I don't think it is about whether an alternative fund is required in a portfolio. We need to think beyond M* classification. A lot of funds short. FPACX is one example. Let's not forget CGMFX which used to be everyone's darling. At the turn of the previous decade it got where it did by shorting.
There are certain managers who know WTF they are doing and others who don't. We need to try and get some information on the management. Heavy personal ownership in funds like these should IMO be an absolutely essential requirement. Robeco seems to know what they are doing. Maybe there are others who do too.
I will own FVALX. Regardless of whether M* classifies it as L/S or not. It is silly to reach a random conclusion such as L/S fund is not needed in any portfolio and then simply sell your fund. Equally silly is making the claim L/S fund not needed in any portfolio and still starting a thread related to L/S funds.

Fundalarm,
Responding to all of you separately so that I won't end up with a big message.
I sold out all my bond funds a while ago and in cash now. Sorry, I did not provide that info, and I should have done that.
Burnt my fingers in 2000-02 downturn by investing in stocks, and converted to funds completely from 2005-06 (transition period). I am regular at M* forums since 2005 and at fundalarm/MFO from 2006. What I am saying is I am not a novice investor to follow the crowd. I invested in CGMFX as a speculative play, after its putrified performance, and after all the performance chasers left. Since that fund like feast or famine, I stayed in it for 3 years before I quite no loss or no gain.
I am of same age as you.
Have not checked portfolio in X-ray in the recent past but I do that on frequient basis, being a regular visitor of M*. I play around with their tool once in a while. This portfolio is purely a retirement one. Too many funds because these are across 4 accounts of ours. I have thought about consolidating them into two but V'rd does not offer all the funds that I want, which are avaiable in TDA. For example, Artisan funds.
Finally, close to 75% of the funds are in solid core funds (VDIGX, FPACX, VHGEX, ARTKX, ARTGX, etc.). Obviously Grandeur peak and other EM fund are not part of that core.

RGHVX?

I guess this one is similar to SWHEX too. Notice I left HSGFX out which I own. Funds that simply invest and hedge exposure I left out. To me they are not "alternative". I mean even FPACX and CGMFX take short positions, and I am not looking at them that way either.
Not to say RGHVX should 't be worthy of consideration otherwise.

Let me clarify what I meant by "monitor". I'm trying to ask questions to myself and answer them to see if these are candidates worthy of purchase. I already own some of these, so it makes sense to go see what you thought about the fund doing for you and whether you screwed up .
For example, I've been toying with RNBWX. So today I'm asking myself this question: How does a fund with 3 quarters of its assets in cash, strategy of using options for protection, still happen to drop 1.36% yesterday?
Another example. LSOFX. Is this simply another fund like CGMFX, which except for trading more frequently, is simply making upside and downside bets, instead of actually managing risk in any meaningful way. In other words, is this simply another fund like which can screw up on the long positions AND short positions and actually end up performing worse than any long only or short only fund? With 1 third of assets in cash it still managed to lose 2% yesterday.
Finally, are funds like TFSMX, WMCNX, WBMAX, etc. really the kind of funds you want to be invested in rather than PMHDX or ARLSX or RLSFX?

When you are retired and watching things like a hawk (an ignorant hawk, not the same as an owl), you try to be only tempted by such things, no more. As I said earlier, I have one of my children in FLVCX significantly (for her), and at the moment she does no watching of its behaviors. I actually misdescribed her monitoring above, as she does not need to avert her eyes; she does not pay attention.
I hope your own investing goes quite as you need more or less. It would not hurt to put a few *spare* thou in CGMFX and FLVCX if you could afford to lose half of it (he said blithely).

If I had spare moneys I would put some again into CGMFX, hoping for regression to some mean or other :) .

That is not a bad idea at all.
Heebner is super smart. It would not surprise me if he had a regression to the mean. I would not count him out. He is one of the most knowledgeable investors out there.

He is 74 in September, not nearing 80. (Why guess when we have the Internet?)
If I had spare moneys I would put some again into CGMFX, hoping for regression to some mean or other :) .
As for methodology and studiability thereof, see:
http://www.hedgefundletters.com/cgm/
Yes, he is the fund, and it has never been otherwise.
rjb, half my moves are great in hindsight. I thought in those gogo years that I did not want to be in a balanced vehicle even run by him. Recall that the '80s were almost invariably gogo years too; it was an amazing time for anyone who suffered through the 1970s. Anyway, as soon as a focused variant was announced, I was in bigtime. And after the r-e slump, or the start of it, I wanted to dive into CGMRX. I am out of all Heebner now and will stay out.

The only thing one needs to understand about CGMFX right now is manager age which is well into his 70s. Might be nearing 80s. If you own it is one thing. If you are buying new position, you are crazy.
If there was ever a fund that's the manager, this is it. When he goes, it cannot be the same fund.

You made a great move in moving it all to CGMFX in 1997.
Yeah, he is famously nerdy and studious. Probably one of the most studious managers out there. Fully committed to investing. He has few other interests in life, and rarely takes a vacation. Probably works very long hours. IIRC, I think his wife may also be a mutual fund manager, at least that's what I read several years ago.
I remember the days when his CGMRX trounced everything in sight. No other real estate fund could even come close. I notice from his calendar year performances there too, that he is very often either in the top 10% or bottom 10%. Amazing. Somebody should undertake a serious study of his investing methodology. Unfortunately, he doesn't say enough in his annual and semiannual reports to really divulge.
Even now, he has a huge short position in Treasuries in CGMFX. Quite an investor.

More errors on my part: but what happened was in spring of 1992 I put 5k in CGM Mutual Fund, averted my eyes, and just after Labor Day 1997 moved it all (it had more than doubled) to CGMFX, averting my eyes further until early spring 2011, when fearing downsizing and earlier-than-desired retirement, I rolled half of it over into something more prudent (of course anything would be more prudent) but left half w Heebner, except moved into CGMRX, which, having still averted my eyes, I finally bailed out of spring of last year. So the total rollover came to >65k, not 165k, my bad. From 5k, with no additions. My point naturally was that the only way to have even been able to have exposure to some lucky timing with the guy in all of those ~21y, achieving >3.5 doublings, was almost never to watch. He's a one-man shop, famously nerdy and studious. Amazingly (to me), he lives like a block or three from Tillinghast. And now yet again he is pronounced fallen.

davidmoran, M* lists the 15-year return of CGMFX as 14.52%. The fund inception date was Sept. 3, 1997. You "bailed a couple years ago", so if you got in at inception, you were in very roughly 15 years. An initial investment of $5,000 compounds to $38,211 over 15 years at a 14.52% return, with all distributions reinvested.
Anyone who got into this fund in time for the 2000 and 2001 performance hit a grand slam, and I'm sure you were one of them.
I think his 2000 and 2001 performance will go down in investing history as truly without equal. Same goes for his 2007 performance.
Perhaps just as surprising is how poorly he did in 2008, 2009 and 2011.
In 2011, he underperformed the market by over 28 percentage points!
In 2009 he underperformed the market by over 16 percentage points.
What a party in 2007, but then the hangover in 2008 and 2009.

FYI: One of the most fascinating mutual funds to watch over the past 15 years has been CGM Focus Fund.
I disagree with most of the things this fund does. I don't recommend it to anyone. And yet sometimes CGM Focus (MFD:CGMFX) is an amazing performer.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/top-funds-shareholders-missed-the-party-2014-07-23/print?guid=58338099-4139-4521-8BD8-0B535591F0C6
M* Snapshot Of CGMFX: http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/cgmfx/f?t=cgmfx
Lipper Snapshot OF CGMFX: http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/cgmfx
CGMFX Is Ranked # 248 In The (LCB) Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/large-blend/cgm-focus-fund/cgmfx

Huh? You saw that it changed managers in summer 06, right?
Since then it has outperformed, with notably less 08-09 dip, FAIRX, FLVCX, CGMFX, WVALX, FLPSX (speaking of MC space), DODGX, matched PRBLX, but outdone by YAFFX, to name a few.
Wish I had owned it.
Without gloating I would suggest: you shoulda bought. New manager!
This factual analysis is from hardly the most diligent investor.

Anyone who likes this kind of strongly opinionated and focused play should, I'd suggest, take a position in CGMFX, and FLVCX too, though Soviero does diversify significantly compared with Berk and Heebner.

@davidmoran: Interesting comment. I would guess that CGMFX and FAIRX are the two most 'focused'/concentrated/non-diversified mutual funds out there today. I think you hit it right on, that both Heebner and Berkowitz are strongly opinionated, and it seems to me they have some parallels too. IIRC, Heebner had extraordinary performance results with CGMFX for the first many years since inception. Truly amazing, not unlike Berkowitz's success at FAIRX from inception through the end of 2010. Then after his success in 2007, Heebner fell down hard, and has yet to get back up again. Berkowitz fell down very hard in 2011, but did very well in 2012 and 2013.
Interesting that they both started their funds at inauspicious times (years), leading up to the big bear that started March 15, 2000, and both had unexpectedly positive performances during that bear.
I'm surprised Heebner has stayed down this long. He's highly educated, and apparently fanatically passionate about investing, to the exclusion of almost everything else. He rarely takes a vacation. Hard to explain the turnover in his fund. He's really much more of a trader, his turnover is that high. I think Heebner is super smart and knowledgeable. He was just recently on WealthTrack with Consuelo Mack, and I was impressed with him. He seems to me to be a gambler with his investments, but I'm sure he sees that very differently.
As stated elsewhere, I believe Berkowitz will beat the market over the long term. I'm just not going to take that ride along with him anymore. Perhaps all the fame and adulation he received over the years, and all that goes with being the recipient of the Morningstar Equity Manager of the Decade in 2010.....I think that may have changed Bruce. He became a Rock Star; he became possibly the most famous mutual fund manager still actively managing a fund.

Anyone who likes this kind of strongly opinionated and focused play should, I'd suggest, take a position in CGMFX, and FLVCX too, though Soviero does diversify significantly compared with Berk and Heebner.

There are various flavors of Long/Short funds. The LSOFX kind are the ones where the best that could happen is they are right on the Long side AND the Short side. The worst is they are wrong on both sides.
Needless to say LSOFX is not "conservative" fund, just because Long/Short is in the name or in M* category.
However the PIMCO fund I feel is different. It's masquerading as Long Short. It is EITHER long or short, like CGMFX. It is making wild calls. Needless to say CGMFX is not classified as Long/Short fund by M*. Then again, I give two hoots about M* classification.
I'm going to watch LSOFX. Trading funds is allowed if you do it right.

Looking to form a list of mutual fund managers with at least 30 years of fund management experience and the present funds they manage.
On my list so far:
William Browne, of Tweedy Browne Value - TWEBX, TBGVX
Dan Fuss, Lommis Sayles and Managers - MGFIX, LSBRX
William Danoff, Fidelity Contrafund - FCNTX
Donald Yacktman, Yacktman Service Fund - YACKX, YAFFX
Larry Puglia, T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth Fund - TRBCX
Ken Heebner CGM Focus - CGMFX, CGMRX, LOMMX
Charles Akre - AKREX
Dave Ellison Hennessey Funds - HLFNX
Charles Royce - PENNX
Jerry Palmieri - FKGRX
Mutual Funds that have been around for more than 30 years:
ING Corporate Leaders (LEXCX) 1936
MFS Massachusetts Investors Fund (MITTX) 1924
Putnam Investors Fund (PINVX) 1925
Pioneer Fund (PIODX) 1928
Century Shares Fund (CENSX) 1928
Vanguard Wellington Fund (VWELX) 1929
CGM Mutual Fund (LOMMX) 1929
Seligman Common Stock Fund (SCSFX) 1930
Fidelity Fund (FFIDX) 1930
Dodge & Cox Balance Fund (DODBX) 1931
The Investment Company of America (AIVSX) 1934
If you have any additions I would appreciate your list...thanks

Reply to @scott: Not sure I understand your reply. I was merely stating funds categorized as L/S by M* not always L/S. FVALX, CGMFX, JORDX, BULLX all hedge using options. Sometimes M* says it is L/S some times it does not.
I am simply saying look at the fund to see if it is indeed L/S. Just like Bill Miller was never a "value" investor even though "value" was in the name of his fund. I'm just pointing out FMLSX managers are reluctant shorters at best. JMHO.

Latest CGMFX report says fund is short treasuries with 27% of assets. Up from 20% in first quarter.

Hmm...I've been holding off on buying SEEDX. It perfectly meets my criteria for moving my portfolio to all go anywhere funds. For some reason, my gut has told me to hold off on this fund. However, I will seriously re-examine my decision.
I think exiting CGMFX whose manager is 70+ and going with younger managers might be most prudent. Speaking of which Akre is not getting any younger. Unfortunately, we have to worry about such things.
One stupid question. If HERRO has $3M in SEEDX, how much does he have in his own funds. I mean SAIs don't disclose exact amount, just "over $1M". What I really want to know is if HERRO is investing his own money in a more nimble fund while not in his own bloated funds.
Sorry, don't want to piss anyone off. I'm just a cynical quickly-getting-old bast***