VGPMX testing its 2008 low at today's close.
Article presents a half truth with this quote:
"The mining stocks benefit from leverage to the metal. As a result, a 2% allocation to precious-metals equities equates to a roughly 5% allocation to bullion"
Doesn't leverage also work in the opposing direction?
My quote would read something like:
"The mining stocks are equally harmed as benefited from leverage to the metal. A PM equity investor has had to endure roughly 2.5 times the volatility compared to bullion"
A $10K investment in VGPMX in 2004 would have grown to $36K by 2008, a 260% gain. Over that same four year period GLD rose to $21.7K or roughly 117%. (The authors claim) of PM equities exhibited beneficial leverage over this timeframe is true, but by 2009 VGPMX valuation fell from its $36k high to a low of $9K, a drop of about 75%. During that same time period GLD's valuation went from $21.7K to $15.8K, a drop of about 25%.
This same dynamic has repeated itself over the last 3.5 years where GLD dropped roughly 33% from its high in April of 2011 while VGPMX dropped close to 66%.
Leverage happens in both directions and often cuts fast and hard on the downside.

Fundalarm,
Responding to all of you separately so that I won't end up with a big message.
I sold out all my bond funds a while ago and in cash now. Sorry, I did not provide that info, and I should have done that.
Burnt my fingers in 2000-02 downturn by investing in stocks, and converted to funds completely from 2005-06 (transition period). I am regular at M* forums since 2005 and at fundalarm/MFO from 2006. What I am saying is I am not a novice investor to follow the crowd. I invested in CGMFX as a speculative play, after its putrified performance, and after all the performance chasers left. Since that fund like feast or famine, I stayed in it for 3 years before I quite no loss or no gain.
I am of same age as you.
Have not checked portfolio in X-ray in the recent past but I do that on frequient basis, being a regular visitor of M*. I play around with their tool once in a while. This portfolio is purely a retirement one. Too many funds because these are across 4 accounts of ours. I have thought about consolidating them into two but V'rd does not offer all the funds that I want, which are avaiable in TDA. For example, Artisan funds.
Finally, close to 75% of the funds are in solid core funds (VDIGX, FPACX, VHGEX, ARTKX, ARTGX, etc.). Obviously Grandeur peak and other EM fund are not part of that core.

Heezsafe,
Actually there are three gloabl funds. I already spoke about VHGEX.
Bought GPGOX based on what I read about the managers, not disappoined so far, up 50% since I bought. However, I understand it is a growthy fund and we are in bull market. Bought ARTGX, as I was in ARTKX from 2006 and very happy with the management.
Invested in VGSTX due to realignment of my portfolio. I have to eliminate sooner than later.

Westwood Funds
http://www.westwoodfunds.com/pdf/2014-distribution-estimates.pdf
Invesco Funds
https://www.invesco.com/static/us/investors/contentdetail?contentId=9a64a8c235512410VgnVCM100000c2f1bf0aRCRD
ICM Small Company Fund
https://www.icomd.com/downloads/141021_ICM_Small_Co_Portfolio_Est_Capital_Gain_Distribution.pdf

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000325893&play=1

Taking a cursory glance at this fund's basic profile numbers on the M* quote page, I see several things:
(1) once again, M* has placed FAINX in the wrong category, an exercise that should be so straightforward in this case that it would be considered a simpler work problem on a Cave Man IQ test;

Call me Cro-Magnon, but I don't see the obvious misclassification as a Moderate Allocation fund. It seems neither does Lipper, who calls it a "Mixed-Asset Target Alloc Moderate Fund". (Lipper generally rates it higher than M* - 4's, except for tax efficiency (5) and cost (1, obviously).
This may help, it's Lipper's discussion of its categories, as well as how they align with M*'s:
http://www.lipperweb.com/docs/Research/Fiduciary/2009_02_Fund Classification Roadmap.pdf
(for completeness, here's M*'s descriptions of its categories: http://www.morningstar.com/InvGlossary/morningstar_category.aspx)
p. 13 describes Lipper's Mixed Asset target allocation funds. Table 2 shows how its mixed asset target allocation moderate funds line up with M*'s moderate allocation:

Asset Class	Lipper	M*	FAINX
Equity		40-60%	50-70%	71%
Fixed Inc/Cash	40-60%	30-50%	28%

M* doesn't look at instantaneous snapshots of a fund (because there can be transient fluctuations), rather a fund's portfolio over the past few reports (not sure how far the lookback period goes). For the fund's first three years, M* classified the fund as conservative allocation. I'm inferring from the fact that the very initial classification (before a portfolio was published) was moderate allocation, M* looked at the actual portfolio and said that it was more conservative than the prospectus suggested.
Over time, that has shifted. It might be trending toward aggressive allocation, but doesn't seem to have gotten there yet.
Maybe I need to check with a Neanderthal - though that could turn out to be a dead end.

For those interested, I just got word of the impending Akre call. It's trick-or-treat day here so I'll be dashing about prepping the house for that so I won't be able to listen in but I thought some of you might enjoy being there.
David
AKRE FOCUS FUND MANAGERS WILL HOLD INVESTOR CALL THIS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30th
Middleburg, VA-based Akre Capital Management will hold a conference call with portfolio co-managers of the Akre Focus Fund (AKREX) tomorrow, October 30, at 4:00 pm EDT to update investors on the fund’s portfolio. After initial remarks, there will be a Q&A session with the investment team, including chief investment officer Chuck Akre, and partners Tom Saberhagen, John Neff and Chris Cerrone.
To join the conference call:
Dial In: (877) 509-7719
Conference ID: 98245829
To submit a question for the Q&A session in advance, please email your questions to [email protected] no later than 5:00 pm EST on Wednesday, October 29.
Additionally, the firm now has some new and interesting material available on the new web site about the investment process, the team’s thought process and some of the issues they focus on -- here is the link to that page -- http://www.akrecapital.com/our-thinking/

FYI: Gold prices slid toward 2014′s lows on Thursday in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s move to curtail its monthly bond-buying program.
Gold futures tumbled 1.9% to $1,201.90 a troy ounce recently, right near its psychologically significant $1,200 mark. Gold briefly dipped below that level earlier in October for the first time in 2014.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2014/10/30/gold-slumps-tests-1200-level/tab/print/
GLD’s Fall From Grace: http://awealthofcommonsense.com/shine-gld/
Gold=15 Barrels Of Oil: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2014-10-29/gold-equals-15-barrels-of-oil-in-bearish-sign-for-bullion.html

@mrc70:
- what's your age?
- have you done a look through (X-ray or similar) for the asset classes?
- does this portfolio serve as your retirement portfolio or you have other goals for the moneys?
below comments are very high level.
the single and most important decision in investing is asset allocation. it looks like you're around100% equities with some tiny and emerging ones to scale your average volatility to may be twice that of the S&P500. and you don't have any duration to offset it.
if you are in your 20s or 30s and are very risk tolerant, that might work, but judging by a selection of funds that are new and introduced here at MFO, you're subject to the groupthink and will be buying most of the stuff profiled/popular here and then getting rid of it should volatility rise on the downside (the upside is usually taken as granted).
i am not commenting on individual positions, because @my tender age of 45, i would never have 100% of my money in a portfolio like this. or, scratch that, with a guaranteed government or private pension, i might load on equities -- but that is not a choice in my lifetime.
best of luck.
PS there are of course other methods to wealth: to find AAPL or FB while these are still in the garage stage; bet all your chips on the tightly controlled momentum play (a la Junkster); etc.

FYI: Assets under management in liquid alternative mutual funds have quintupled since 2008, reaching a total of $150 billion as of June 2014. The number of ’40 Act funds pursuing alternative strategies has also multiplied fivefold in that time, and now totals more than 450. As liquid alts are the fastest growing category in the investment world, many investors are understandably skeptical – the growth story seems too good to be true. But many of the common complaints against liquid alts are based in myth, as revealed by the Arbitrage Funds’ new report, 7 Myths About Liquid Alternative Mutual Funds.
Regards,
Ted
http://dailyalts.com/arbitrage-funds-dispels-7-myths-liquid-alternatives/

FYI: Many fund sponsors voluntarily provide that information. But at least one major ETF sponsor, Vanguard Group, doesn’t.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.wsj.com/totalreturn/2014/10/29/etfs-are-required-to-be-transparent-not-always/tab/print/?mg=blogs-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.wsj.com%2Ftotalreturn%2F2014%2F10%2F29%2Fetfs-are-required-to-be-transparent-not-always%2Ftab%2Fprint&fpid=2,121

Why did they open an institutional share class for RiverNorth Core Opportunity Fund Class I (RNCIX)? They will accept more money from institutional investors in $5 million increments, but not from individual investors? I guess the strategy hasn't reached capacity yet.
"With the launch of this institutional share class for the RiverNorth Core Opportunity Fund, the firm feels confident that it is attracting the right kind of investors and that the integrity of the strategy will be maintained for everyone.”
That's too bad that RiverNorth doesn't think individual investors are the right kind of investors for them.

Hi, mrc70: A couple of things
(1) what's up with the 2 global funds? What's your thinking with them in the mix? It looks like the rest of your portfolio, w/o them, more than sufficiently covers the entire global, and just about all the bases (and then some);
(2) VGSTX-- what's that trivial position about? what of any significance do you envision that 2% position doing for you? Or is that where you intend to send most of your periodic out-performance in the stock funds, and slowly build that holding into a major holding over 5,10,15 yrs, while reinvesting the biannual distribution (of course)?

Can I assume this is a long term buy and hold strategy? At first glance, most funds are good. Most funds are large (more than 10B AUM) Do you invest in VDGIX or VDIGX?
I'd only keep 2 out of these four funds (maybe VDIGX and FPACX):
Vanguard Dividend Growth Inv 13.57
FPA Crescent 10.37
Vanguard Capital Opportunity Inv 6.38
Vanguard Selected Value Inv 5.68
I'd split VHGEX into GGPOX, ARTGX, and MACSX
I'd consider adding a domestic small cap fund.

Yes, sorry, number of funds. Spread / number of accnts does not matter. Think about what you wish to accomplish. Roths for the more aggressive, assuming they are tapped later. Trad or whatever other IRAs tapped earlier, hence less aggressive. See if you can cut by half. Leave along for 5y, then review.
At least this is what I did, exactly and in detail, reading the best sources. I am now, finally, down to like 4 funds plus 3 internatl. Or so I say. Gotta control that ooh new idea OCD.

Hi VF,
VHGEX is an old fund in the retirement account, held it since 2005, when Marathon Asset Management was the only sub-advisor. I bought it based on the advice by Dan Wiener in the trial subscription I tried out then. Vanguard messed up this fund by making it multi sub-advisor fund. I am holding it as one of the core holding along with VDGIX. If V'rd has a good International Lcap fund, I would have easily opted for it instead of VHGEX but both V'rd ILcap funds are mediocre.
TRF is speculative play on Russia, as its market being cheap realtively. I have progressively become aggressive in investing style over the last 10 years. I can't imagine holding some of these funds 5-10 years ago. :-).
Thanks,
Mrc

No, but funds like these I want heavy manager investment. Like at least $500K. One trustee and one manager does own in $100K range.
One manager has last name Wisdom and has written a book. Hmmm...
Here...
http://www.amminvest.com/files/Communications/Archive.html
No mention of fund on the website but maybe one can get some insight into the management. The way I look at it right now, this fund was around during the financial crisis, its name suggest they know value investing, it has "income" in its name and drops close to 30% in 2008 and then does not recover better than its category. In short, I'm not seeing a single plus point and lack of any literature on the AMM website tells me they don't even want you investing.

I think the spike has been written about...and debated. (eg, Montier). Some say it was an anomaly and should be ignored. I vote to ignore it...along with the entire 51% drawdown =).

Am I reading this right? The P/E ratio during financial crisis reached 150? How come we never heard about this when it did?
what happens when a company actually does not have a P/E ratio. Do they just ignore it in calculation or what???

I agree with davidrmoran. If I look at the last 30 days or the last 60 days, I can find a whole lot of funds that did better than the S&P 500 and better than the funds that were mentioned. But to conclude that what happened to any fund in the recent mini-correction is an indication of what will occur during a real sell-off is a stretch. With few exceptions, I really don't give a rat's behind how a fund does compared to the S&P 500, the exceptions being those funds whose benchmark is the S&P 500. I am interested, however, in how various allocations of funds do TOGETHER when the going gets more volatile. And for us it is much more important to keep a long view of things rather than faunch over what happened in a very, very short time period, which is often meaningless. FPA Crescent FPACX is run by a great manager, and we use it in many client portfolios. It has actually under-performed the S&P, but we don't compare it to that index, and we certainly will not make a decision on whether to hold it based on the last few weeks.