>> suggestions on the best up and coming equity ... mutual fund that nobody yet knows about?
You have already looked into DSENX (or CAPE)? (NOBL, SPHD, and especially OUSA do not have large bases yet, I think, or whatever the word is.)

I too advocate as few as you can stand and which meet your diversification wishes (noting that diversification appears somewhat overrated), and make my decisions more and more using M* upside/downside ratios alongside manager longevity and ownership. If you have a long timeline ahead, then longterm-outperforming active funds and 'screened' etfs would be my goals. I pay less attention than some to expenses, although exclude load funds or ones w/ egregious expenses. In the US LC area I am favoring more and more NOBL, SPHD, CAPE, and OUSA.

I used to be like that but for intellectual hygiene (my brain clarity and challenges thereto) I went a few years ago to ML via BoA and Fido only, and so I buy only whatever is offered therein for free. Works okay thus far, although I forsake Bruce and some (many) others, yes. Also I trade and 'time' less than in decades past. But tracking and tax time are way simpler.
@AndyJ, if you like JENSX you might want to look into the thus far outperforming LC etfs SPHD, NOBL, CAPE, and latterly OUSA.

I used to own FPACX and, longer ago, OAKBX. My allocation funds now are BRUFX and DSENX. I dabble in CAPE, trying to make a few bucks trading. Every time I take a look at DSENX, I feel good about my decision to buy and add to it, but I couldn't explain intelligently how the fund does its thing or by what benchmark to measure it.

This whole issue related to the GSE's has been frustrating, so much so that I even communicated with my Senator, Sherrod Brown who's the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee. My sizable FAIRX position may have had just a bit of motivation there.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were used as scapegoats to absolve the real culprits of the mortgage-backed security crisis of 2008, and their profits illegally funneled to the treasury coffers and at the same time shielding the banks. This scheme is unraveling, the only question being whether it will see the light of day.
From the NYTs:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/business/fannie-mae-suit-bailout.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1
Also, if your interested in more details, the last 2 articles by Glen Bradford on Seeking Alpha under the FNMA ticker are superb and highly recommended.
But sorry, expatsp ....I can't help with Sears.

Wonder what the heck happened w SPHD the last couple months --- unusual up/down dynamic (compared with NOBL or CAPE, say).

BenWP,
I use it only to check against other LC funds, do not own and did not know about its issues.
I also guess I did not adhere strictly to usual definitions of growth.
I am a large and longtime DSENX owner myself. I try without success to figure out why one set of these named holdings does differently from others, when it does. I should've included FLCEX also.
I look not just for growth but also decline damping. Over 2.5y (and shorter too) it is interesting to me that only NOBL and CAPE do as well as or better than DSENX, although OUSA sure looks like a winner thus far.
In retirement my long historical interest in the broadest diversifications (SC, EM) has become waaay diminished, and in REIT and foreign somewhat reduced as well.

@davidmoran: please share your thinking on including CAPE in your list. I own DSENX and I have one profitable round trip in CAPE. Still monitor it, but the low volume and the less-than-transparent relationship among the bid, ask, and last price are off-putting to me. Do you see it as a growth fund? Cheers.

Unless you are committed to tech, whatever I was researching and considering I would compare against RPG, NOBL, OUSA (v new), CAPE, and FCNTX, ups and down and totals for as long periods as possible.

It's PBS spring fundraising telethon time. They always run repeats of CM's shows during those, and knock out most of their best programming for "specials" and nostalgic music shows. How that works as a fundraising mechanism, I can't fathom.

Good point, I didn't make the connection. And you're right about the programming disruptions during pledge time -- the logic escapes me.

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

Funds can't raise cash because of manager "career risk" ( they have to be careful to at least match the "benchmark" from year to year / quarter to quarter). This is one of the dilemmas of investing in mutual funds. Others are fees, various rates of portfolio turnover, manager turnover. Investing in index ETFs eliminates these factors ( DIY investors can go to cash when they want and fees/expenses can be very low). Mutual funds and individual stock portfolios are the product of the 20th century investment landscape. ETFs represent the 21st century landscape ...

Fascinating. I just graphed slightly less than 10y performance for SP500, VTI (oddly identical), vs RSP (SP500 equal-weight) and VIG (div), which both outperformed SP500 and VTI, not hugely, by <5% and >3%.
VIG had the least dip 08-09, RSP the worst.
Very different story the last 1y and 3y (and not the same story).
Fwiw.
Happy thus far w smart beta DSENX, CAPE plus secret bond sauce. (CAPE not mentioned in the Glushkov article.) Sure hope it continues.

Just when I start thinking I know it all, in comes the word propitiating. Maybe that one escaped me because no one ever witnessed me do anything close to "win or regain the favor of (a god, spirit, or person) by doing something that pleases them." Had to look it up.

Yes it was a nice and well thought out post Ron. I am on the other end of the spectrum saying many times here that no one should trade, speculate, invest in precious metals. Silver is lower now than in the 1970s and gold not much above its 1970s highs. Stock indexes on the other hand trading huge multiples above their 70s levels. I've been around gold, silver bugs/aficionados since 1962 when my friend's brother-in-law was saying buy gold and run for the hills become the communists are going to take over. I simply have never understood the mindset of the gold/silver/insurance/end of the world crowd.
But this is just me and if that is your thing then by all means go for it. For gold and silver devotees it is like a religion. And I learned to never debate/denigrate anyone's religious/political beliefs. Professor Jeremy Siegel pretty much laid it out for gold in the 1998 edition of his book. Adjusting for inflation he compared the total returns for stocks, bonds, bills, and gold from 1802 to 1997. He used the London spot price for gold. $1 in stocks returned $558,945 vs. $803 for bonds, $275 for bills and $0.84 for gold.
Edit: Hank and Ron and regarding a topic I posted about the other day. I can guarantee you that you two guys have a pension. Those of us like me that don't can't be "playing" around in the precious metals and funds like PRPFX - a five year loser. I don't mean that in a ornery manner either. It's just a fact that we pensionless folks look at the trading/investing landscape through entirely different lenses.

ZIRP certainly seems to have distorted the investment landscape.
Thanks MJG as always for your good insight.
This past year I've taken a buy-and-hold approach with my personal investments.
Invest in companies you want to own forever, ideally, right? Isn't that the way it should be? Attendant with personal investment horizon, risk tolerance, and income need?
That said, I think David is right to suggest our risk tolerance is never as great as we think, which of course forces us to make poor decisions.
So, better that you know.
And, as usual, you sound like you do.
Hope all is well.
c

Updated Feb 9 with SCG grading
A follow up from my earlier preliminary study that I have named Rolling Alpha Returns Exposé (tm) RARE analysis of mutual funds to identify if mutual fund returns are sensitive to when an investor holds them (more sensitive they are, less likely most investors would have realized the fund's best returns even if they held it for a long time).
Having finished the remaining programming to find the distribution of returns, I am presenting a grading system for mutual funds using the following grades. Selected funds with at least 8 years of history from The Great Owls and the top 20-30 ranked funds at US News Fund ratings. They show significant differences in the sensitivity to time periods.
The grading scale:
A - Over-achievers : Significant alpha over index returns (1% or more per year) and for most investment periods regardless of which 3 or 5 yr period you pick in the last 8 years. So most investors would have seen that performance.
B - Steady achievers : Respectable alpha over index returns (0.5 to 1% per year) for most investment periods
C - Closet indexers : No statististically significant difference from index returns for most investment periods.
D - Pretenders : While some cherry picked returns look good, less than index returns for most investment periods
E - Lottery tickets : Significant alpha for specific periods but underperformance for most investment periods
F - Failures : Statistically significant under performance for most investment periods
X - Toxic : Very poor returns relative to index for most investment periods except for an insignificant percentage of intervals so unless investors caught that interval would have suffered significantly relative to the index
Selected funds can be index funds themselves but using a different index or a narrower index than the sector index but measuring themselves againt it.
Grades for selected funds:
(*) indicates Great Owl Funds
Large Cap Core/Blend US Domestic Funds
A+
SMVLX
A
JENHX(*), VSBPX
A-
VSLPX
B+
VITPX
B
POSKX(*), AWEIX(*), VTCIX, NMIAX
B-
JPDEX
C+
NOPRX(*), DTMEX
C
FLCEX, VQNPX, VPMIX
C-
PRBLX
E
YAFFX
F+
GLDLX(*)
F
PRDGX(*), TRISX(*), PRCOX
F-
WMLIX
X
CAPEX, SLCAX, SCPAX
Large Cap Value US Domestic Funds
A+
FDSAX(*), DFLVX, DPDEX, BRLVX
A
NOLCX, BPAIX, DDVIX(*), TRVLX, VWNDX, LSVEX
A-
VUVLX
B+
VEIPX, DODGX
B
MPISX, EVSAX
B-
TILCX, HOVLX
C+
FLVEX
C
TFFYX(*), DIVIX
D
EQTIX
F+
LCEAX, ILVAX
F
MEIAX
X
FBCVX
Comments on LCV funds in the post below.
Large Cap Growth US Domestic funds
A+
FDGRX, NICSX, GTLLX
A
TRBCX, TPLGX, TRLGX, FBGRX
A-
PLGIX, FNCMX, JIBCX
B+
PRGFX, PARNX
B
POGRX, VHCOX, RDLIX(*)
C+
TILGX, FDSVX, TLIIX,TILIX
C
VPMCX, FLGEX
C-
EGFIX(*)
D
JICPX, HACAX
D-
BRLGX, VWUSX
F+
MMDEX(*)
X
FCNTX, PRGIX
Comments on the LCG fund grading in my comment below
Small Cap Growth US equity funds
A+
PRNHX, DCGTX
A
PRDSX, HSPGX, BCSIX, RSEGX, TRSSX, JGMAX, WFSAX, JANIX
A-
PPCAX
B+
OTCFX
B-
WGROX, LSSIX
C+
TSCIX
C
PLWAX
C-
HASGX, GWETX
D+
WAMVX
D
DTSGX, FCAGX
F
CCASX, QASGX
F-
TISEX, GSXAX, SGPIX, TSGUX
X
BRSGX, MPSSX, TCMSX
PS: I do realize it is egg on my face for criticizing SMVLX and starting this analysis to prove my hunch while it came out on top of all the other funds. Sometimes intuitions can be wrong and hence the need for analysis. This is why startups pivot when intuitions about their markets aren't supported in numbers later on. Shows I didn't design the analysis to prove my hunch as can be easily done with statistics!
It appears that this analysis could be applied between any two similar funds to decide which one is less likely to disappoint if you weren't lucky enough to be in it for its best periods. This can be ONE fund selection criterion say for example if you wanted to choose between POSKX and VTCIX. This would help even more when there is no good index to compare a fund to like allocation funds or multi sector funds. More of such results later.

I did initiate a small position in CAPE on Thursday instead of adding to my DSENX. As an ETN, it throws off no income or capital gains. Small volume means it can't be unloaded without taking a hit.

Seems to me to tend to the slightly less risky, based on my uninformed historical lookbacks and comparisons. (How's that for handwaving?) Its past performance looks not bad when it comes to slumps (bond portion w Gundlach sauce), and its general outperformance (less so vs CAPE etf, which you might want to look at) at every increment since inception is interesting. 50-50 w PONDX looks similarly appealing when you backtest it, though I would probably do 60-40 since DSENX has this special bondish component.

David, is there any way to tell which sectors it's invested in, except fairly distantly in the rearview mirror? (For now, the only source I can find is a couple of lines of text in the 9/30 report, which was apparently out two months after quarter end. And you can't really tell anything by looking at portfolio holdings.)
M* shows the 1y up/down capture as 110/93. If those figures are indicative, it's been coming in better on both reward and risk than the index, but so far at least not what you'd call a defensive fund, if that's what anyone's looking for.
That etn CAPE: the tiny, tiny, tiny trading volume is an absolute disqualifier for me. I once looked into etn structure, but don't recall much about it except it had risks of its own - I think issuer risk is one of them.

Been occupied a few days, so I'll try to be relatively brief:
Lawyer was stating only what had already been stated in Vanguard's answer (legal filing) to complaint. An answer is a filing where all the defenses are laid out - we didn't do it; yes, but; etc.
I wasn't reading the statement like a lawyer, but as a literate person who understands subjunctive mood: we deny allegations, but even if we had done what was claimed it would have been in good faith.
English Grammar for Dummies: Using the Subjunctive Mood in English
Maurice made reference to a suit against Vanguard for charging high 401(k) fees. That suit was not against Vanguard, as I clarified.
For the most part, I agree with Lewis' observations, except to the extent that while an employer can escape some culpability by throwing individuals under the bus, it cannot escape liability. That is, if someone is fired (or pushed out, i.e. constructively fired) for being too old, that person must be made whole - job reinstated with back pay. Blaming rogue actors may mitigate this in the public eye, but it isn't going to erase it. Especially since real money, real damages, and real people are involved.