Ted,Good to see your posts again.Keep chuggin along.Corn must be in the bin and rent payments paid for 2016 farm lease I hope. Also hoping for this.A little way to go though.
@MFO Members: I agree with DlphcOracl that we are still in a secular bull market, and my forecast of a 15% return, made last February, in 2014 for the S&P 500 is right on (2,215) target. For 2015, I predict the S&P 500 will close at 2,401 a 13% rise for the year.
Regards,
Ted
Ted December 2014 in Fund Discussions
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/54158/#Comment_54158
Just a little "color " to Ted's post
Major Asset Classes | October 2015 | Performance Review
Despite the broad-based gains at the kick-off to the fourth quarter, losses still dominate the year-to-date comparisons, along with a few instances of mild gains.
While there was a bullish wind blowing in October, there was a familiar exception. Broadly defined commodities once again dipped lower, albeit mildly so this time. Although the price for crude oil revived in October, the Bloomberg Commodity Index continued to slip, retreating by a comparatively modest 0.5% last month.

http://www.capitalspectator.com/major-asset-classes-october-2015-performance-review/

@Edmond Thanks for the details. When Apollo, or Bain Capital, or private eq like them, get involved in a company's "turn-around" story, then may God or somebody have mercy on that company's soul. Most likely looking at the beginning of a Battan death march for that company, and the only thing that will be turning is earth by shovel, as their grave is prepared. Surprised the Sherman team got sucked into that one.

The November issue has posted. It is unusually full.

• There’s a largely irrelevant debate about whether the stock market will crash any time soon. We begin by noting that no one knows; the real problem is that the conditions that underlie
• Sequoia (SEQUX) is legendary. And it’s wobbling. A lot. David and Ed look separately, and critically, at the fund’s short- and long-term challenges.
  
• The market’s toughest spot for active managers is large cap core, the heart of most portfolios. Leigh Walzer of Trapezoid LLC analyzes over 300 fund to identify the dozen with the greatest prospect of outperforming their peers and their benchmark index.
  
• We highlight the “five great overlooked little funds” that Lewis Braham tracked down for Barron’s.
  
• David Herro, a former Morningstar manager of the decade, made me crazy with his comments on global warming and emerging markets, so I decided to walk through them.
  
• Capital gains season is upon us and we post Mark Wilson's first comments.
  
• We profile RiverNorth Core Opportunity (RNCOX) and highlight the recent launch of T. Rowe Price Emerging Market Value (PRIJX).
  
• Charles explains our transition from Morningstar to Lipper data.
  
• And, of course, our usual collection of news from DailyAlts and FundFox, funds in registration, manager changes, liquidations and more.

You know, stuff. We have a lot of stuff.
David

I’ve a different take on the Riverpark commentary. I’ve had an unwanted degree of familiarity for some time, with Verso, Newpage and the now-merged entity, due to my ‘day-job’. (and please excuse me, a lot of this is based on recollection). Riverpark’s explanation of the problems at Verso are incongruous with my perception/experience with them.
(Old-) Verso and the merged Verso have been bleeding cash perpetually. Without the merger, Verso would probably likely have had a “corporate event” already. Newpage itself, had entered, then emerged from BK a few years ago. Its trip through BK, allowed Newpage to de-lever somewhat. So along comes Verso, somewhat like a parasitic organism to extract Newpage’s cash to prolong its own existence.
Riverpark’s commentary states that Verso has “exceeded expectations with respect to achieving synergies (of the merger)”. I can tell you with certainty that is a (Verso-) management talking point they put out when their horrific Q2-2015 results came out. – Trying to seduce investors to have faith in a management team, DESPITE the poor results. Riverpark is just parroting Verso’s earnings release/presentation materials, presumably taking it at face value. I viewed the “exceeding expectations” comment from Verso as an indictment --- if they were ahead of the curve in terms of slashing costs, and STILL their reported results were so poor, then they must REALLY be in trouble – and presumably the low-hanging fruit of the synergies has been done. (So not much more to be done to help them.)
As part of the merger (which, I believe closed in January) they did some type of bond exchange. Seem to recall the effect of it was to cram down a principal haircut on some bondholders. In return, the bondholders got a token lump-sum cash-out payment (further draining the merged entity of needed liquidity!!), and higher interest rates on the “new” bonds, some/much of it PIK, not cash. Possibly also a lightening of covenants. Why would you want to lend to a borrower who is doing a principal haircut of its debt? Isn’t that a major red-flag?
A key problem is ownership – Verso is controlled by private-equity firm Apollo. If memory serves, Apollo had large (likely controlling) stakes in both Newpage and Verso. Apollo has a particularly ugly history of asset-stripping companies which it controls, leaving them debt-hobbled to such a degree that servicing the debts eventually becomes impossible. The (predictable-) outcome occurs frequently enough with Apollo, that I view it as a standard Apollo business model. I’ve seen them play this game time and again. Verso, like Apollo’s prior ‘projects’ need not face bankruptcy – all that needs to happen is for Apollo to a)buy a substantial amount of Verso’s bonds at the steep discount provided by Mr. Market, then b) surrender it to Verso in return for equity. In this way, Verso could de-lever. It’s remaining bonds would no doubt substantially rebound in price, lowering its cost of capital.
But doing so, is not in Apollo’s playbook. They extract cash, they don’t contribute cash. I could readily cite other ‘red flags’ over the past year on Verso, but am running long. Attributing Verso’s problems to the regulators is diverting blame. By the way, why didn’t Riverpark mention Apollo, its control of Verso, and its sordid history with other investments?
I’ve a small ‘stub’ holding in RPHYX, having sold most of it earlier in the year as junk spreads kept widening. At that time, also sold a ‘starter position’ in RSIVX which was doing nothing. I was contemplating adding to my RPHYX position shortly, as I suspect junk may continue to be buoyed. Frankly, I’d no idea Verso was a significant holding of Riverpark’s. That it was (is ?) is troubling to me, given my familiarity with Verso -- Verso was never (in the past 3 years) a credit that a prudent portfolio manager would own – at least not without hedging it (possibly by shorting the equity).
After reading the Riverpark commentary, I am rather dis-inclined to add to my Riverpark position at this time. Their explanation of Verso is absent some critical understanding of what they invested my money in. Verso should have been a VERY EASY problem to keep out of the portfolio.

FWIW, RSIVX is underperforming OSTIX by about 3% so far this year after outperforming it by around 2.6% last year. So this is no disaster though I do own it and I am a bit disappointed in two permanent losses of capital in a market that hasn't had all that many blow ups so far. If the discounts for closed end funds like DSL and BGH hold up for the rest of the year, come January I'll be sorely tempted to accept the greater risk and move there from RSIVX (tax considerations preclude me from considering it now).

@David_Snowball - Thanks for the announcement.
@heezsafe - I appreciate the pat on the back about the additions and site design. I'll share my observations on the site and through my Observer briefs.
With the complete work of TheShadow, The GainTrain and others, I've tried to make CGV a little better. Besides my Stats and Doghouse articles, I've incorporated additional notes into the CGV database. (For example, if a firm has yet to post their estimates, I'm making a note about when I found their information last season to help set expectations.)

With 17% in cash, and the fund assets at $2B as of 9/30/15 (which is higher than they said they'd let it get before closing), I'd say yes please to a closure for RNDLX, it's about time.
For those interested in the financial condition of Oaktree Capital, the subadvisor currently managing ~65% of RNOTX (RiverNorth's high income offering) and significant stakeholder in DoubleLine Capital (the subadvisor of RNDLX), OAK will being holding its earnings conference call today (10/29) at 11AM E.T.
http://ir.oaktreecapital.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=212597&p=irol-EventDetails&EventId=5206621
@TheShadow Probably should anticipate a liquidation notice re. RNEOX in the near future. The changes they made to the fund's modus operandi last year appear to have made no difference whatsoever; simply not a vehicle that is attracting any interest.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1370177/000139834415007116/fp0016523_497.htm
497 1 fp0016523_497.htm
RIVERNORTH FUNDS
RiverNorth/DoubleLine Strategic Income Fund
(Class I Ticker Symbol: RNSIX)
(Class R Ticker Symbol: RNDLX)
SUPPLEMENT DATED OCTOBER 28, 2015
TO THE PROSPECTUS DATED JANUARY 28, 2015
Effective after November 13, 2015, the RiverNorth/DoubleLine Strategic Income Fund (the "Fund") is closed to new investors. Unless you fit into one of the investor categories described below, you may not invest in the Fund.
You may purchase Fund shares through your existing Fund account and reinvest dividends and capital gains in the Fund if you are:
• A current Fund shareholder as of November 13, 2015;
• An investor who has previously entered into a letter of intent with the Fund or RiverNorth Capital Management, LLC prior to November 13, 2015;
• A participant in a qualified defined contribution retirement plan that offers the Fund as an investment option as of November 13, 2015;
• A wrap fee program or financial advisory firm charging asset-based fees with existing accounts as of November 13, 2015 purchasing shares on behalf of new and existing clients; or
• A client who maintains a managed account with RiverNorth Capital Management, LLC.
Except as otherwise noted, these restrictions apply to investments made directly with the RiverNorth/DoubleLine Strategic Income Fund through its Transfer Agent and investments made through financial institutions and/or intermediaries. Once an account is closed, the Fund will not accept additional investments unless you are one of the investors listed above. Investors may be required to demonstrate eligibility to purchase shares of the Fund before the Fund accepts an investment. Management reserves the right to (i) make additional exceptions that, in its judgment, do not adversely affect its ability to manage the Fund, (ii) reject any investment or refuse any exception, including those detailed above, that it believes will adversely affect its ability to manage the Fund, and (iii) close and re-open the Fund to new or existing shareholders at any time.
Dated: October 28, 2015
RIVERNORTH FUNDS
c/o ALPS Fund Services, Inc.
1290 Broadway, Suite 1100
1-888-848-7569
Please retain this supplement with your Prospectus for future reference.

@expatsp said: "You guys are a tough audience. According to M*, RSIVX is a whopping 1.6% behind its benchmark over the last year. Any fund with a 6% yield is going to have some volatility. I remember in David's original write up that the manager's promise was to deliver 6-8% yield and more or less stable capital over a five year cycle. It seems to me he's on his way to meet that goal."
I agree. But, it will be interesting to read the 3rd quarter commentary to get David Sherman's take on the fund's recent performance.
Also, I agree with expatsp that PTIAX looks interesting (thanks to @TSP_Transfer ) . It's current investment mix appears to make it a "hybrid high yield fund" (to invent another category). M* says the fund has about 40% in municipal bonds and B as the average credit quality. Successfully blending those two types of bonds in one fund could serve to even out year to year performance. I wonder what other funds do that?
Here is the three year chart:
Chart

Hi Bee, the chart pages for PDI and other cef's show both nav and price (but for TR on each, you have to go to the Performance page). As far as I've been able to tell, it's just when you start from an oef page and add a cef that you get TR on nav for the cef when you'd expect the actual TR, on price. It would help if they'd label it as such.
Also, again as far as I can tell, everywhere you see "total return" on M*; it includes reinvestment of distributions, whether it's on price or nav, as it says in the glossary:
"Expressed in percentage terms, Morningstar's calculation of total return is determined by taking the change in price, reinvesting, if applicable, all income and capital gains distributions during the period, and dividing by the starting price."
As a duffer in the game, I feel like I really have to have my brain on a roll to do cef research.

BAIRD MUTUAL FUNDS (No update yet, 10-25-15)
http://www.bairdfunds.com/distribution-information
BAIRD UPDATE AS of 11-08-2015
http://content.rwbaird.com/BairdFunds/PDF/Estimated-Capital-Gains-10-31-15.pdf
FMI MUTUAL FUNDS (No update yet, 10-25-15)
http://www.fiduciarymgt.com/fmifunds/general-fund-links/mutual-fund-tax-information/
GOODHAVEN
http://www.goodhavenfunds.com/media/pdfs/GOODX_2015_Estimated_Distributions.pdf
Note to The Shadow (Original Poster)
DIAMOND HILL:
Link for Diamond Hill has changed. It is now:
http://www.diamond-hill.com/wp-content/uploads/DHF-year-to-date-capital-gains-as-of-9-30-15.pdf | (i.e., End of Sep 2015)

"It" is CapGainsValet, of course. Mark Wilson, who helped mightily during last year's freakish capital gains season, just wrote to let us know that CapGainsValet officially reopened this week. Mark says, "I’ve made some upgrades and the site has been unofficially running for a couple of weeks. Now that I’ve gathered estimates from around 60 firms, we are officially going live this week."
Mark has generously agreed to provide some highlights and commentary on the capital gains season for the Observer's next several issues. He also expresses (entirely warranted) admiration for Shadow's CG thread here, and for your collective support of it.
Cheers to all,
David

Umm ... Re "purchased about a year ago". I may have missed that tidbit in your caption earlier.
If, as it sounds, the Roth itself was opened only a year ago, I'd wonder why one would invest a new Roth IRA in bonds in the first place?
Just a personal observation, but generally speaking a Roth should be positioned for growth. Bonds are currently yielding very low historical returns. The 10-year Treasury yields about 2%. Subtract management fees and one can only expect a 1-2% return on investment going forward (somewhat more with lower rated bonds).
There are, however, a few reasons for holding bonds in a Roth IRA.
--- #1 Age
--- #2 Seeking to protect outsized gains already earned inside a Roth that was originally invested in undervalued assets
--- #3 Estate planning
--- #4 As a smaller portion of a broad-based investment approach
--- #5 Tactically - while awaiting an expected buying opportunity later after an anticipated equity correction
(This last one, however, is a bit suspect because markets are very difficult to predict.)
In addition to the above, some individuals are simply uncomfortable taking risks in the markets and don't tolerate wide fluctuations in value very well. For those investors, conservative multi-asset income funds may be the right choice. As the prior discussion illuminates, RVSIX is hardly multi-asset in composition.

You guys are a tough audience. According to M*, RSIVX is a whopping 1.6% behind its benchmark over the last year. Any fund with a 6% yield is going to have some volatility.
I remember in David's original write up that the manager's promise was to deliver 6-8% yield and more or less stable capital over a five year cycle. It seems to me he's on his way to meet that goal.
But if stable capital is what you want on a daily or even monthly basis, you should certainly be elsewhere.
None of this is to say that there might not be better bond funds out there, and the ones listed here look good (PTIAX -- wow!) but I personally am giving RSIVX more of a chance.

Hi, Gary.
A SICAV, société d'investissement à capital variable, is one of two common forms of mutual fund in Europe. It's equivalent to an open-end fund. Seafarer runs a SICAV, roughly translated as Rising Asia. A SICAF is structured like a closed-end one. No idea at all of how many there are, though.
David

ETFs? Nope. There are just about 1,800 of them - with a new, much-needed Social Media Sentiment Index ETF on the way (whew!) - controlling only $3 trillion. You already know about the 7,700 '40 Act funds and the few hundred remaining CEFs are hardly a blip (with apologies to RiverNorth, to whom they're a central opportunity).
No, I mean the other 24,725 private funds, the existence of which is revealed in unintelligible detail in a recent SEC staff report entitled Private Fund Statistics, 4th Quarter 2014 (October 2015). That roster includes:
8,625 hedge funds, up by 1100 since the start of 2013
8,407 private equity funds, up by 1400 in that same period
4,058 "other" private funds
2,386 Section 4 private equity funds
1,789 real estate funds
1,541 qualifying hedge funds
1,327 securitized asset funds
504 venture capital funds
69 liquidity funds
49 Section 3 liquidity funds, these latter two being the only categories in decline
The number of private funds was up by 4,200 between Q1/2013 and Q4/2014 with about 200 new advisers entering the market. They have $10 trillion in gross assets and $6.7 trillion in net assets. (Nope, I don't know what gross assets are.) SEC-registered funds own about 1% of the shares of those private funds.
If Table 20 is to be credited, almost no hedge ever uses a high-frequency trading strategy. (You'll have to imagine me at my desk, nodding appreciatively.)
Sadly, the report explains nothing. You get tables of technical detail with nary a definition nor an explanation in sight. "Asset Weighted-Average Qualifying Hedge Fund Investor and Portfolio Liquidity" assures that that fund liquidity at seven days is about 58% while investor liquidity in that same period is about 15%. Not a word anywhere about what that means. An appendix defines about 10 terms, no one of which is related to their data reports.
As ever,
David

FPA Crescent Fund – Q3 2015 Update
Activity:
o Sold out of Norsk Hydro and Sulzer
o Added to several names, including Alcoa, CIT Group, Cisco, LPL Financial, General
Electric
o Purchased a handful of new equity positions and a few new fixed income positions,
including Glencore and Bombardier, in the quarter.
o Top contributors for the quarter were Google, Sound Holdings, Microsoft, Sears Holding
Corp. 6.625% Due 10/15/2018, and Bombardier 7.750% Due 3/15/2020. Oracle, Joy
Global, Aon, Citigroup and United Technologies were the top detractors for the period.
Positioning:
o Gross exposure to equities is circa 58% and net equity exposure is approximately 55%.
Fixed Income increased a bit to 3.4%.
o Added to private investments, specifically real estate partnerships.
o Cash is approximately 40%.
Outlook:
o Still challenging to find bargains, but is improving. We are looking at various areas of
opportunities, including Chinese internet, copper, oil/gas and Brazil
http://www.fpafunds.com/docs/fpa-crescent-fund/q3-2015-crescent-update.pdf?sfvrsn=2

The strategic income bond fund moniker probably ought to be outlawed - as it tends more to obfuscate than enlighten. That term can refer to a wide variety of approaches. As heezsafe notes, this fund invests largely in lower quality bonds rated BBB and below. While BBB technically denotes investment grade, these are considered "speculative" - having some characteristics of investment grade and some of non-investment grade. The holdings in AAA (likely U.S. government backed) is designed to hedge against the risks of all those lower rated bonds. That's probably where the strategic part of the name originates.
Andy's link (below) puts the non-investment grade portion at 68%.The 1.24% ER is a tad high - but not unusual for funds investing in lower rated bonds. Apparently, more intensive research is required on the manager's part.
I don't have any wisdom to offer or bone to pick here. Like Ralph I've chosen to hold a substantial amount of income producing assets in my older Roth IRA - seeking to protect some of the big gains from equities following the '07-'09 meltdown. FWIW, these 3 have filled the bill for me: RPSIX, DODIX, DODLX. (The last one has fared even worse, however, than RSVIX, being exposed to international bonds.). If I were to recommend one to Ralph it would be RPSIX - along with a healthy dose of patience!
(Earlier posted bond quality ratings removed per Andy's helpful note below.)

@bee: Your question on tracking a portfolio is thought provoking. Here’s my 2 cents.
I am retired, thus I am in the withdrawal stage, not the accumulation phase. I use a Lazy Portfolio Scheme to implement an asset allocation of 50/50 stocks to bonds.
I use Excel worksheets as follows:
A “Portfolio” worksheet tracks the portfolio (I also have a “Temp” and “Rebalance” worksheets described later). At the top are today’s date, current value, value at end of last year, and YTD percent gain/loss. My current YTD is a loss of 2.114% that includes all drawdowns to date including most of my Minimum Required Distribution (MRD).
NEXT is the “Assets” table of current price, shares owned, value and category (Domestic Stock, International Stock, Fixed Income, and Cash) for each asset. It is arranged in alphabetic order to accommodate brokerage watch lists and Excel LOOKUP functions.
I use the following categories:
Domestic Stock
International Stock
Fixed Income
Cash
NEXT are details for each account in my portfolio (Rollover IRA, TIAA Traditional, A-Trust, B-Trust, Individual, Experimental, and Credit Union). For each account the Price, Shares, Value and category of each asset are listed. A summary by category shows the value, and percent of each category in the account.
LAST is a Consolidated Details for all accounts. I use a separate table for each of the categories. For each asset I list Price, Sum of shares from all accounts, Value, Current Allocation, and Target Allocation.
Thus I can visualize my portfolio in terms of assets, assets in each account, and assets sorted by category.
A “Temp” worksheet provides an intermediary for specifying current asset prices. I copy values from a Watchlist in my Fidelity account. I paste the values from the watchlist into the Temp worksheet and then copy the price column to the portfolio worksheet. (Note that I have arranged my assets in alphabetical order for this to work.) The Temp worksheet can be used for general calculations with the restriction that no other worksheet should link to any cell in the Temp worksheet.
A “Rebalance” worksheet calculates buys and sells when I rebalance my asset allocation portfolio. In general I compare the current allocation of an asset to a target allocation and do buys and sells to rebalance to target values.
First I create a “Target Allocation Table” that shows target allocations for each of the four categories and the assets in each category. I initially set the target values in collaboration with a fee-only Financial Advisor. The values by major category:
29% Domestic Stock ETFs
21% International Stock ETFs
45% Fixed IncomeS
5% Cash
I won’t go into details of this worksheet, but have the following remarks:
1. There will be a variety of account types: As one gets older different financial situations occur, e.g. trust accounts, retirement, death/divorce of spouse, marriage, etc. There needs to be flexibility to handle financial resources that are not mutual funds or ETFs. My situation has accounts:
Trust-A
Trust-B (with its separate tax-ID)
Rollover IRA
Individual (used as a conduit between other accounts and my bank)
Experimental
Credit Union
Life can become more complicated in retirement!
2. I fine-tune allocations between accounts: Although my Rebalance worksheet does an initial calculation of buys and sells, I manually fine-tune the allocations for the following reasons:
a. I want to have sufficient cash in the IRA to fund my MRD from that account.
b. I want to take capital gains in tax deferred accounts, not taxable accounts.
c. In the Trust-B account I want to minimize taxes so I over allocate a muni-bond fund.
d. The Experimental account is exempt from buys and sells of a rebalance operation.
3. I combine two or more assets into a “Combined Asset”. For example I am taking a Minimum Required Distribution (MRD) from a TIAA Traditional account that does not allow me to trade this asset. (There are other options I could have selected, but immediately liquidating the entire asset was not available.) I have solved this by combining the TIAA with my BND ETF and allocate a percentage to the combined quantity that I call “Total Bond Market/Long-Term Fixed Income” Within this combined asset, I assign TIAA’s target allocation to its current allocation, and the BND target allocation to the difference of the target allocation assigned to the Combined Asset and the TIAA current allocation. Another example might be a $10,000 T-Bill that can only be sold in its entirety. Yes, I know this is a forum about mutual funds and ETFs, but stuff happens and we need to adapt.
4. I rebalance based on a calendar event, not a market event or a difference between current and target asset percentages. I have chosen the middle of August and February. I want to avoid any semblance of market timing.
I hope you find this useful.