The following is an Associated Press news release quoted from the Washington Post.
(It is the second article down on the page.)
New SEC rules for money-market funds
"Regulators voted by a narrow margin to end a longtime staple of the investment industry — the fixed $1 share price for ­money-market mutual funds — at least for some money funds used by big investors.
The idea is to minimize the risk of a mass withdrawal from the funds during a financial panic.
The Securities and Exchange Commission also is letting all money funds block withdrawals when their assets fall below certain levels or impose fees for withdrawals.
The rules were adopted Wednesday by a 3-to-2 vote, culminating several years of regulatory haggling and false starts. They were opposed by one Democratic and one Republican commissioner.
The floating-price requirement applies only to prime institutional funds, which are considered riskier. They represent about a third of money-market funds, according to the SEC.
A run on a money-market fund during the financial crisis showed how risky the funds could be. The Lehman Brothers collapse in fall 2008 triggered the failure of the Reserve Primary Fund, one of the biggest money-market funds, which held Lehman debt. The Reserve Primary Fund lost so much money that it “broke the buck,” as its value fell to 97 cents a share."
— Associated Press

Avert your eyes. That's how (the only way) I turned $5k in this fund into $165k over the decades. And I bailed a couple years ago only cuz I was (forcibly) entering retirement.

Congratulations. Also, you had to have added new monies to that original $5k, not just reinvested distributions, to turn $5k into $165k

Edit Just looked at a chart of GCC back to 2008. Again, pretty much says it all.

Junkster,
I was looking at the yields
NHMAX 5.88% - I got some when Fidelity wasn't charging a front end load
HYD is pretty good at 5.53%
EIHYX at 5.13%
HYMB at 4.69%
Believe me, I'm with you on the high yield muni train.
I'm thinking this has between 6 - 18 months to run. Everyone is talking about higher rates and inflation. I see inflation personally in many of the things I buy but I don't think salaries/pay is rising so it will remain tame as will the FED.
We all may be surprised how long this low yields last.

Avert your eyes. That's how (the only way) I turned $5k with this fund manager into >$65k over two decades. And I bailed a couple years ago only cuz I was (forcibly) entering retirement. Would it had been $50k waay back when. But then I would have been totally unable to avert my eyes. At least I have one my children in FLVCX.

"Over the past 10 years through May 30, Morningstar’s gold-rated diversified U.S. stock funds (previously called analyst picks) on average returned 8.1% annualized, an average of 0.3 percentage point per year ahead of Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index."
When you consider that the Index fund probably has had little to no capital gains distributions, meaning it is very tax friendly and has excellent after tax performance.........was that extra .3% even worth it?
It calls into question the whole issue of trying to pick funds that beat an index.
It worked quite well in the developed foreign markets arena, but sure not in the diversified U.S. stock funds arena

Dex, I hope so. I watch HYD and HYMB intraday but they don't hold a candle to the open end junk munis. For instance, several are outperforming HYD by 2 to 3 percentage points YTD. I am not a fan of ETFs. During the recent selloff HYD declined nearly 5% while the open end declined just over 1% with some such as EIHYX declining less than 3/4 of a percent.
Mona, VWAHX is too staid both performance and yield-wise for me. Plus, from recent articles, it appears there is a shortage of junk munis as compared to the higher grade stuff.

62% chance S&P 500 will be higher in 3 months. Or let us hope so !!
Derf

I was a commodities broker 40 years ago. Their returns (funds) since the 70s (allowing for the ones that vanished) is woeful. One glance at Morningstar's Commodity Broad Basket category for the past 3 and 5 years tells it all. Over the intervening years since I was a broker I heard all about shortages of this and that commodity but overall shortages always seemed to turn into surpluses and vice versa with the net result being a terrible long term investment vehicle. Probably the worst of the worst is silver. I remember how it was manipulated to over $50 an ounce in the spring of 1980. Look at it now.
Edit Just looked at a chart of GCC back to 2008. Again, pretty much says it all.

@bee: From U.S. News & World Report (Copy & Paste)
Regards,
Ted
As of July 03, 2014, the fund has assets totaling almost $256.35 million invested in 31 different holdings. Its portfolio consists primarily of shares of large companies.
Relative to its large-cap value peers, this fund is aggressive in a number of ways. First, as of the end of January, the fund owned shares in just 29 companies. This concentrated, high-octane portfolio pushes the fund's performance, for better or worse, toward the extremes in any given year. The fund also has a fairly large part of its portfolio invested in small-cap names, which tend to be more volatile than their large-cap counterparts. And it is heavily invested in the technology sector, in which stocks are more commonly associated with fast growth than deep value. Meanwhile, the fund's turnover ratio exceeds 200 percent. This points to an opportunistic management team that is willing to trade quite frequently. Lately, this strategy has paid off extraordinarily well. The fund launched in 2007, and finished 2009 and 2010 in the top percentile of Morningstar's large-value category. Through the first quarter, the fund was once again in the top percentile of its group for 2011. Its returns over that three-month period beat the average for its Morningstar group by 13 percentage points. Its trailing three-year returns, as of the end of the first quarter, beat those of the S&P 500 by a whopping 18 percentage points per year.
Another distinguishing characteristic is the fund's exposure to international companies. One of its top holding, Flextronics International, is based in Singapore. Another big holding, Bombardier Inc., is based in Canada. As for U.S. companies, the fund's largest domestic positions are Apache and United States Steel Corporation. The fund has returned 50.79 percent over the past year and 11.34 percent over the past three years.
Investment Strategy
The fund follows an aggressive strategy. Management looks for companies whose prices are artificially low, often due to short-term losses of momentum. Management follows a highly compact strategy, which tends to push the fund's returns toward the extremes. The fund is heavily invested in foreign companies and, relative to its peers, in small-cap stocks. Management does quite a bit of trading, as is reflected in the fund's high turnover ratio. Meanwhile, when management doesn't see opportunities, it is willing to sit on a fairly substantial cash stake.

"CGM Focus Fund is for investors who believe that a smart manager can beat the market by picking stocks"
"I've never found a manager or a fund that consistently beats the market, although many certainly try."
"Back in 2009, Morningstar's Christine Benz looked at the reported returns and investor returns for CGM Focus, which had produced off-the-charts performance for years. She calculated that in the 10 years ended July 31, 2009, an investment of $10,000 would have grown to $51,633.
But when she studied the fund's investor returns, she found that an initial $10,000 investment would have shriveled to $1,585.
The fund could legally report a 10-year gain (not annualized) of more than 400%. Actual investors, on the other hand, lost more than 84% of their money in that same 10 years.
This discrepancy, while it is extreme, isn't limited to this fund. It's typical of investor behavior in general, as a research company named DALBAR has reported over and over.
Over 10 years, this difference between $51,633 and $1,585 was all due to investors' performance chasing while they repeatedly mistimed their purchases and sales, Benz wrote.
As this shows, impatient investors who are intent on beating the market can turn a mutual fund manager's superb 10-year performance (17.8% annualized) into awful returns for themselves (annualized losses of 16.8% over 10 years!)."

...I should feel good, then. PRESX is 15% of my portf. (?) The French billboard and media company mentioned in the article is indeed in the fund.....At a P/E of over 60!

Interesting to chart china-centric funds or ETFs over the last three years. Here's FXI and MCHFX charted. They seems to be stuck in a sideways range with cyclical lows edging higher from previous cycle lows, but bump up against resistance on the high side:

Within three three year period the highs and lows seem to be consistently a little higher each cycle.

If this persists the next cycle high would be about 15% from today's price.

This fund, CAMAX, has always intrigue me with its agressiveness and relative success. I have notice some shorting going on in the portfolio,

and would like any insight readers have on shorting as a strategy for a mutual fund or an overall portfolio.
CAMAX seens to be using SSO as it's largest short position (-5.38% of portfolio wt). I would imagine there is some secret sauce to this strategy which again certain fund managers (in this case, Brain Barish) implenent.
Finally, CAMAX recent lack of volitility and performance over the last two years is impressive when compared it to funds like YACKX:

FYI: Many Americans are making smart moves with their investment portfolios. They just might not know it.
With U.S. stocks at records and many commentators saying they're overpriced, American investors are diversifying into cheaper international stocks. Investors have pulled a net $6.3 billion from U.S. stock funds this year, according to Investment Company Institute (ICI) data, while putting $60.5 billion in foreign stock funds
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2014-07-22/why-u-s-investors-are-buying-foreign-stocks.html

FYI: One of the most fascinating mutual funds to watch over the past 15 years has been CGM Focus Fund.
I disagree with most of the things this fund does. I don't recommend it to anyone. And yet sometimes CGM Focus (MFD:CGMFX) is an amazing performer.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/top-funds-shareholders-missed-the-party-2014-07-23/print?guid=58338099-4139-4521-8BD8-0B535591F0C6
M* Snapshot Of CGMFX: http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/cgmfx/f?t=cgmfx
Lipper Snapshot OF CGMFX: http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/cgmfx
CGMFX Is Ranked # 248 In The (LCB) Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/large-blend/cgm-focus-fund/cgmfx

FPI is another farmland REIT - FPI - http://seekingalpha.com/article/2291113-farmland-is-the-next-big-thing-in-reits - article also mentions LAND.

You know, I want to like these companies, but I find issues with FPI, such as a significant concentration in the Midwest and specifically one state (33 out of 38 farms in Illinois.) The comments section under the SA article also throws out a number of other concerns. I like LAND a little better (which has farms in Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Oregon totaling 5,990 acres) but currently dont own either.
Article related to both:
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/cash-crops-with-dividends-financiers-transforming-strawberries-into-securities/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
Additionally, article mentions Whitebox owning ag investments in 2008 - a lot of those assets wound up going public as Ceres Global Ag, which is a traded entity in Canada (CERGF.PK in the US.)

More Options/Opportunity for World Investors Coming Next Year
Saudi Arabian stock markets will open to more foreign investment in 2015
Foreigners are at present believed to own no more than about 5 percent of the Saudi market, and to account for a smaller fraction of stock trading turnover.
Potential foreign interest in Saudi stocks is huge, because of the country's strong economy - the International Monetary Fund on Monday raised its forecast for Saudi growth this year to 4.6 percent - and the presence of some of the region's top blue-chip firms.
Foreign investors are estimated to own about 15 percent of other, much smaller stock markets in the Gulf such as Dubai. If foreigners raise their ownership of Saudi Arabia to that level, it could mean an inflow of some $50 billion into the country.
"This is a massive move for Saudi and for the region," said Rami Sidani
Sidani estimated Saudi Arabia could ultimately account for around 3 to 5 percent of MSCI's emerging market index.
"This is a potential game changer for the region – a very important milestone that people have been waiting for," said Salah Shamma, co-head of regional equities at U.S. fund management giant Franklin Templeton.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/22/us-saudi-stocks-investment-idUSKBN0FR0IQ20140722

FYI: Net cash flow into stock funds turned positive in 2013 — that is, the second half of 2013 and the first half of 2014 — as investors' confidence in the stock market returned
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTgzMDg5NTg=

From Julie Koeninger of GMO (the investment firm):
"Farmland investments consist of direct investments in rural land along with crop and livestock assets that produce food, fiber, and energy. Farmland investments focus on the productive capacity of the land base, and returns are based on the biological growth of crops and livestock, as well as appreciation of land and related assets. By their nature, farmland investments are long-term illiquid investments in real assets."

and,
"Investment Vehicles
Investors can participate in the farmland asset class through direct investments or through the use of a specialist farmland investment manager, that may offer funds, co-investments, or separately managed accounts. For most investors, developing a well-diversified portfolio of direct investments is prohibitively complex and time-consuming. Investing in farmland through a farmland investment manager can provide the benefits of diversification, experience, and scale. Closed-end funds have a fixed term with some potential for extension, but are generally illiquid for the term. As with private equity, fund terms can vary widely. Open-ended funds and publicly-traded REITs provide more liquidity, but valuation at entry and exit can be an issue in open-ended funds, and the performance of public REITs can be influenced by capital market trends and other factors apart from the underlying farmland investment. Co- investments and managed accounts often require a larger minimum investment, but offer investors a greater measure of control."
Full Primer:
advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/gmo_072114.php?WT.rss_f=CommentaRSS&WT.rss_ev=a&WT.rss_a=A_Farmland_Investment_Primer
Related Article from Barron's:
blogs.barrons.com/penta/2012/06/15/investing-in-timber-and-farmland/tab/print/