I think managed payout funds like this make more sense for income, not growth. They are effectively the mutual fund industry's answer to annuities, trying to give you a smooth cash flow (though not as smooth as an annuity's) while still leaving you the possibility of something left over.
(That latter objective depends on the payout strategy. For example, Fidelity's Income Replacement Funds are designed to spend down to zero, much like a fixed term annuity.)
The emphasis is on low volatility and cash generation, not exactly what one wants if one is trying to grow assets for a later income stream. One doesn't invest in bonds (and reinvest interest) for capital growth.
Managed payout funds are fairly common in the closed end fund universe, so you might look around there to see how they work. Return of principal is tax free - you don't have to worry about paying taxes on your own money. The more interesting question is what happens when the investment generates more income and gains than the fund is scheduled to pay out?
A fund is taxed directly if it doesn't pay out substantially all its capital gains. According to the fund's SAI, Vanguard gets around this by some legerdemain that makes it appear to the IRS that you did get paid the gains, and then Vanguard gets you an offsetting tax credit. You don't have to worry about the details; the short story is you don't have to worry too much about weird tax impacts.
Here's an interesting and fairly current discussion/analysis of managed payout funds from Natixis and Vanguard. For a variety of reasons, including the way Vanguard gently adjusts the payout percentage based on performance, I like Vanguard's approach. But it doesn't seem to fit your objective.

Would it make sense to buy a fund like this, and reinvest all dividends and capital gains in order to grow an income stream? What wouldn't seem to make sense would be to receive payouts which might consist of (at least in part) of your own initial investment. If so, then you would be reinvesting your own initial investment, and perhaps paying tax on it as well. Maybe this type of fund would only make sense if you are using the income distributed immediately?

Capital gains stocks are overrated. Talking heads like to talk about them. Dividends and bonds have been golden since the early 80s

Yet more changes at Calamos. What's the plan, what's the business model? That "vision thing"--- can anyone make sense of what is happening at this shop?
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20160315/NEWS01/160319909/calamos-investments-patriarch-gives-up-ceo-title

net income fell every year for the past five years, dropping to $21.4 million last year, or about a third of the $70.8 million it earned in 2014, and down from $137.9 million in 2011. Revenue fell 8 percent last year to $230.9 million, also declining for the fifth year in a row. [...] Calamos has suffered alongside public shareholders because a family affiliate owns 78 percent of the company, with just 22 percent of the economic interest traded publicly on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Efforts to revamp the management team have made little difference. In 2013, Co-Chief Investment Officer Nick Calamos, a nephew of the founder, exited and was replaced by former Janus Capital CEO Gary Black, but he didn't last long. Black left the firm last fall.

Geez Louise!

Koudounis will earn an annual salary of $800,000, plus an annual bonus of $2.6 million, or more, depending on a determination by the board’s compensation committee, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission today. In addition, he will get annual “long term incentive awards” of $1.6 million. A one-time sign-on payment of $1.25 million will be payable next year

I happen to be looking at my holdings in my roth today at ML, and I saw something that seemed to make no sense to me at all until I broke it down. My utility fund FRUAX had a higher return than my biotech fund FBTIX , both bought in February 2013. I thought to myself, there is got to be something wrong here. I know biotechs have been in the dumper the last year, and especially the last 6 months, but how could a utility fund beat it? I went back and added up the dividends and cap gains over the three year period and Voila it was plain and simple. Quarterly dividends and regular cap gains reinvested turned a 20% three year gain on original shares bought into a 43% total return over three years. Then I remembered that over time 40% of the S + P gains are due to reinvested dividends and cap gains. Duuuhhhhhh. It may have been wise to sell my biotech fund when it peaked in July 2015, but who knew it would drop like a ton of bricks in less than one year? Its long term money, so just hope it finds its way back after the geo political issues become clearer. After all, we are all getting older and doubt if demand for new drugs will go down over time.

New bull market in Dow Transports. If that is how they define a bull (see link below) then a new bull market in oil which is up over 60% off its lows.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-transports-index-enters-bull-market-after-thursday-rally-2016-03-17?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
Many junk bond funds are on track for double digit 2016 gains. Who would have thought? And under the radar many bank loan funds ala RSFYX and SAMBX are steadily rising. I have no opinion on any of this. I will let the countertrend rally/relief rally/suckers rally/bear market rally crowd chime in. But would also like to see some true believers chime in.

Getting back to the question as to "where" should retirement withdrawals come from this study researched a number of options and I liked this quote enough to pass it along:
In virtually all the scenarios, "it pays to eat your bonds first, equities later."
Withdrawal scenarios studied:
1. Withdraw money from either stocks or bonds and then rebalance the portfolio annually to the initial stock/bond proportion. This harvesting rule will be referred to as “Rebalance.”
2. Withdraw money from the asset that had the highest return during the year and do not rebalance. This will be referred to as “High First.”
3. Withdraw money from the asset that had the lowest return during the year and do not rebalance. This will be referred to as “Low First.” To the extent that historical rates of return on bonds tend to be lower than historical rates of return on stocks, the following two additional methods of harvesting withdrawals will be referred to as “Bonds First” and “Stocks First.”
4. Take withdrawals from bonds first and do not rebalance.
5. Take withdrawals from stocks first and do not rebalance.

Study:
time-diversification-vs-rebalancing-in-retirement-portfolios/

Yes, that was the Spitzer and Singh study cited ...

Interesting Read using a three fund portfolio (VFINX, VUSTX, VSGBX or VFITX) and a 200 mda filter.
From the link:
"The popular 60/40 Stocks/Bond portfolio performs well over the past 24 years, but adding a simple moving average to this portfolio has increased returns, reduced the duration of draw downs, and substantially reduced portfolio draw down. Adding in an intermediate term bond fund as the cash fund accomplished even more, it increased annual returns more than 10% over the buy and hold portfolio, while having close to 1/3 of the daily draw down numbers. Avoiding draw down and still being involved in market upswings was the goal of this strategy, and it worked well in this instance. There were a few concerns, namely being involved in the cash filter fund for too much duration, not being diverse enough to capitalize on gains across different markets, and the potential of missing out on some of the market upsides. However, these concerns did not prevent us from accomplishing the goals of reducing draw down and risk along with increasing return in this particular example."
iema-blog.com/2016/02/6040-stockbonds-portfolio-with-market.html

They could probably run a 10 period monthly moving average on the prices of the assets as to reduce daily generated "whipsaws" ( as many "needless" whipsaws occurring in the past have been contained "within" the monthly data ) and reduce the amount of "management" time, ie. looking at the calculations daily / subjecting oneself too frequently to market data - leading to possible cognitive investing biases ...
Also, using healthcare for the 60% allocation has produced alpha ( appreciably ) above VFINX ( 13% CAGR, Sharpe 1.0 -21% max DD with non MA strategy / rebalance annually 1986 - 2015 )

Interesting Read using a three fund portfolio (VFINX, VUSTX, VSGBX or VFITX) and a 200 mda filter.
From the link:
"The popular 60/40 Stocks/Bond portfolio performs well over the past 24 years, but adding a simple moving average to this portfolio has increased returns, reduced the duration of draw downs, and substantially reduced portfolio draw down. Adding in an intermediate term bond fund as the cash fund accomplished even more, it increased annual returns more than 10% over the buy and hold portfolio, while having close to 1/3 of the daily draw down numbers. Avoiding draw down and still being involved in market upswings was the goal of this strategy, and it worked well in this instance. There were a few concerns, namely being involved in the cash filter fund for too much duration, not being diverse enough to capitalize on gains across different markets, and the potential of missing out on some of the market upsides. However, these concerns did not prevent us from accomplishing the goals of reducing draw down and risk along with increasing return in this particular example."
iema-blog.com/2016/02/6040-stockbonds-portfolio-with-market.html

Newer academic thinking about investment glide path allocations and withdrawal rates in retirement years ( Weigand and Iron / Sptizer and Singh *) has shown that an investor / retiree spend from bonds first and stocks last ( and build a "safe money" fund or bucket of approx. 2 years of expenses which can be used if needed or spent before bonds ). Under this thinking, a misconception about conventional 60 / 40 "glide path" schemes is, that a "bond" allocation be recommended "early" in the investment lifecycle. Yet, the young investor demographic ( age 20's to 50 ) has "time" compounding / "time" to ride out volatility advantages on their side and they aren't so invested in knowing the quarter to quarter fluctuations of their 401K portfolios. So it is logical to assume that a "maximizing" of asset growth by having a much higher portion of assets in equities is warranted and, consequently, should extend into an investors "final years".
Being a late 50's retiree with a somewhat limited but reasonable Roth IRA accumulation and with an extensive expertise in quantitative tactical allocation, I operate under the framework of "preservation of capital" model with an appreciation of what the Weigand and Iron study conveys. As the forward 15 year equity market returns, as measured by CAPE ** and price to book measures are extrapolated to be sub par, preserving capital and asset growth within alternating strategic periods of equity ( small cap value, mid cap growth ), money market, and occasional bond investment through the use of quantitative tactical methods, is my preferred choice. Many "equities heavy" buy and hold investors / retirees may have to ride out the overvaluation period, perhaps spending down their safe money portion and/or retirement asset stake, as is implied by "sequence of return risk". The unknown is how deep and how long the overvaluation period is; this accompanied by varying inflation / disinflation .
Historically, a simple, mechanical, low transaction price / moving average cross strategy has produced decent risk mitigation / capital preservation during these periods of CAPE overvaluation ***.
Some favorite quotes from retirement planner literature are: "Hope for the best, plan for the worst", "You can't predict, but you can prepare ".
* "Market Signals for When to Employ a Bonds-First Withdrawal Sequence to Extend the Longevity of Retirees’ Portfolios" R. Weigand
"Is Rebalancing a Portfolio During Retirement Necessary?" John Spitzer Sandeep Singh
** https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I4sH5UV6fS6UfCNiPl1AsB2SOMF1an1PRt8YH0dgOeQ/edit?usp=sharing
*** https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mdon_cto48rvs2_lKWyMWrfqSIh8K0phfe7tThle8qQ/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Sn6BKRCKRU5tensBDFTkJXI3v2wRQ4M1bt8VoIM2Zmc/edit?usp=sharing

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1215880/000141304216000370/neimansupplargecap497.htm
497 1 neimansupplargecap497.htm
Neiman Large Cap Value Fund
Class C Shares (NECMX)
For Investors Seeking Long-Term Capital Appreciation
Supplement dated March 16, 2016 to the
Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information dated August 1, 2015
____________________________________________________________________________________
The Board of Trustees of Neiman Funds (the "Trust") has concluded that it is in the best interests of the Neiman Large Cap Value Fund (the "Fund") and its shareholders that the Fund cease offering Class C shares. Effective immediately, the Fund will not accept any new investments in Class C shares.
Class C shareholders of record as of March 29, 2016, will have their Class C shares exchanged for load-waived Class A shares (NEAMX) effective March 30, 2016. That is, Class A shares will be issued without any sales charge. Exchanges are made at net asset value such that the value of your investment does not change as a result of the exchange. Additionally, Class A shares have lower operating expenses than Class C shares. An exchange of shares is not a taxable event for federal tax purposes.
IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, PLEASE CONTACT THE FUND AT 1-877-385-2720.
________________________
This Supplement and the existing Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information ("SAI") each dated August 1, 2015, provide relevant information for all shareholders and should be retained for future reference. The Prospectus and the SAI have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, are incorporated by reference, and can be obtained without charge by calling toll-free 1-877-385-2720.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1215880/000141304216000371/neimansupptacticalincome497.htm
497 1 neimansupptacticalincome497.htm
Neiman Tactical Income Fund
Class C Shares (NTCFX)
For Investors Seeking Total Return With Capital Preservation as a Secondary Objective
Supplement dated March 16, 2016 to the
Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information dated August 1, 2015
____________________________________________________________________________________
The Board of Trustees of Neiman Funds (the "Trust") has concluded that it is in the best interests of the Neiman Tactical Income Fund (the "Fund") and its shareholders that the Fund cease offering Class C shares. Effective immediately, the Fund will not accept any new investments in Class C shares.
Class C shareholders of record as of March 29, 2016, will have their Class C shares exchanged for load-waived Class A shares (NTAFX) effective March 30, 2016. That is, Class A shares will be issued without any sales charge. Exchanges are made at net asset value such that the value of your investment does not change as a result of the exchange. Additionally, Class A shares have lower operating expenses than Class C shares. An exchange of shares is not a taxable event for federal tax purposes.
IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, PLEASE CONTACT THE FUND AT 1-877-385-2720.
________________________
This Supplement and the existing Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information ("SAI") each dated August 1, 2015, provide relevant information for all shareholders and should be retained for future reference. The Prospectus and the SAI have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, are incorporated by reference, and can be obtained without charge by calling toll-free 1-877-385-2720.

FYI: Talk to some traders right now and you’ll hear the smartest ones talking about fading each edge of the range – the market-wide breakouts and breakdowns are all false.
Only amateurs are making high-conviction moves these days. They get bearish at SPX 1970 and bullish as we approach 2000. The market is chopping them up.
Regards,
Ted
http://thereformedbroker.com/2016/03/11/welcome-to-the-chop-shop/
When Do You Want Your Risk, Now Or Later?:
http://thereformedbroker.com/2016/03/10/when-do-you-want-your-risk-now-or-later/

Didn't we close at 2022 today? Hasn't oil rocketed ahead over 50% off its lows. Aren't junk bonds leading stocks and many after today's big move up in the 2.5% to 3% YTD range? I just love these so called professionals who talk down to the amateurs. I guess the difference between a professional and an amateur is the amount of capital involved? And as we saw earlier today, those huge sums of capital managed by the hedge funds have had dismal returns the past 7 years.

I have been a fan of Matthews in general for many years and have owned both MAPIX when it first opened as an alternative to MACSX when that fund was closed to new investors. When MACSX reopened, I moved my MAPIX money to it. But when moving my 401k money to an IRA I was able to buy SFGIX. I moved that EM chunk of money again, to Andrew Foster.
At one time years back on this discussion board, many were saying Asia is the future - that's where the bulk of your money should be. Well, that was baloney then and it still is - at least I don't see it happening in my life time. Some exposure to Asia is great, but I for one don't think you need an Asia specific (especially China specific) fund. Not When Andrew Foster's fund is available. Who better then to determine an Asia allocation? And right now Foster is reducing Asia exposure. Matthews funds are the best of the Asian specific class, but are they needed other than for momentum bets? Here is a quote I pulled out of a different MFO post on SFGIX.

February 2016 – In his latest portfolio review, Andrew Foster discusses a shift in the Fund’s composition, away from the Asian region, and toward larger stocks at the expense of smaller ones. Next, he speculates as to the cause behind the collapse in China’s capital markets. While he does not offer a definitive explanation, he does suggest that circumstances may be serious enough to warrant attention from investors.

@hank said "So small investors are supposed to ...? "
Gundlach mentioned as possible investments
G-7 Bonds in local currency. Gundlach's newest fund Right product,right time.
http://www.doublelinefunds.com/funds/global_bond/overview.html
Bond C E Fs @ discount.His ?
DBL
http://www.cefconnect.com/Details/Summary.aspx?Ticker=DBL
DSL
http://www.cefconnect.com/Details/Summary.aspx?Ticker=DSL
@junKster said on 3/6
the Jeffrey Gundlach DoubleLine bond funds mentioned (DBLTX and DLTNX have been among the best of the best over the past 1, 3, and 5 years. And obviously had you *blindly* put your money in the trust of DoubleLine you would be sitting pretty in that bond category if a diversified portfolio is your thing.
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/75948/#Comment_75948
Also in JNK

By Bloomberg News | March 9, 2016 - 12:09 pm EST
Best junk bond manager of decade says recession fears overdone
Fidelity's Mark Notkin sees mid-to-high single-digit returns for 2016
Mark Notkin expected the rebound in high-yield bonds. The earlier plunge in the first part of the year is what didn't make sense to him.
Mr. Notkin, whose $9.7 billion Fidelity Capital & Income Fund FAGIX has outperformed all peers over the past decade, didn't flinch as high-yield bond prices tumbled in January and early February. While investors feared that declining oil prices and troubles in Europe and Asia might disrupt growth in the U.S., Mr. Notkin found little evidence to support the gloom.
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20160309/FREE/160309924?template=printart
Gundlach's Slides From 3/9
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3956876-jeffrey-gundlach-probability-another-hike-march-june-2016-slides
Gundlach "uncanny"how accurate this indicator has been

FYI: Is the risk rally of the past few weeks near its end? Jeffrey Gundlach, who runs Double Line Capital LP, thinks so.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/03/08/jeffrey-gundlach-calls-end-of-risk-market-rally/

@heezsafe: Are you aware that David Snowball and Mutual Fund Observer has a working relationship with Brian Haskin's publisher of the DAILYALTS. Therefore, the Linkster will continue to link articles by Blaine Rollins, formely of Janus Funds, through DAILYALTS rather than 361 Capital.
Regards,
Ted

IMHO, trying to infer anything from a class name other than perhaps A, B, C, I, and Investor is an exercise in futility, since there's no standardization.
For example, Federated funds have classes A, B, C, F, R, and Institutional (IS). A,B, C, and F shares are all available to individuals directly or through brokers. See, e.g. this prospectus for Federated Capital Income (CAPAX, CAPBX, CAPCX, CAPFX, CAPRX, CAPSX) - "How is the fund sold?"
The F shares (at least for this fund) cost a basis point more than the A shares, which are available load-waived - you don't even need to go through an adviser. So these F shares don't seem limited to use by advisers, and they don't even seem to be cost effective.
These days, many load families (though not American Funds) waive loads if you go through discount brokers. The A shares may have a 12b-1 fee that's higher than the fund's share class (if any) designed for wrap accounts, but the net cost to you is still lower (since you avoid the wrap fee). For example, Templeton Bond Fund A (TPINX) is available load-waived, but carries a 0.25% 12b-1 fee (total ER 0.88%), while the Advisor share class (TGBAX) has no 12b-1 fee (total ER correspondingly lower, at 0.63%).
Traditionally, load families waived the load on A shares if they were sold in a wrap account. So we've now identified some F shares, ADV shares, and load-waived A shares sold through wrap accounts. I'm sure there's more.

I looked at this study but could not figure out whether the authors' data suffer from survivorship bias. If the dead funds are not included in the database and analysis, the findings of this paper could mean nothing. Suppose that a fund disappeared due to poor performance in year t. If this fund was kept in the database, a strategy of including it in the loser portfolio at t-1 or t-2 would generate poor results.

"If a fund [from t-1 or t-2] disappears from our dataset [in year t], then the capital that was invested in it is equally allocated among the remaining funds" in its cohort, i.e. top decile, middle decile, bottom decile.
Yes, dead funds are included. Note that they also excluded the 10% most expensive funds, since high costs drag performance down. Why 10% you ask? So do I.

The short version: a former Morningstar analyst ranked "balanced" funds with more than a billion in assets by their 15-year Sortino ratio. Sortino is an offshoot of the well-known Sharpe ratio, but it's more sensitive to a fund's downside deviation. By that measure, the best balanced fund is F P A Crescent.
Two quick notes:
1. a lot has changed for Crescent over the past 15 years, not least growing to 100 times their previous size. That is, from $170 million in 2002 to more than $18 billion now.
2. different parameters give different results. Lipper categorizes Crescent as a "flexible portfolio" fund, which seems more appropriate than benchmarking it against staid 60/40 funds as Morningstar does. If you look at 60/40 funds over the course of the current market cycle, which began in the fall of 2007, Crescent finishes sixth:

1. Forward Income Builder
   
2. Chicago Equity Partners Balanced
   
3. Bruce
   
4. Marsico Flexible Capital
   
5. Intrepid Capital
   
6. FPA Crescent
   
7. Provident Trust
   
8. JP Morgan Income Builder
   
9. Prudential Income Builder
   
10. Loomis Sayles Multi-Asset Income

If you sort by Martin ratio, Charles's preferred metric and the basis of our fund ratings, you get most of the same funds but Crescent pops to fourth:

1. Forward Income Builder
   
2. Intrepid Capital
   
3. Chicago Equity Partners Balanced
   
4. FPA Crescent
   
5. Provident Trust
   
6. Bruce

For what interest that holds,
David

@Junkster.Only presented the S A link as a primer for high yield options and comparisons.
Here is another chart from the S A article that clearly shows your call of a bottom on February 11th.Even the much maligned FPACX is up 7.69% since then !

also @Junkster Risk-off to continue ? More for your perusal.
MLPs had another ripping week as higher oil prices and E&P equity issuance attracted new capital propelling the benchmark index higher +7.21%, and a -8.72% YTD loss. Crude rose 10.2% for the week as lower production numbers were reported by EIA (table below) which seemed to trump the higher crude storage reported, along with more cooperative comments from OPEC members and Russia. The reality of lower crude production has been good news for MLP's, despite what those lower volumes may mean for some midstream assets
http://mlpdata.com/mlp_newsevents/article_details?article_id=282&mbTrackingId=1
"If you are Exxon, you have to be looking around at all of the wreckage in the energy sector these days and feel like a kid in a candy store,” said Spencer Cutter, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. The debt offer is a sign that Exxon may "start picking up great assets at fire-sale prices" and "take advantage of the downturn and start shopping," he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-29/exxon-said-to-plan-bond-offering-after-rating-downgrade-threat
Oil jumps as traders close short positions, U.S. producers cut rig count
http://news.yahoo.com/oil-rises-traders-close-short-positions-u-producers-015805943--finance.html
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/commodities
Asian shares hit two-month highs on Monday, extending sharp gains from last week, following upbeat U.S. jobs data and a rebound in oil and commodity prices.
http://news.yahoo.com/asian-shares-hit-two-month-high-solid-u-004607584--business.html
Add 3/07 Latest From Otter Creek L/S Fund -2.32% since Feb 11th
On the Bearish Side .From OTCRX March 7th posting of Feb Fact Sheet
Market Commentary
We continue to be mindful of both credit growth and credit conditions. Financial conditions remain tighter than several months ago and access to the high yield
market has become more challenging since last year. In addition, despite the rise in equity markets recently, the spread on the 2 year and 10 year treasuries is
the lowest since 2008 which does not bode well for future credit growth. We believe these dynamics are worth monitoring closely.
Equity market valuations remain relatively unattractive, in our view. We estimate the S&P 500 is trading at approximately 16x-17x earnings – modestly above its
historical average – despite fairly tepid sales and earnings growth. Given the ongoing deterioration in global growth trends, we see more downside than upside
to earnings near-term. We are closely monitoring the potential for consumer spending to accelerate on the back of an improved labor market, better wage
growth and low gas prices. A potential acceleration in consumer spending coupled with a further stabilization in the dollar and commodities could help drive
improved earnings growth later in the year.
Our long portfolio is structured around owning high quality companies benefiting from secular tailwinds, idiosyncratic ideas that should perform well regardless of
the market environment, and special situations. Our short portfolio is structured to take advantage of companies overearning due to ultra-low interest rates and
companies with a high likelihood of missing sales forecasts due to a weaker macro environment.
As we enter March, we have approximately 20% of the Fund in cash. Considering the rise in equity markets over the past several weeks and the collapse in
volatility, we have taken the opportunity to add to our highest conviction ideas by adding both common stock shorts and out of the money puts
http://www.ottercreekfunds.com/media/pdfs/OCL_Factsheet.pdf

@Crash & MFO Members: Here's how U.S. News & World Report which uses Zack's, along with M*, Lipper, S&P Capital IQ, and The Street to arrive at a consensus ranks the four funds listed in Crash's link.
Regards,
Ted
ABALX: #5
TRPBX: #22
FBALX: #12
FSGNX #87