Rumor has it the Micro Cap might only be open for a day to keep the assets at under $50MM...I may have misunderstood, but I was under the impression these funds would likely only be opening to current shareholders. At the very least there would be no advertising with the new funds. They are concerned more about satisfying tenured shareholders than new shareholders.
Given that the stalwart funds will be more SMid-Large Cap offerings, the capacity won't be much of a concern here. I think $4 billion will be the likely mark where all funds are closed.
I traveled to Salt Lake City last year and had the opportunity to sit in on a few meetings they had with companies they were considering investing in...I am very impressed with their due diligence and process. Hope their funds reward all of you who have positions. The micro cap should be a fun high risk high reward fund. His micro cap at Wasatch was one of the best funds of all time while Robert ran it through the late 90s/early 2000s.
@LLJB I think GP is a real winner in terms of small cap stock picking! The firm was hoping to reach the asset base they are currently at 10 years after launch. Money just flooded in so rapidly given the Blake and Robert's track records that they were put in a tough spot. I think they are nimble enough to be a winning shop for long term investors. I love the fact that Rob and his team have over $10,000,000 invested directly in the funds...that should make you feel better about trusting them with some of your dollars.

Pretty much every young person I have met that I mentioned saving for retirement to, has said they would start in a few years. Current debt load or just wanting to have fun might be two of the biggest reasons. These were twenty somethings who got into good jobs. ( 70-80k and up. They will end up losing a full decade of investing in my view. (Age 25-35 approx.)
A crash or a downturn midstream does affect you if you drop out. I started in 1986 and stopped in 2008. I had some serious swings there but I was lucky in timing. GNMA's did very well in the early 2000's. So I didn't drop out per say but made a good choice and only lost nominally compared to those who lost half
Discipline and luck.

To be fair, I would lump all tax advantage accounts together (and maybe even from spouses) to give you real numbers. I have for instance, had four 401k's but after leaving the companies I worked for, rolled them into IRA's (multiple accounts as a matter of fact). If an employee has several different accounts the odds go down substantially that they would have equity north of $1m in any one account. That seems to coincide with their figure of 34 years with average tenure for those that the average >$1m accounts.
I do agree though, the population of millionaire-retirement account investors, is probably very small overall. But I'm sure it's far greater than 0.6% of workers. I guess it depends on your definition of millionaire too (do you include a spouses accounts in a dual income household?).
As a related side note, I think it's absurd how frequently you hear finance articles, financial planners, etc reference enormous sums needed for retirement. Many times they will make the point that if you don't have $3-4m saved for retirement you will be eating dog food and working at Walmart until your death bed.
The numbers are so out of line with most American workers, that it may actually discourage savings to some degree. For a 45 year old making $50k/yr and $25k saved, it would be discouraging to hear that you needed $3m+ to retire comfortable. So discouraging that I'm sure people have said "what the heck am I saving for then?".

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/401-k-millionaire-ridiculous-idea-050000111.html
6/10 of 1%

I am not going to be surprised at all if global micro-cap gets hard closed very quickly at a small asset base...say $100-150 million or so. For those of us who may be interested in the fund, we better have our money ready to go when the fund becomes available.

@andiel049, thanks for the insight! This is actually part of my concern. I sort of assume, but maybe you can confirm, with, in round terms, $3 billion in capacity and a propensity to hard close funds, they can't be particularly attractive to most institutional money other than the 401(K) plans that are allowed to continue buying shares. I gather that investment advisors, in particular, love funds that are closed but are still available to them to offer to new clients, and they also like the ability to make adjustments to asset allocations to help justify their fees. But the problem doesn't go away by offering these Stalwarts funds. They're either going to hard close those at some higher level of assets or they're going to do exactly what they said they weren't going to do, which is to end up being forced to move up the market cap ladder because they have too many assets. After all, these are all supposed to be overlapping portfolios and small cap stocks. The "Stalwarts" may be the bigger of the small cap names in the portfolio but they're still small cap or small mid cap stocks.
The other thing that bothers me is that they started out saying their capacity was $1.5-$2.0 billion. By the time I was aware of them, roughly 9 months after launch I think, the limit was $3 billion. Now, apparently it's more than that. I thought they were principled and so much so that they were hard closing funds at low levels, which isn't an easy thing to do in this business. But for a relatively small individual shareholder, those are the kinds of things that scream outperformance even considering the above average expense ratios.
Now maybe $1.5-$2.0 billion or $3 billion weren't the right numbers. Maybe $5 billion or $10 billion is really just fine. I don't know. But these guys aren't inexperienced fund managers guessing at capacity. They haven't increased their fund offerings to address different styles or market caps or anything else. This is one small cap global portfolio split up into a bunch of different groupings. I have nothing against institutional investors for sure, but in this case I think their taking value away from me, away from they're existing clients who are invested in the existing funds and I think they've demonstrated that Rob and his team aren't as principled as I thought/hoped they were.
I really hope they'll convince me otherwise.

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
WSJ Slant:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stock-futures-rise-buoyed-by-strong-earnings-reports-1429618699
Bloomberg Slant:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-21/u-s-stock-index-futures-climb-amid-earnings-reports-mylan-bid
Reuters Slant:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/21/us-markets-stocks-idUSKBN0NC16N20150421
MarketWatch Slant;
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-futures-climb-ahead-of-trio-of-dow-earnings-2015-04-21?dist=countdown
WSJ Markets At A Glance:
http://markets.wsj.com/us
Sector Tracker:
http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker
Current Futures:
http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

Goldman's chief equity strategist David Kostin provides the following slide to sum up the firm's outlook for the major global markets in 2015 and beyond:
businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-global-macro-forecasts-2015-4

FYI: Biotechnology has been one of the best performing industries in the stock market over the past several years. According to S&P Capital IQ, there were numerous catalysts, for this substantial stock outperformance, including several blockbuster drug approvals that drove significant sales and earnings growth. Yet, S&P CIQ thinks the industry’s drivers, including a robust pipeline, remain intact and have a positive fundamental outlook - See more at: http://www.indexologyblog.com/2015/04/17/biotech-has-more-room-to-run/#sthash.O8OC1ZJJ.dpuf
Regards,
Ted
http://www.indexologyblog.com/2015/04/17/biotech-has-more-room-to-run/
ETF Trend Article:
http://www.etftrends.com/2015/04/biotech-etf-run-not-over-yet-says-analyst/

India plans to raise about $6.5 billion (Dh24bn) by taxing foreign firms for capital gains they made in previous years."

Don't think that move would encourage foreign investment.

FYI: We generally only share links in this space when we see stories on other sites that we think will benefit our readers. But today marks a rare case where a competitor is offering advice that is so egregiously irresponsible it needs a rebuttal.
James Altucher, in a short video on Business Insider, is telling young people not to invest in a 401(k). This is terrible counsel on many levels. The disappearance of pensions and underfunding of Social Security have made the 401(k) our de-facto national savings plan. Altucher’s recklessness is exacerbated by an implication that 401(k) accounts are some sort of black box – “you have no idea what’s happening to that money,” he says darkly.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2015/04/21/yes-millennials-please-invest-in-your-401k/tab/print/

The India related funds have been weak for the past several weeks; somewhat, perhaps related to profit taking from the previous run in prices.
A note from the article: "India plans to raise about $6.5 billion (Dh24bn) by taxing foreign firms for capital gains they made in previous years."
This article relates some new information relative to taxation of investments towards some organizations, which may of value for your investment decisions.
Regards,
Catch

More fun with numbers here. Not commenting on the Australian plan, but what strikes me as an apples-to-oranges comparison.
In the lead paragraph that Ted quotes above, we have the statement that over 90% of Australians put money into the system. That sounds to me like a low number for a system that is mandatory.
The article then goes on to say that in a 2011 EBRI study (the article itself is from two years ago), 40% of working Americans participated in an employer retirement plan. That looks very low compared with Australia (which is a point of the article), until one looks at what this 40% figure represents.
According to the EBRI paper, 75.2 million workers worked for an employer that provided a retirement plan (defined benefit, i.e. traditional pension, and/or defined contribution, like a 401k plan). Of these, 61.0 or over 80% participated. Remember too, that just because an employer offers a plan doesn't mean that all employees are qualified to participate. So the actual participation percentage of those eligible to participate is higher still. Getting pretty close to Australia's figures - and that's on a volunteer basis.
If one wants to find fault in the low participation rate, blame it on the fact that (according to EBRI) only 48.9% of workers even worked for an employer offering a retirement plan (whether or not they qualified to participate). If there's something to fix, it would seem to be getting more employers to offer retirement plans, not raising employees' interest in participating.
Here's the EBRI summary and paper.

Vanguard target funds for your 401Ks whenever you can get them. adjust your bond to equities by picking the appropriate retirement year ie. 2050 or 2025 ect.
In your individual accounts IRAs or Brokerage Vanguard has better choices,
Don't use Fidelity so don't comment or care... better options

From the article:
"I’m not suggesting that every investor has to implement these specific constraints to guide their actions. But all investors do have to figure out which constraints to place on themselves based on their past history and personality traits. Everyone has their blind spots.
>>> = my reply within my own constraints
>>>Yup. We've chatted about this here. Better know who you are and what tweaks you around the edges.
These are a few more examples I’ve seen from others over the years:
◾Don’t invest in anything you don’t understand.
>>>'Course...
◾Stay within your circle of competence.
>>>Not unlike driving an auto, eh?
◾Never pay more than a certain fee level for investment products.
>>>Okay. Pick a number
◾Give yourself 5-10% of your portfolio to speculate to appease your gambling instincts.
>>>At least. But, don't ever forget you're playing with the big kids with investments and may get your clock cleaned too, with particular investments every now and then
◾No more than a certain percentage invested in any one security or asset class.
>>>Diversification I'm guessing. Know thy self again here.
◾Only look at your portfolio value monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.
>>>Holy crap. You'll probably miss sells and buys if you wait long enough. See below
◾Rebalance on a set calendar schedule or when your allocation weights hit a certain band outside of their target.
>>>More of a know thy self or to each his own, eh?
◾Wait at least a week to implement a new investment decision.
>>>Depends how well you understand what you're doing. You should have already been thinking about a new investment; unless you look at your portfolio rarely, as noted just above
◾Talk to an unbiased outside observer about every big portfolio move you’re about to make.
>>>MFO is a good start, unless you have someone near with a known steady brain cell pattern
◾Actively seek out opposing viewpoints on your current investment stance.
>>>Same as above, although their are those here who consider this to be a no-no from a total stranger encountered via the internet, but likely an unbiased outside observer, as noted above
◾Keep a decision journal and review before making any new portfolio moves.
>>>One can't perform this function well if they follow the review plan as noted above
◾Only allow a certain number of transactions per year.
>>>Say what? And this has to do with ??? I suppose this fits into the "look" at your portfolio sequence noted previous...annually.
Now is probably a good time to review your own constraints within your investment plan. Interest rates are low. Stock prices are high. This stage in the cycle can lead people to relax their risk controls and press the issue if they’re not careful.
>>>Is there a special time to review one's constraints? How about very often.
I’m of the opinion that most investors would be better off making fewer decisions and getting rid of any unnecessary clutter from their portfolios and investment process. Placing constraints on yourself is a great way to do this. The first step is understanding yourself and your own flaws, something that’s not as easy as it sounds, since the easiest person to fool is often yourself.
>>>Who is the clutter decider ??? Some folks have considered bond portfolio portions to be clutter over the years. Depends, eh?
And no..........none of this is supposed to be easy.
>>>Lastly, one can always do a VTI and BND, 50-50% mix and go take a long nap. Wait, I already visited this area before. Time to move along. The article is pretty good for the most part and for almost everyone.
Have fun folks.
Catch

FYI: In 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission published a study, mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, which concluded that all financial advisers and stock brokers should be placed under “a uniform fiduciary standard.” Basically this meant that brokers and advisers would have an obligation to put the interests of clients first and must disclose any conflicts of interest that might compromise that duty.
Wall Street was none too happy about this. The industry spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying to prevent this standard from becoming the law of the land. Indeed, of all the regulatory reforms that have come out of Dodd-Frank, nothing seems to displease the financial industry more than the proposed fiduciary rules.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-20/making-stock-brokers-work-for-clients-is-past-due

I might compare it to COLLX or GATEX or RSAIX, although their stated goals are less about income and more about reducing volatility.
NEIMX might be a similar fund as it also tries to get some income from a similar strategy.
There's a CEF that uses a covered call strategy: Madison/Claymore Covered Call & Equity Strategy Fund - MCN
Here are a few articles are collar strategy mutual funds:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/your-money/stocks-and-bonds/18COLLAR.html?_r=0
http://www.morningstar.com/cover/videocenter.aspx?id=675037
http://investorplace.com/2012/03/dont-bother-with-mutual-funds-that-use-options/#.VTVWwC4gimU

It's all of the place this morning:
Reuters: "Carlyle to shutter its two mutual funds"
Bloomberg: "Carlyle to close two mutual funds in liquid alts setback"
Ignites: "Carlyle pulls plug on two mutual funds"
ValueWalk: "Carlyle to liquidate a pair of mutual funds"
Barron's: "Carlyle closing funds, gold slips"
MFWire dutifully linked to three of them in its morning link list
Business Insider gets it closest to right: "Private equity giant Carlyle Group is shutting down the two mutual funds it launched just a year ago," including Carlyle Global Core Allocation Fund.
What's my beef?
1. Carlyle doesn't have two mutual funds, they have one. They have authorization to launch the second fund, but never have. It's like shuttering an unbuilt house. Reuters, nonetheless, solemnly notes that the second fund "never took off [and] will also be wound down," implying that - despite Carlyle's best efforts, it was just an undistinguished performer.
2. There is no such fund as Carlyle Global Core Allocation Fund. Its name is Carlyle Core Allocation Fund (CCAIX/CCANX). It's rather like the Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund that, despite Janus's insistence, didn't exist at the point that Mr. Gross joined the team. "Global" is a description but not in the name.
3. The Carlyle fund is not newsworthy: it's less than one year old (I detest the practice of tossing a fund into the market then shutting it in its first year; it really speaks poorly of the adviser's planning, understanding and commitment), it has a trivial asset base ($50 million) and has made a penny ($10,000 at inception is now $9930).
4. The stories tend to make exactly the same points, in some cases using virtually identical phrasing.
David