Hi David,
Thanks so much. Do you think of Oakseed as similar to BMPEX in terms of the role it would play in your portfolio? They seem to both have interests aligned with investors, value focus, U.S. equity focus, capital preservation, sleep well at night type funds -- although Seedx can go anywhere if they so choose. thanks

Hi, guys.
The question of the fund's tax efficiency came up in the call. Oakseed just published their preliminary distribution estimates:
Record Date: December 6, 2013 Ex-Dividend Date: December 9, 2013
Investor Class Estimated Income Per Share*: $0.03 to $0.04
Investor Class Estimated Short-Term Capital Gain Per Share*: $0.04 to $0.05
Institutional Class Estimated Income Per Share*: $0.05 to $0.06
Institutional Class Estimated Short-Term Capital Gain Per Share*: $0.04 to $0.05
No Long-Term Capital Gain Distribution
The (*) just reinforces the "estimated, not yet final" piece. The fund's current NAV is $12.15.
David

Assuming that it's all long term capital gains, should any consideration be given to selling "covered" vs "uncovered" shares of the same fund?

Comparing FPNIX directly with BSBIX, the Baird fund seems to generally outperform FPNIX by a few basis points. But that comes at a cost - BSBIX swooned with much of the market in 2008, FPNIX didn't. (And BSBIX made up most of the difference the next year.) With BSBIX, you're getting a well managed, vanilla fund. FPNIX may place a bit more emphasis on capital preservation - it has the flexibility to move around more.
It likely won't make too much of a difference one way or the other. Looking at the yields, though, I have to wonder whether it might not make more sense to simply ladder CDs for the short end of the portfolio. One could use, say, 18 month CDs, using 5% of the money allocated to short term holdings each month to buy a CD.
For example, GE Capital Bank is currently paying 1.15% on 18 month CDs and will pay out interest monthly if you want it. Trading about 0.15% of yield for not worrying about rising rates seems worth considering. In New York, Doral Bank is paying 1.20% on a 12 month CD, and 1.25% on a 18 month CD (and will also send you the interest if you prefer).
One could open a suite of 5 year CDs at Ally Bank. These pay 1.60%, and have only a 60 day withdrawal penalty (if opened by Dec 7th). If you want to bail after a year, you'll have made about the same yield as with BSBIX (current SEC yield). For any CDs held longer, the yield is greater. That is, unless rates go up - and then one can pay the 60 day penalty and start over (or buy into a short duration bond fund then, without having lost principal). Having multiple CDs would enable you to get money out of one of them without closing all the deposits.
No matter what one does, it's hard to eek out much of a return without giving up a good measure of safety. Any differences in yield or safety among the alternative above are relatively minor (compared with, say, long term bonds).
With respect to TGBAX, try looking at Firstrade. Here's a thread we had on Hasentab's funds that covered buying them.
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/index.php?p=/discussion/7271/emglo-debt-funds-michael-hasenstab/p1

It is one of very, very few equity or allocation funds that has NEVER lost money (ignoring inflation or cost of money) over any 3 year period for the past 20 years. See article on Permanent Loss of Capital in David's current commentary:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2013/11/november-1-2013/
I guess the 6 Million Dollar Question: Will the fund's strategy work as well for the next 20 years, like it has done for the past 20 years?

Depends why you bought it. If you want to make money in the near term - sell it and go buy something else. (Ted has already declared that the S&P will be higher at year's end:-) But if your diversification strategy includes owning some out of favor assets to balance-off the hot investments you own, than like Jerry, myself, and others you may still want to own it. Most of the things PRPFX owns are out of favor and have been for a couple years. Let's see .... Gold for instance. Last I checked, the gold fund I bailed out of this spring, OPGSX, was off 40+% YTD - and MAY GO LOWER! Foreign currencies held by the fund have suffered this year against the mighty dollar. And longer duration Treasury bonds? We all know the story there.
I don't have the skills, capital, temperament or desire to go out in the market and buy gold bullion, silver, Swiss Francs, global real estate, aggressive growth stocks, and long duration U.S. Treasury bonds. Yet I'd like some exposure there to balance my more traditional equity and domestic bond holdings. So the fund works for me whether it makes money or not. However, not everyone would agree with holding this fund - or the assets I've mentioned separately for that matter.
We've been round and round on the board about the issue of assigning funds to "peer groups." Bob C has had a lot to say on that. Frankly, I find such comparisons always difficult - but especially difficult and suspect for something as uniquely structured as PRPFX.

FYI:
Regards,
Tedhttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=242414700
Lipper Fixed-Income Category Returns: http://www.allaboutfunds.com/performance/fixed_iops.pdf

Even the inventor of the permanent portfolio thought of it as a capital preservation tool and NOT a growth tool. Underperformance now can be compared to outperformance in 2008. I use it as one of my chicken ways to invest in gold as part of capital preservation . My other tool is a Canada fund.Neither has done well lately but in total its only about 5% of my portfolio so its easy to "stay the course.
Bottom line if you area conservative investor something like Vanguard Wellesley VWINX and or T.R.P Capital Appreciation PRWCX (a bolder choice ) could be combined with a portion in Permanent Portfolio.
There are some on this board who are interested in always doing well and trading to do that. Tax considerations encourage a buy and hold startegy in my taxable account. I try a little to market time in my 401k( though I call it rebalancing at random times) but while my fund choice in that account is fine none are the smallish funds often discussed here.

bnath001-
For some of your safe taxable money, you should look at I-bonds. Your money is 100% safe and you also get inflation protection and tax deferral. There are not many investments that can guarantee that. If you have already accumulated a lot of money from your career you may not need much more real growth in capital. Just keeping up with inflation may be good enough.
Since you are a "tech" guy, you should check out the online firm Wealthfront as an alternative to a financial advisor. They only charge 0.25% a year management fee and zero commissions for the underlying ETF trading. Over 10% of Twitter's employees use them to manage the wealth acquired from the recent IPO.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/michael-santoli/twitter-insiders-flock-to-high-tech--low-touch-wealth-advisor-174159109.html
Best,
George..

I think you are right MaxRialystock.
My biggest fear: Loosing the principal. Being in IT indusustry, don't know how much money I can make in the future...I don't want to loose the capital I have carefullty saved. that is the biggest concern.
I don't if I can give the reins to a professional and sleep welll.
Looks like I need to go to Himalayas and meditate for a while and think this through.
Regards...always respected opinions from this forum
nath

or too many somewhat similar funds, and the company goes through the efficiency/ cost cutting exercise. or the initial fad idea of the fund (like multiple internet funds in the 1999) no longer works. or a unique "star" pm departs/ leaves/dies.
since mutual funds are valued daily and, generally, invest in liquid securities, you'll get your portion of the fund's value. the liquidation usually takes anywhere from a month to several days depending on the liquidity of the underlying asset class. some credit or microcap stuff being worked through for several weeks, and large cap equity, in a day or two. you do get somewhat increased transaction costs imbedded in the latest NAV, so it is probably doesn't make sense to hang on until the end. also, any merger or liquidation causes realization of various gains and losses and might trigger significant taxes if held in the taxable account.

AMANX is up rather nicely. You did well to take profits. You have not been in it for very long, though. Expect SHORT-term gains, and the higher tax that goes with it. If you have a plan, stick to it. Then all this market-hype will not be what makes you decide to trade or sell or buy. Me? I just simply waited way too long. My "problem" is on the other side of the coin, at the other extreme.

ING Funds
http://www.ingfunds.com/MutualFunds/TaxCenter/Capital-Gain-Distribution
Westwood Funds
http://www.westwoodfunds.com/pdf/distribution-estimates.pdf
TCW Funds
https://www.tcw.com/~/media/Downloads/MetWest Funds/Distribution and Tax Information/MWFUNDsb.ashx
Van Eck Funds
https://www.vaneck.com/van-eck-funds-2013-yearend-distributions-pdf
BBH Funds
http://www.bbhfunds.com/wps/wcm/connect/837e6a8041d73937b969f92abe14e333/2013+Estimated+Year+End+Distributions.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&=true&id=1384550286879
Buffalo Funds
http://www.buffalofunds.com/media/pdfs/2013_Estimated_Distributions.pdf
Vulcan Value Partners
http://vulcanvaluepartners.com/uploads/file/Capital Gains/MF Estimated Cap Gains 2013.pdf
Sentinel Funds
http://www.sentinelinvestments.com/pdf/capgainsdist-est2013.pdf
For Baird Large Cap Fund investors
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1282693/000089418913006371/baird-lrgcap_497e.htm

Reply to @MikeW: I started with this Fund in March directly from the Fund.Good option for beginning investors or younger people with limited investment funds.
Automatic Investment Plan $100 Initial
Subsequent Investments $50
I listened to the call and was impressed with both managers and their explanations of their thought and investment processes.I personally see it as a Steve Romick (FPACX) style without the 14 $billion asset base.Up and down the capital structure of any sized publicly traded Co.across the globe.Will hold micro-caps when appropriate but will not hold Private Equity.Both repeatedly used the term "sleep well at night investment."
Full holdings as of 9/30/2013
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13183794/Form N-Q/Oakseed Opportunity Fund Form N-Q September 30, 2013.pdf
TEVA 5% of holdings in the news today.11/20/2013 via Seeking Alpha
Teva surges on upgrade, merger rumors
Shares of Teva (TEVA +3.7%) are trading notably higher on the session.Helping the cause is Susquehanna, where analysts have upgraded the stock to Positive from Neutral.Price target is now $50 (from $43).Meanwhile, the rumor mill is alive with talk of a possible merger with either Mylan (MYL +0.8%) or Valeant (VRX +0.1%)."People are looking for the company to do something,” an S&P analyst quoted by Bloomberg says.

Are the funds changing as well or just the 401k company?
If the funds are changing, then you need to see how the old funds are being mapped to the new funds. If you have new funds, and the old ones are not being mapped to "how" you like it, then it may be best to go "cash" (cash here is the money market fund within the 401k). And over time, you can easily average into the new funds.
Two personal experiences: when my old employer changed 401k providers, they did away with all actively managed funds, and provided only target date funds as well as self-directed brokerage. They mapped all old funds to new target-date funds based on employee age. I moved into "cash", and then use the self-directed brokerage (TR Price).
And in my wife's case, she got better (and cheaper) funds and old-to-new funds were mapped correctly to how we would want it, so we didn't do anything; we allowed the conversion to be processed as mapped out (unfortunately, the conversion was done on one of those days when the market closed very high). In hindsight, we could have gone into cash, and dollar-cost-average into the new funds.
I guess it all depends on the quality of funds, size of portfolio, and time horizon. If you are sitting on high gains, I will move to cash now, and then average into new funds (especially if you have new funds that "may" change your asset allocation). And if portfolio size is not too big, and you like old-to-new mapping of funds then sit tight.

Dear friends,
We had a nice talk with the Oakseed guys last night. A recording of the call is available on Chorus Call's servers now, and we'll be moving it to our server at month's end. I was struck,particularly, that their singular focus in talking about the fund is "complete alignment of interests." A few claims particularly stood out:

1. their every investable penny in is in the fund.
   
2. they intend their personal gains to be driven by the fund's performance and not by the acquisition of assets and fees
   
3. they'll never manage separate accounts or a second fund
   
4. they created an "Institutional" class as a way of giving shareholders a choice between buying the fund NTF with a marketing fee or paying a transaction fee but not having the ongoing expense; originally they had a $1 million institutional minimum because they thought institutional shares had to be that pricey. Having discovered that there's no logical requirement for that, they dropped the institutional minimum by 99%.
   
5. they'll close on the day they come across an idea they love but can't invest it
   
6. they'll close if the fund becomes big enough that they have to hire somebody to help with it (no analysts, no marketers, no administrators - just the two of them)
   

Highlights on the investing front were two-fold:

first, they don't intend to be "active investors" in the sense of buying into companies with defective managements and then trying to force management to act responsibly. Their time in the private equity/venture capital world taught them that that's neither their particular strength nor their passion.
second, they have the ability to short stocks but they'll only do so for offensive - rather than defensive - purposes. They imagine shorting at an alpha-generating tool, rather than a beta-managing one. But it sounds a lot like they'll not short, given the magnitude of the losses that a mistaken short might trigger, unless there's evidence of near-criminal negligence (or near-Congressional idiocy) on the part of a firm's management. They do maintain a small short position on the Russell 2000 because the Russell is trading at an unprecedented high relative to the S&P and attempts to justify its valuations require what is, to their minds, laughable contortions (e.g., that the growth rate of Russell stocks will rise 33% in 2014 relative to where they are now.

Their reflections of 2013 performance were both wry and relevant. The fund is up 21% YTD, which trails the S&P500 by about 6.5%. Greg started by imagining what John's reaction might have been if Greg said, a year ago, "hey, JP, our fund will finish its first year up more than 20%." His guess was "gleeful" because neither of them could imagine the S&P500 up 27%. While trailing their benchmark is substantially annoying, they made these points about performance:

• beating an index during a sharp market rally is not their goal, outperforming across a complete cycle is.
  
• the fund's cash stake - about 16% - and the small short position on the Russell 2000 doubtless hurt returns.
  
• nonetheless, they're very satisfied with the portfolio and its positioning - they believe they offer "substantial downside protection," that they've crafted a "sleep well at night" portfolio, and that they've especially cognizant of the fact that they've put their friends', families' and former investors' money at risk - and they want to be sure that they're being well-rewarded for the risks they're taking.
  

John described their approach as "inherently conservative" and Greg invoked advice given to him by a former employer and brilliant manager, Don Yacktman: "always practice defense, Greg."
When, at the close, I asked them what one thing they thought a potential investor in the fund most needed to understand in order to know whether they were a good "fit" for the fund, Greg Jackson volunteered the observation "we're the most competitive people alive, we want great returns but we want them in the most risk-responsible way we can generate them." John Park allowed "we're not easy to categorize, we don't adhere to stylebox purity and so we're not going to fit into the plans of investors who invest by type."
They announced that they should be NTF at Fidelity within a week. Their contracts with distributors such as Schwab give those platforms latitude to set the minimums, and so some platforms reflect the $10,000 institutional minimum, some picked $100,000 and others maintain the original $1M. It's beyond the guys' control.
Finally, they anticipate a small distribution this year, perhaps $0.04-0.05/share. That reflects two factors. They manage their positions to minimize tax burdens whenever that's possible and the steadily growing number of investors in the fund diminishes the taxable gain attributed to any of them.
We'll post a link to the .mp3 as soon as it becomes available.
As ever,
David

Thanks, nice article.
Lately though, I've been remembering that Robert Merton and Myron Scholes also were awarded the Noble Prize. They went on to co-found Long-Term Capital Management.

Reply to @AndyJ:
It depends. On rare occasions, shares purchased 1-2 years ago have gained less than the projected distribution per share. From a tax perspective, it then makes sense to sell just those shares, taking care that the sale settles before the record date. You don't need to sell all your shares. You do need to use actual cost and specific share identification.
You avoid the distribution, paying cap gains tax (if any) instead on your 1-2 year appreciation instead of the higher distribution (some of which might even be ordinary income). You can repurchase the shares the next day (ex-div).
One might ask what happens to the dividends you don't get. The total dollars to be paid out by the fund are fixed (it's the total cap gains and income generated by the portfolio). If you sell your shares, then this total pot is divided among fewer shareholders, so each remaining shareholder gets a proportionately bigger distribution. In essence, you're dumping the tax liability of your distribution onto everyone else.

Tip, if you sell now and switch to an index fund, remember to factor in that you'll owe tax on all the cap gains you've racked up over the past 20 years.

The Growth fund paid a Short-Term Capital Gain Per Share of $0.92390
& Long-Term Capital Gain Per Share $12.30854 (ouch!).
http://meridianfund.com/index.php?cID=237
It may not continue to pay large distribution amounts in the future. Was there a manager change (?) or possibly the huge run up in the markets would have contributed to the large payout. The Vanguard S&P 500 has a large potential for distribution, but has not paid anything for some time.