The problem with being critical with respect to OAKLX: $10 invested in this fund at inception now became $98, whereas the same $10 invested in S&P 500 during the same time became $39.

I'm afraid that LLJB's joke might not be far from the truth. The site went down last night at almost exactly midnight Eastern. A sense of a disturbance in The Force caused Chip to wake around 1:00 a.m. Eastern to discover a series of alarm notices on her cell phone. She tried restarting our server but without effect. She filed an emergency assistance request with the server firm and had an online chat with the overnight tech. She describes him as coming across as completely overwhelmed, using two different accounts and attempting to field questions from ten different people simultaneously.
We received, throughout the night and today, periodic status reports on the attempts to get us back online. The latest did raise the prospect that one of another of our Cold War adversaries might well be flexing their muscle:

Thank you for your patience with us getting this resolved. We have identified the problem as a large incoming DDoS [distributed denial of service] attack against our network. While we have mitigated most of the attack and are seeing services restored for some clients, the incoming flood of traffic is still causing intermittent service which you may still be seeing with your VPS [virtual private server].
This incoming attack only causes congestion on our network which is slowing down access to services. There has been no breach of security or access to any of your website files. You can expect intermittent access to your VPS until we are able to fully resolve the DDoS attack. Unfortunately we still do not have an ETA for you at this time, however we will be sure to update you as soon as we confirm a potential ETA.

There's a fascinating report out of new malware, called Spike, that's able to infect devices in "the Internet of Things" - that includes household devices like thermostats and dryers which are subject to being remotely activated or programmers - and use them as agents of DDoS attacks.
We have no way of establishing that our outage was as a result of Russian or Chinese activity, but both groups have been active of late; the Russians seem particularly irked by Western sanctions and prone to malicious disruptions.
For those into neat visuals, there's a live global map of DDoS attacks that's both fun and frightening to watch.
I'll keep you as informed as I can. Regrets for the down time.
David & co.

Headline key words trigger The Algos. Meanwhile, carbon-based fixed income traders say, "nah, I don't think so" and stay put.
@Charles Share buybacks are spent out, and balance sheet tricks work until they don't. From what little I've read that has leaked out, the whisperers are not optimistic re. 3Q margins and SP500 stabilization. In some sectors, the analysts appear to be brake-tapping. Throw in an end to QE (or will they?), and IMO "we have a sit-u-a-tion" approaching.

@Tampabay Ha, hammer to nail, that's probably it, plus (I would add) an almost resolute belief that 2008-2009 never ever happened. :)
But to stay true to JohnN's post, several months ago I started to feel uncomfortable and, in step with what older wily veterans have already posted here, I did some trimming and took some gains from my stock funds. Hardest step is the first one; several weeks later, I realized that that had felt pretty good and sold a few shares here and there in stocks that had become overvalued. This brought cash to around 10%. If the 10yr T goes on down to between 2.25% and 2%, I'll be giving a trim to some fixed income, bringing cash up to circa 12.5%. Combined with cash held in mutual funds (some are rather defensively elevated right now), total cash I figure will be about 15%.

@heezlsafe - no delusion here. That's just part of my overall approach to allow up to 50% DODIX in the most conservative portion. (On my spread-sheet it's labeled "AA" - signifying approximate credit quality). You are correct, however, that an intermediate term bond fund behaves quite differently than cash.
If you require cash only, it's about half the cited number or 12%. I hope you don't mind that the ultra-short term bond fund TRBUX is included in that. If we knock that out too - geez don't know --- probably less than 5% cash consisting of various money market funds and FDIC insured bank accounts.

Cash: 0.02%
Money Market Funds: 0.73%
Stocks: 74.34%
Fixed-Income: 13.59%
Mutual Funds: 11.32% (Equity Funds)

Rare indeed.
Nice for a change.
Trust 3Q earnings will help stabilize SP500, if not keep it going up.
If AA is indicative, should be good season.

FYI: The S&P 500 fell 1.51% yesterday, but it followed up that big loss with a gain of 1.75% today. Over the two-day period, the S&P is up about 4 points.
Big down days followed by even bigger up days have been rare during the current bull market that began on March 9th, 2009. In fact, situations like the last two days where the S&P fell more than 1.5% only to rally back even more the next day have only occurred six other times, and we highlight them in the table below.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bespokeinvest.com/thinkbig/2014/10/8/big-down-day-followed-by-even-bigger-up-day.html?printerFriendly=true

Experience has taught me I am not good at market timing. So, I mostly let fund managers do this for me. My major fund holdings with substantial cash positions include FPACX, FPIVX, ICMBX, ARIVX, YAFFX, WEMMX, COBYX, and BERIX. The fund analyzing tool I use tells me my portfolio currently has 18% allocated to cash/near cash, with most of that coming from these holdings. I also have 6 % of my portfolio set aside in funds including RPHYX and MWCRX for use if there is a MAJOR (maybe 35% or more) decline in the stock market. I would be comfortable selling those two holdings with some loss in that situation. So, all told, I have about 25% of my portfolio currently waiting for a better time to invest in more volatile stuff. I also have just over 50% currently invested in the stock market and the remaining 25% in bond funds including OSTIX and RSIVX. The bond funds presently mostly tend towards short term and high yield.

Huge quarter. Triple profits, year over year.
Strong aerospace growth. Strong auto demand.
Price run-up in basic materials.
Predict strong organic growth in 4Q.
Klaus Kleinfeld has to be one of best CEOs in America.
He's key chart driving strong performance...

Here's more...

at 32% healthcare holding, I too have the same morningstar message like @tampabay
"You have a lot of exposure to sectors marked by this icon. You should take special note of your large position in healthcare stocks. Healthcare issues generally offer good growth potential but come with a lot of risk." In my holding PRHSX , VHCOX, VTSAX, PRWCX,VCVLX, VPCCX each has more than 15% exposure to healthcare.

Oh, good Lord (or whoever) have mercy! Here we go again, justifying investments in criminal banking enterprises, who continue to use accounting gimmickry (FASB rule 157) to hide a bunch of 2008 toxic debt they still hold, and who continue to be caught manipulating just about every market of any significance, after doing it for over a decade. Your investments in them support them in these endeavors; what kind of a world do you want?
Get out ALL the shovels 'cause it looks like, with Oakmark, we're gonna need 'em--- it's getting so deep. "Private equity perspective"---- oh, pulleeze!

A bit dated, but FWIW...
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2013/10/whitebox-tactical-opportunities-conference-call/
Will be interesting to reassess at the three year mark, which is couple months away...I believe they will rank just above "average" in the long/short category, which as Scott points out is pretty diverse.
Here's snapshot since its inception:

I remain heavy WBMIX and a fan of Whitebox. They has lived up to their word regarding openness of fund strategy, communication with shareholders, consistency in implementation, and elimination of loads. Its er is low for the category, but it could be lower.

Well 5 days with no answer from Matthews. I find that disappointing because even if they weren't willing to tell me whether they had an thoughts about hedging currency they could have at least just written and said so. Maybe the turmoil in Hong Kong delayed things and I'll get an answer in the next few days, but I'm not holding my breath.

Brother Joe.
My bad for not being more specific.
AA - Alcoa
Aluminum Company

lol. Market down a few %, Fed runs to the rescue. I thought they wouldn't run to the rescue unless the market declined a good 15-20% or more.

I believe that I read somewhere that AA is going to impose surcharges for both seats and seatbelts. Also, a "destination fee" for luggage, in addition to the existing luggage charges, but the destination fee will only apply if the luggage arrives at the correct destination. If the luggage is lost in transit, there will be a new "finder's fee" and "retrieval fee", to offset the associated expenses, but the destination fee will be waived.
That should improve earnings significantly!

I believe he meant Alcoa, but your thoughts on the other AA are amusing.

Raw figure (with DODIX included) = 23.5%, slightly above normal. That's a bit deceptive, since it doesn't include cash held by managers of allocation type funds. Without doing a M* X-Ray, I'll guess the true cash component at about 30%, a bit higher if you include the short term bonds those funds hold.
Of course this discussion only makes sense in context. (conservative old **** many years into retirement.)

I am 3% cash not counting cash in mutual funds, 65% equities, 32% bonds. For cash proxy I use Metropolitan West Low Durations Bond Fund

Hi JohnN,
As of my most recent Xray which includes liquid cash (about 15%) held within my portfolio plus the cash that my mutual fund managers are holding (about 5%) equals about 20%. I have recently spent some but I have also had some fund distributions that have also paid to the cash area. With this, I feel, 20% is still a good number.
Old_Skeet