MJFOX is a good fund but they cannot beat Japan Inc. :-)
Japan is looking very broken technically and in a downtrend but with frequent bounce backs. Fundamentally, they did well earlier with a weakening Yen with Abenomics but that is not working any more. So unless the Yen starts to weaken again, I don't see sustainable growth. Not sure how they can pull it off.
If you wanted to get out of it in current trading range, it is currently about 2% below the next potential high (around 16) and about 3% above the next low (around 15.14) it is currently heading towards. Pick your exit point accordingly.
I wouldn't recommend a pure Japan fund as a long term buy and hold. Great for momentum players only. Developed markets fund with exposure to Japan is a better diversified core choice.

Brian Rogers (T Rowe Price) also placed a bet on gold this year. In the Barron's Round Table, he recommended Newmont.
Before reading that article, I had expressed my opinion on the Discussions Board that gold would keep falling. But after I read that Rogers had placed a bet on gold, I did as well.
Needless to say, Rogers didn't put 25% of his fund in gold. I didn't either. That would be way too risky.

The basic logic (my logic) is that longer duration bond funds will "fall and settle" at a greater magnitude than shorter duration bond funds. Timing doesn't have to be perfect, but to trigger this trade longer duration bonds need to first "fall through" shorter duration bonds.
I use short term charts to monitor this dynamic. Hold the shorter duration bond fund or cash until the longer duration fund "falls through" the the shorter duration fund and the two funds "settle". Part of this settling process involves the bond fund manager buying newer muni issues at hopefully higher interest rates. Depending on where the FED targets interest rates hikes (Short), (Intermediate), or (long) will impact the rates on new bonds.

A buy/sell strategy I am trying to implement has me holding shorter duration bonds just before rates raise, wait for the longer duration bond fund to adjust downward and then hold the longer duration bond fund as it recovers.
This can be accomplished with USATX (longer duration) mentioned in the article and USSTX (shorter duration) muni funds. Longer duration munis are more sensitive to interest rate and so I monitor USATX downward movement as it absorbs losses from an interest rate hike.
The last time interest rates moved upwards (April 2013) USATX adjusted downward 4% and it took about a year for it to make up those losses. I try to strategically hold USSTX prior to a rate hike and then buy USATX at the point where USATX starts to recover from its losses.
Here's an illustration of the last year using these two funds. USATX gained four percent over the last 6 months and it is potentially time right now to exchange USATX back into USSTX netting the a four percent gain.

Long term, its hard to beat USAA muni funds USSTX, USATX, and USTEX:

Perhaps if you were a short term trader and trade the weekly wigglies. Longer term, it has come back to mid channel from overbought conditions.
However, both terms indicate a bounce back from resistance for SPY around 184 so short term traders might exploit that. But if it breaks down through that from its sideways movement since Mar, we may see it oversold to around 176 which is roughly another 5% correction. At least that is what technical traders think.

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000264853&play=1

I have been around a long time, and I still do not get why market neutral funds have to be so expensive. Fund managers will tell you that the marketing arm, not the fund management arm, make the ultimate decisions on expenses. Plus, how can anyone think WBLSX is market neutral with such truly wild returns since inception? 12%, 21%, 57%, -19%, 53%, -5%, 1%, 6%, 11%. This is NOT market neutral type behavior. On the other hand, it might explain the high expenses.

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304250204579431392126736568#printMode

Here's a quick look at the numbers for DAVPX:

Near the end of the March 14 commentary, David parenthetically referred to NOLCX as a "Nice little fund, by the way." I was hoping someone might elaborate on that a little - try to help me identify possible holes in how I research funds. When I look at NOLCX, I see a fund with only $25M that still manages to have over 100 large cap stocks and an 86% turnover. Only holdings greater than 2% are Exxon, Apple, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and Chevron. Thoughts?

Good Day from "try'in to be springtime in Michigan, still".
Grokking. Likely known by many other words, terms and philosophies.
From Robert A. Heinlein's book, "Stranger in a Strange Land":
"According to the book, drinking is a central focus on Mars, where water is scarce. Martians use the merging of their bodies with water as a simple example or symbol of how two entities can combine to create a new reality greater than the sum of its parts. The water becomes part of the drinker, and the drinker part of the water. Both grok each other. Things that once had separate realities become entangled in the same experiences, goals, history, and purpose."
To GROK, per Robert A. Heinlein, 1961
So, what in the world does, to grok or grokking; have to do with investing? I must borrow and adjust Mr. Heinlein's statement to: "The investor becomes part of the investment, and the investment part of the investor. Both grok each other. Things that once had separate realities become entangled in the same experiences, goals, history, and purpose."
There may be 1,000 basic directions with which to journey in a discussion about any such investing philosophy. The total is at least as many as those who post and/or visit MFO to read. For every 1,000 here at MFO who have a similar investing style; none of us will totally agree upon what an aggressive, moderate or conservative portfolio may consist.
To preface what follows; I must assume that there will be folks here who will: agree, somewhat agree, totally disagree; won't understand, presume that I have S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) from the too long Michigan winter or lastly; that I have ordered and am testing the "baggy sampler" from the menu at a MaryJane store in Colorado. :)
The grokking thing. I have referred to this here before; but my replacement word has been, intuition. As we upright walking creatures are similar; we are also different, due to our birth genetics and the "to-date" life experiences which shape our thinking processes. With this comes the vast variable of what one's intuition may be at any given time.
I can not dismiss intuition from any number of areas of one's life. I only know that one intuition that I feel most comfortable with, involves investing; more often than not, to the profitable side.
I can not pinpoint anything, in particular, from the first 20 years of my life that would draw my interest to investments. I only recall that in 1971, I discovered an awareness of the ability and possible methods with which to use my hard earned monies to gain further monetary rewards.
Ten thousand hours to a better understanding? This is the near equivalent to a full, 40 hour work week for a 5 year time frame. The theory being, that one may come close to and/or achieve a near mastery of an area of study, assuming near normal mental or physical attributes. 'Course, some areas may be scratched from the list, early on, for many of us. In spite of any given passions, I have never had the physical build to be a basketball, football or baseball player of any consequence. Long distance, endurance running suits my physical ability.
The passion of it all. The passion, for whatever it is or may mean to anyone, is a most important aspect, at least for me; for this investing game. I do not attempt to explain passion to myself or dwell upon how this exists in we humans. I accept the feeling or desire, plain and simple, for what it brings forth.
Periodically, I wonder, with a smile upon my face; how did I arrive at this investing place today, in my life?
Passion, 10,000+ hours of study, and intuition/grokking.
As noted previous, I don't recall a real starting point regarding investing or how it arrived. I may only consider today that a passion came forth regarding investing, which places me here today. Without this, I wouldn't know or care about the existence of MFO and related investing sites and information.
The important (to our house) things I/we feel we understand over the many years (35) regarding investing.
---A very early and never forgotten impression of the value of compounding one's monies over the many time periods going forward. This also goes hand and hand with captial preservation, regardless of age or current money earning power from employment or other sources. Obviously, one can not compound monies that are no longer in their investment basket.
---Patience, an area of emotions, may also be a most difficult personal area, with which most ,likely do battle. Our house manages this area to the healthy side of investing.
---We do not generally hold cash for investment opportunities. We attempt to guage investment opportunity money as requiring to move money from one sector/area to another, as a trend may indicate.
---Rebalancing the portfolio. We don't pick or have a magic date to rebalance our portfolio holdings. If an area of the portfolio continues to move in the wrong direction; than that portion of monies will travel elsewhere.
---Portfolio monitoring. Aside from viewing markets overall, we do monitor; at least weekly, how any of our holdings are performing.
---Knowing what we don't know or fully understand. We understand our limitations of learning; when we have hit a wall of full understanding. We are comfortable with this; as decent portfolios and profits may be had without an overly complicated investor theory or management style.
---Personal monitoring. :) Being or becoming overconfident with the knowledge and intuition, that could cause problems with investments.
Investing concerns for this house must be with the broad markets of all forms and sectors; where we place our monies. However, the final decisions always remain with us, for our monies. Hopefully, I/we will recognize if and when the passion, intuition and our other investing standards start to fade. This could be the beginning of a greater concern for portfolio construction and performance.
Short summary for the personal side: passion, then study, then the intuition.
Lastly, as our house can't predict the investment marketplace; we work hard to predict ourselves and our reactions to the marketplace.
My quick review of this finds a bit of wandering and what seems to be some disconnected writing. No time for a fix and I'll let this stand, as is.
Thanks for letting me steal some of your time to ramble these thoughts. Perhaps there was something worthy to "grok".
Take care of you and yours,
Catch

Anyone have experience with this financial management company out of Richmond, VA? They have three in-house funds. The oldest is DAVPX. Two new ones recently got their first morningstar ratings: DEOPX and DVIPX. All fairly small ($100-300M) and 30-50 holdings. Styles are LG, LV, and MG (which looks more all-cap).

I'll probably be around 15% - 20%of my overall portfolio in WMCNX and one of the above funds, with the rest stocks with a small slice of RSIVX for short term needs. I'm relatively young (40) and not terribly worried about near term volatility, just wanting to hedge a little...and I'm not a fan of bonds.

My fiancee, I suspect, would score quite highly on the grit test. She's as practical as they come (other than marrying me)...

Gotta love it!

I'm going to have to go back to MJG's thread about the role of luck in life...

But my present comments are gaining too much momentum in the serious dimension. My original objective was to introduce a little fun into the MFO exchanges.

I don't think anyone took it as other than a welcome diversion. We just like to discuss interesting concepts things amongst friends!
There was an op-ed critical of the grit studies and authors in the Washington Post
this morning. It dovetails nicely with what Crash said:

In education, rather than devising new approaches that actively engage students, we end up trying to get kids to work harder at the tedious status quo. In her research, Duckworth even created a task that was deliberately boring, the point being to find strategies for resisting the temptation to do something more appealing instead.
More broadly, consider Tough’s declaration that “there is no antipoverty tool we can provide for disadvantaged young people that will be more valuable than the character strengths . . . [such as] conscientiousness, grit, resilience, perseverance and optimism.”
Really? No antipoverty tool — presumably including Medicaid and public housing — is more valuable than an effort to train poor kids to persist at whatever they’re told to do? Whose interests are served by such a position?

washingtonpost.com/opinions/sometimes-its-better-to-quit-than-to-prove-your-grit/2014/04/04/24075a84-b8f8-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html
There are some other criticisms of the study, primarily that grit seems to come at the expense of creativity and could lead to a stubborn persistence in the face of repeated negative results. I could also certainly see a sort of Charles Murray style misuse of the data.
Happy Sunday.

Not much attention is paid to properly managing a portfolio after retirement which, for some retirees, can be 30 years or more.
"Gliding " into retirement might be helpful to lower risk early on in a retirees distribution phase, but a bigger concern, after this glide path is achieved, is the longer term consequences of an overly conservation retirement portfolio such as out living your assets. The concept of slowly increasing a retiree's portfolio to the appropriate amount of risk over the "last" phase of life is hardly ever discussed by retirement planners. In a sense, part of the portfolio needs to return to "flight" and be exposed to risk so it can continue to grow so it's available when a retiree reaches their 80's and 90's.
Here's a thought...instead of being used as retirement dated funds these dated funds now represent the portion of a portfolio that a retiree will use for income as they glide into that date. In a sense, one would hold a portion of your portfolio earmarked for 5 year increments that stretch out over the 30 - 40 years of retirement.
A 65 year old retiring today would divided their portfolio into 6-8 target dates out into the future...
2015 fund (use for current distribution over the next 5 years),
2020 fund (glide into 70),
2025 fund (glide into 75),
2030 fund (glide into 80),
2035 fund ( glide into 85),
2040 fund (glide into 90) and
2045 fund (Slide into 95...home)
How much to allocate is another important consideration, but time would allow the longer dated funds time to grow and therefore requiring less funding than shorter dated funds which would be needed for income.
Just some thoughts on an alternative use for these target dated funds.

Reply to @Charles: Good point. These animals vary greatly, as you know, in their approach. Umm ... my earlier comment perhaps overlooks the "mandated" aspect - which may argue for over-kill on the "disclosure" side. Still, I wonder whether somebody who's invested in one of these only because they were legally "defaulted" into it is going to have the inclination or aptitude to decipher all the fine print.
Next SEC PROPOSAL: Require that all fund prospectuses be written in plain English at no higher than a 5th grade reading level. :-)

I'm under-impressed. If the buyers of these funds don't understand the risks based on a detailed "glide path" showing how the allocation changes over the life span, it's unlikely additional explanation of the perceived risk levels will help. Consider that we're looking at changes which occur slowly over a 15, 20 or 25 year horizon. (Under all but the rarest of circumstances, the glide path is one of decreasing, rather than increasing, risk.) T Rowe already provides allocation glide paths for their target date funds which seem not only adequate, quite helpful and illuminating as well. Regards
Ted, have you been drinking this morning? I never heard of a "Target-Data" fund - which is why I clicked on this link in first place.

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.fa-mag.com/news/sec-seeks-more-comments-on-target-date-funds-17519.html?print

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.fa-mag.com/news/vanguard-says-minority-of-high-speed-traders-may-abuse-17516.html?print

Hi Cman,
Thanks for your additional comments. I looked at using my domestic hybrid sleeve as a bench mark through an Instant Xray analysis and when adjusting the amount of cash (percent wise) held it Xrayed much to that of my portfolio as a whole. Performance wise they are tracking pretty close along with their allocations. I guees, with this, it can become a second bench mark to the primary Lipper Balanced Index that I am currently using. I have all my portfolio sleeves set up in a spread sheet for easy tracking. I track many items form percent gains by the day, week, month, three months, one year, three years and five years, yield, duration, P/E Ratios, % off 52 week high, plus some other good stuff I'd rather not write about.
I do like the Lipper Balanced Index because it is a recgonized standard by many. As you are aware many mutual funds use the S&P 500 Index as a bench mark even though some have issue with this ... It is a recgonized standard. I use it on the equity side of my portfolio as my standard and for the fixed income sleeve I use a popular bond indexed fund, and for the portfolio as a whole, know as my master portfolio, I have been using the Lipper Balanced Index.
Thanks again ...
Old_Skeet