anyone 1.7% to manage a portfolio with 45% cash and 0 % yield. Investing 65% of funds in VISVX and 45% in a internet bank paying 1% has had much greater outperformance in the past 1,3,5,10 year periods. I have looked at this fund several times, as I am a conservative investor and said no. I would rather be conservative investing the cash myself and at least making some money waiting for a future opportunity.

Morningstar's pages have a tab called "tax", which shows you the "tax cost ratio". For example, here's FCNTX 's tax page:
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/tax-analysis.action?t=FCNTX
This calculation is but one way of representing tax efficiency. This one tells you what percentage of your investment went to pay taxes. Here's M*'s brief description:
http://www.morningstar.com/InvGlossary/tax_cost_ratio.aspx
Note that most sites (and all prospectuses) use the highest tax rates in computing tax efficiency. If you're in a lower bracket, and especially if you're in a 15% or lower bracket (where qualified divs and long term cap gains get taxed at 0%), you'll want to take the figures with a grain of salt.
There's also an oddity in how mutual funds handle cap gains. If they have net gains, they distribute them to you, just as if you'd owned the portfolio and bought and sold it yourself. But if they have net losses, they are not allowed to distribute them to you. The losses accrue (accumulate), and next year, or the year after, or ... whenever they have a net gain, they can use those accrued losses to reduce the gains distributed.
This has the effect of distorting tax cost figures. After the market swoons (e.g. 2008), pretty much everyone has large losses accrued. So for the next few years, all funds look tax efficient as they apply those losses against realized gains.
IMHO turnover should be low enough that the fund isn't generating short term gains (taxed as ordinary income). But so long as the cap gains are long term, it doesn't matter too much. Sooner or later, even with very low turnover, the fund is going to sell appreciated shares. If it's allowed the stock to appreciate a lot, then it will recognize large gains then. Averaged over time, it comes out the same as taking a little at a time.
Very low turnover (vs. low turnover) helps on the cost side, since trading costs are a big hidden cost in fund ownership. As you noted, you want low costs, whether explicit (in the ER) or implicit, in the trading commissions paid by the fund.
I pay attention to tax efficiency but I don't obsess over it.

smart talk
But why, given what he says, is its risk rating as it is in M* --- above average for 3y and 5y. Below average for 10y is understandable given what he writes about 07-09.
Interesting that FPACX 3y performance is the same as PONDX.

FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search)
Steven Romick, the go-anywhere FPA fund manager, discusses what it takes to outperform index.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=best+habits+of+highly+successful+investors+barron's
M* Snapshot FPACX:
:http://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/fpacx/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot FPACX:
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/fpacx
FPACX Is Ranked #12 In The (Allocation--50% to 70% Equity) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/allocation-50-to-70-equity/fpa-crescent-fund/fpacx

@MFO Members: If your looking for a SCV fund, there are many choices better than PVFIX. U.S. News & World Report ranks PVFIX #58 in the SCV fund category. Holding way too much cash has bitten manager John E. Deysher in the butt !
Regards,
Ted
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/small-value/pinnacle-value-fund/pvfix

I'd beg to differ, at least slightly, on a few points. Risk does not matter more in absolute terms. You can eliminate almost all risk and get almost no return and that's not really what matters most. Risk matters when you don't have a long enough time horizon to deal with volatility or you don't have enough discipline, which is true of most human beings, to stick with it when things get ugly.
The problem I have with funds that hold lots of cash, and this fund even more, is that we know the statistics about how hard it is for a manager to overcome his/her expense ratio over time. It seems to me when a manager holds large amounts of cash the hurdle is even higher unless they're good or lucky with their timing.
Unfortunately there's no evidence that this guy is good or lucky with his timing and he's charging a 'high' expense ratio for the privilege. He did great during the credit crisis and then he plodded along until the S&P caught up with and surpassed him. He ranks in the 72nd percentile of small value funds over 10 years, the 97th percentile over 5 years and the 88th percentile over the last 3 years. Anyone who's psychologically ill-equipped to deal with volatility should be equally ill-equipped to deal with poor performance for so long.
I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting a smooth ride if you're willing to pay for it and this fund has been very good at that. IMHO, however, the price here is too high.

Great post! Thanks. Seems for many 2008 still lives on and has severely impacted their returns.

I'd beg to differ, at least slightly, on a few points. Risk does not matter more in absolute terms. You can eliminate almost all risk and get almost no return and that's not really what matters most. Risk matters when you don't have a long enough time horizon to deal with volatility or you don't have enough discipline, which is true of most human beings, to stick with it when things get ugly.
The problem I have with funds that hold lots of cash, and this fund even more, is that we know the statistics about how hard it is for a manager to overcome his/her expense ratio over time. It seems to me when a manager holds large amounts of cash the hurdle is even higher unless they're good or lucky with their timing.
Unfortunately there's no evidence that this guy is good or lucky with his timing and he's charging a 'high' expense ratio for the privilege. He did great during the credit crisis and then he plodded along until the S&P caught up with and surpassed him. He ranks in the 72nd percentile of small value funds over 10 years, the 97th percentile over 5 years and the 88th percentile over the last 3 years. Anyone who's psychologically ill-equipped to deal with volatility should be equally ill-equipped to deal with poor performance for so long.
I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting a smooth ride if you're willing to pay for it and this fund has been very good at that. IMHO, however, the price here is too high.

I own PVFIX as a strategic part of my portfolio, as far as I understand the fund is continuing to perform its expected role in my portfolio. I am adding new funds to PVFIX through recurrent monthly investments. I am trying to resist the temptation to change my strategy due to the continued Bull run.
Question: Have we learned anything that would change the March 2015 Commentary on PVFIX?
“By any rational measure, for long-term investors Pinnacle Value is the best small cap value fund in existence.
There are two assumptions behind that statement:
1. Returns matter.
2. Risk matters more.
The first is self-evident; the second requires just a word of explanation. Part of the explanation is simple math: an investment that falls by 50% must subsequently rise by 100% just to break even. Another part of the explanation comes from behavioral psychology. Investors are psychologically ill-equipped to deal with risk: we hate huge losses and we react irrationally in the face of them but we refuse to believe that they’re going to happen to us, so we rarely act appropriately to mitigate them. In good times we delude ourselves into thinking that we’re not taking on unmanageable risks, then they blow up and we sit for years in cash. The more volatile the asset class, the greater the magnitude of our misbehavior.”

FYI: Pacific Investment Management Co. said that it has exited all its holdings of Italian bonds on the conviction that the yields were too low to compensate for the nation’s mounting political risks.
Pimco unwound its investments this year in a move that marks an about-turn for the $1.5 trillion fund, which had the securities among favored choices two years ago. It now maintains a neutral exposure to peripheral European assets. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Barclays Plc say the odds of Italy facing snap elections as early as autumn have risen, with the U.S. bank predicting an increase in the nation’s bond yields in such a case.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com//news/articles/2017-06-05/pimco-pulls-out-of-italy-as-jpmorgan-sees-risk-of-autumn-vote