Reply to @catch22: I misused the term though late Peter Bernstein's Book "Capital Ideas Evolving" discusses portable alpha and PIMCO Stocks Plus fund were also discussed during that discussion. Stocks Plus funds in PIMCO also invest in derivatives and invest the collateral in TIPS similar to Real Estate and Commodities fund.

I dunno if I am even able to describe for you how I've done what I've done. Due to work/career surprises, in one sense, I've always been reacting rather than planning, playing catch-up rather than being even ABLE to be sitting where I want to sit.... But we all live through all sorts of variables. I wouldn't be able to invest at all without being lucky. I've mostly been using inheritance and 403b money.
The 403b is gone, it's now in a Rollover IRA. To reduce tax burden, I have no Roth. I went with Traditional IRA, all the way. In the lowest tax bracket, there's no advantage to paying Uncle Sam NOW rather than later. (Trad. = tax deferred. Roth= pay now, but free-and-clear later, when you claim the money.)
In broad terms, I did a lotta homework, listened to the tv talking heads and read the guys who write on money. Barry Ritholtz is good, and Danielle Park, in Toronto. But along the way, you need to pick-up on the buzzwords and twist-phrases. These tv guests and hosts, and the writers mostly SEPARATE money from anything having to do with ethics. Money can be used for good purposes or it can be a tool to screw others. We're in a dirty game. The very nature of the Market is one-upmanship. Digest that fact, and move on, or else you'll just have to look on from the sidelines...
I became aware of the various niches which together, comprise the Market. I have maintained the KISS Principle. I never went into an investment too complex for me to understand how it worked. Using the information at hand, I created my own Big Picture of what's going on in the Macro sense. But that's just background, not the basis for particular fund choices. I looked and looked and looked at a million fund profiles at Morningstar, starting with those recommended here at MFO.
-Always go "no-load."
-When one particular sector is swooning, that's when to buy-in. I don't mean strange, complex, arcane derivatives. I mean, when the Western World is booming, like S & P, Dow Jones and Germany & England, more than likely, EM bonds will be drooping, so get in THEN.
-Don't try to predict tops and bottoms. You should have a long-term horizon anyhow.
-Babysit, but don't micro-manage your holdings. Watch them ride up and down. Hopefully up, overall. If you hold a fund for, let's say two years, and it has been a "dog" all along, dump it in favor of something else.
-Watch the PROPORTION of your holdings toward one another. Try not to let winners become so big that they become their own source of risk for you. If you have HALF of your stuff in a single fund, a bad day will make you sick to your stomach. But after all, if you're not going to need the money soon and you are generally satisfied with Fund X despite a one-day disaster, don't unload it just on the basis of one bad day.
These days, my biggest holding is in EM Bonds: PREMX. I won't be using the money for at least a couple of years, so I'm still reinvesting the dividends. (That's another thing. You want your money to grow? Re-invest all cap. gains and divs.)
Bonds are inherently less volatile than equities. PREMX never is down more than 3 cents or so in a day. So although it's way too big a portion of my stuff, I can live with it. You'll learn to make these kinds of judgment-calls for yourself, too.
...So, I'm told that I ought to cover these bases: Large Growth, Large Value, Mid-Growth and Value. Foreign. Domestic, safe bonds. Investment Grade FOREIGN bonds. EM bonds. you can find all sorts of categories. DO NOT attempt to cover all these bases using an approach that treats the whole investment process like baking a recipe. You'll NEVER get anywhere by covering all the bases, just in order to cover them all. In my case, here's what I've got covered;
1) Asia dividend-paying equities, bonds and convertibles through MAPIX and MACSX.
2) Asia gov't and corporate bonds through MAINX.
3) EM gov't and corporate bonds including a larger menu of countries through PREMX.
4) Domestic large-caps and bonds through MAPOX.
5) Domestic small-cap via MSCFX.
*I just recently sold PFE Pfizer for a nice profit.
For an amateur, I have become knowledgable enough to be dangerous. Know your limitations. Don't bet the farm on ANY single play. I will make a point here as I finish by specifying just ONE specific fund to stay away from: OAAAX. It carries a big front-end load, and over the last ten years, $10,000 would have today become $8,300.00. I rescued a friend's account from there and put him into TRP. I don't remember ANYONE in here ever offering a NEGATIVE recommendation, but there it is.
'Happy Motoring,' said the old Texaco Tiger...

Reply to @Pat_F:
We're holding the same hands, rnsix, vwinx, rphyx. I was introduced to rnsix, rphyx here at this forum for which I'm grateful, professor Snowball is on somewhat of a roll. Rphyx to address interest rate risk, something of a keen and to date mistaken concern for years. I tried a couple of real return multiasset funds launched by Doubleline and Loomis Sayles, both dismally failed to achieve their complex trading strategy objective of Libor plus a couple percentage points and were rolled into rnsix which succeeds with a gentle upward bias in up, down or sideways markets instead of down, down and down. That's a chunk of risk in a single fund somewhat lessened by three differing subportfolios managed by two separate fund groups. I've mentally reclassified rnsix as an alternative investment class because it actually accomplishes what real return funds propose to.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=1y&s=RNSIX&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=MARYX+DMLIX&ql=1
Favorite buy and hold, VWINX FGBLX, consistent base hitters. Wellesley Income consolidates large cap blue chip dividend payers, a market sweet spot of late with intermediate term investment grade bonds. Fidelity Global Balanced congeals about four funds for diversification, 60/40 stocks/bonds, 50/50 domestic/int'l, dollar/nondollar, meeting or (scantly) exceeding its benchmark over trailing time frames ( MSCI World Index and the Citigroup World Govt. Bond Index using a weighting of 60% and 40%.)
Despite high turnover and the 1% expense ratio the team management somehow earns their keep. Also holding ffnox, Fidelity Four-in-One a cheap fund of index funds. These three funds, vwinx-fgblx-ffnox easily replace a dozen or more fund exposures in a world that is sadly ever more correlated anyway.
off-topic--watched all three parliamentary hearings of the grilling of the deposed Barclay's ceo,
chairman and the BOE contact and also the two Congressional inquiries of Mr. Dimon.
The English are so much better at english, packing a freightload of subtly and nuance into a single exquisitely crafted phrase with precision of meaning without hesitation.
The contrast, parliament/congress, was as a searing bbq to a marshmallow roast.
A differing view of the Libor mania--
http://brucekrasting.blogspot.com/2012/07/bloodletting.html
http://pragcap.com/why-is-no-one-freaking-out-about-the-libor-scandal
Interest rate manipulation, the real point--
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48167868
addendum--
The 4th parliamentary hearing, grilling the former Barclay's COO today.
As with any parliamentary or congressional hearing into past and present fiascos, whether an MF Global,
Lehman's, Moody's or JPM...Sgt. Schultz defense...saw nothing, knew nothing
when not pleading the 5th. I actually believe them, they didn't. Which is, if one
follows these show trial things going back to, say, the S&Ls..is the more condemning
but not most condemning. Most belongs to the inquirers who for decades revisit this Ground Hog Day of private gains/socialized losses and yet see nothing, know nothing.
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11255&wfs=true

Hi MikeM. Thinking there is an easy answer and tougher answer to your question.
Easy first. You would probably enjoy the article by Steve Goldberg entitled "Goldberg's Picks: 5 Best Low-Risk Stock Funds."
Here is link: http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/value/archive/goldberg-picks-best-low-risk-stock-funds.html
The five are: Sequoia Fund (symbol SEQUX), T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation (PRWCX), Forester Value (FVALX), FPA Crescent (FPACX), and First Eagle Global (SGENX).
All but FVALX have outperformed SP500 the past decade:

Honestly, Goldberg is not afraid to take a stand and explains why in simple terms. He has some similar articles on bond and allocations funds. I first became impressed with him after reading his article questioning Bruce Berkowitz's heavy move into financials in late 2010.
Here is link to that insightful article:
http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/value/archive/kiplinger-25-fairholme-funds-big-bet-on-financial-stocks.html?si=1
I like Bee's suggestion that you assess any gain/risk fund decision against a standard like PIMCO Income Fund PONDX. (Or, PIMIX, its institutional equivalent.)
I see Oakmark Equity & Income (OAKBX) and FPA Cresent (FPACX) suggested by several on the allocation side. Both have done great this difficult decade, although I believe are closed to new investors. I remember when Dodge & Cox Balanced Fund (DODBX) was in same category, until it got slammed in 2008. It still beats SP500 over the long haul, and I want to believe it learned from its mistake and will be stronger going forward. That said, Vanguard Wellington (VWELX) admirably did not stumble and remains a buy-and-hold choice open to new investors, as pointed out by JohnN.
In fact, all of these allocation funds have also beat SP500 this decade:

An under-the-radar equity fund is Auxier Focus (AUXFX), which I first read about on FundAlarm, has consistently done well and is just now starting to get recognized.
Note that all of Goldberg's picks and the ones I've mentioned above have less volatility than SP500. A couple, like Forester Value and Oakmark Equity, are substantially less volatile. So, it's easy to see why these are comfortable buy-and-hold picks.
OK, now for tougher part.
In 1974, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) lost nearly half its value...in one year! BRK.A has more than twice the volatility of SP500. But who would not have wanted to own this stock for the last 41 years, where it has gained more than 20% annually? (Granted, not a mutual fund proper, but it represents the best in equities...let's call it a surrogate mutual fund.)
Other examples of higher volatility funds that have never lost more value in any three-year period than SP500's worst...but have made substantially more money over the long term: Vanguard Health Care (VGHCX), FMI Focus (FMIOX), Fidelity Select Consumer Staples (FDFAX), Artisan Mid Cap (ARTMX), and Vanguard Energy (VGENX). All represent excellent buy-and-hold picks, but you really gotta be willing to hold after that one really bad year.
One last thing: You list good choices. But for what it is worth, I personally do not like to own more than 4-5 funds at one time. Currently, I own: RNSIX, FAAFX, FAIRX, SFGIX, and DODBX.

As others have noted, you need a plan. More specifically, you need a plan about what *purpose* or *role* each fund will play in your portfolio.
For example, let's say you pick Fairholme because you like that Berkowitz "ignores the crowd." What happens if the "crowd" is actually right, for example in 2011 when Berkowitz lost a fair amount of money while the overall market had some gains? Are you going to be able to accept that sometimes Berkowitz will be off on his timing, or just plain wrong? If so, then follow your plan and don't be concerned with short term, YTD performance. Fairholme investors have suffered with several years of underperformance before this year's payoff. (Actually, most of them bailed.)
If you can't accept that Berkowitz will sometimes be wrong, then you need to either dump Fairholme from your plan, or you need another fund whose purpose will be balance out Fairholme. For example, maybe a large cap growth fund, because sometimes growth outperforms when value funds underperform. Or maybe you need just a plain vanilla index fund, which by definition can never really be "wrong".
Work out a plan and then you can evaluate funds based on whether they are actually working within your plan, rather than just whether they are doing better than other funds.

Hi Carefree,
I have linked the Morningstar report below on CAMAX for easy review.
http://quote.morningstar.com/fund/f.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=CAMAX
Like Scott has said it is a "hot" fund at times and also can be chilling "cold." Also, MSF had some note worthy comments.
For me, it would be the type of fund I would position into, and out of, with some type of timing strategy.
If you hold this in a taxable account and if you have a loss that can be taken for income tax purposes this might be an avenue you might wish to consider. If you have a profit in it ... I'd book the gains and run. That is just me though.
Have a good weekend ... and, "Good Investing."
Skeeter

To add to what Scott said (including Cambiar not being my cup of tea either), Cambiar Aggressive Value is a Cambiar fund on steroids. Unlike the others, it can, and does short (per prospectus and M* shows -24% cash, -2% bond, and short positions of 27% US and 5% foreign, though still significantly net long in equities). In the annual report, just filed, they acknowledge as much: "The key contributors to performance for the Cambiar Aggressive Value Fund were consistent with Cambiar’s other funds, yet more pronounced as a result of the Fund’s concentrated portfolio construction guidelines."
The report points out that the reason for the good performance 2009-2010 was macro - the economy was coming out of a recession.

Given the magnitude of the economic contraction that occurred in the 2007-2009 Great Recession, the starting point for this cycle was unusually low and followed an unusually long contraction, positioning a great many businesses for much better than average cyclical gains and the duration associated with a positive economic and business cycle. For about two and a half years, that view of things was highly accurate and informative, as corporate profits surged and a great many stocks left for dead in the wake of the market crash in 2008 rebounded accordingly. Our view was both accurate and contrarian, at least relative to a shell-shocked marketplace, and we performed quite well across the Cambiar Funds.

So aggressive funds would have tended to outperform.
This gets to my acknowledged bias against this type of leveraged, high turnover, aggressive fund. Such funds magnify trends (increased risk) at a high cost (leveraging, rapid trading, etc.). If you bought the fund because you saw a couple of years of top performance without looking under the covers, then maybe it's not your cup of tea either. But if this is what you knew you were buying, then maybe you'll want to stick with it.
Though even then, consider the rest of the letter in the annual report, where Cambiar acknowledges that its traditional methods don't seem to work in this choppy, close-to-zero interest rate environment. Their underperformance (as opposed to inline performance for a market going sideways) seems to confirm this.

Reply to @BWG: "The Fund pursues its investment objective by allocating assets among various commodity sectors (including agricultural, energy, livestock and precious and base metals). The Fund also invests in fixed income securities and money market instruments. The Fund will obtain exposure to commodity sectors by investing in commodity-linked derivatives, directly or through investments in the Subsidiary. ***The Fund will target an annualized volatility level that is lower than that for the AQR Risk-Balanced Commodities Strategy Fund, which is described elsewhere in this Prospectus. The “LV” in the Fund’s name reflects this “lower volatility” approach. There is no guarantee that the Fund’s investment objective will be met."***
So, LV will be a more hedged and/or less aggressively positioned, etc (?) version of the other fund. LV appears to have been delayed, but Risk Balanced Commodity is available. LV was also not listed in the press release on the new funds that was released by AQR.
This appears same with both:
"Commodity Investments
The Fund intends to gain exposure to commodity sectors by investing in a portfolio of Instruments (as defined below). The Fund will generally have some level of investment in the majority of commodity sectors, which includes over 20 exposures. The Adviser targets balanced-risk weights across various commodity sectors and regularly reviews the risk in those sectors as market conditions change, rebalancing the portfolio to seek to maintain more balanced exposures among sectors. The Fund’s balanced-risk approach can be expected, under current market conditions, to result in less exposure to the energy sector than an approach that mirrors the composition of well-known commodity indices.
In allocating assets among and within commodity sectors, the Adviser follows a “risk parity” approach. The “risk parity” approach to asset allocation seeks to balance the allocation of risk across the commodity sectors (as measured by forecasted volatility, estimated potential loss, and other proprietary measures) when building the portfolio. This means that lower risk commodity sectors (such as precious metals) will generally have higher notional allocations than higher risk commodity sectors (such as energy). A “neutral” asset allocation targets an equal risk allocation among the commodity sectors. The Adviser expects to tactically vary the Fund’s allocation to the various commodity sectors depending on market conditions, which can cause the Fund to deviate from a “neutral” position. The desired overall risk level of the Fund may be increased or decreased by the Adviser. There can be no assurance that employing a “risk parity” approach will achieve any particular level or return or will, in fact, reduce volatility or potential loss.
However, the Fund is actively managed and has the flexibility to over- or underweight commodity sectors, in the Adviser’s discretion, in order to achieve the Fund’s objective. There is no stated limit on the percentage of assets the Fund can invest in a particular Instrument or the percentage of assets the Fund will allocate to any one commodity sector, and at times the Fund may focus on a small number of Instruments or commodity sectors. The Adviser will use proprietary volatility forecasting and portfolio construction methodologies to manage the Fund. The allocation among and within the different commodity sectors is based on the Adviser’s assessment of the risk associated with the commodity sector, the investment opportunity presented by each commodity sector, as well as the Adviser’s assessment of prevailing market conditions within the particular commodity sector. Shifts in allocations among and within commodity sectors or Instruments will be determined based on the Adviser’s evaluation of technical and fundamental indicators, such as trends in historical prices, seasonality, supply/demand data, momentum and macroeconomic data of commodity consuming countries.
Generally, the Fund gains exposure to the commodity sectors by investing in commodity-linked derivative instruments, such as swap agreements, commodity futures, commodity-based exchange-traded funds, commodity-linked notes and swaps on commodity futures (collectively, the “Instruments”), either by investing directly in those Instruments, or indirectly by investing in the Subsidiary (as described below) that invests in those Instruments. The Fund’s investment in the Instruments provides the Fund with exposure to the investment returns of the commodity sectors without investing directly in physical commodities. Commodities are assets that have tangible properties, such as oil, metals and agricultural products. There is no maximum or minimum exposure to any one Instrument or any one commodity sector.
Futures contracts are contractual agreements to buy or sell a particular commodity or Instrument at a pre-determined price in the future. The Fund’s use of futures contracts, swaps and certain other Instruments will have the economic effect of financial leverage. Financial leverage magnifies exposure to the swings in prices of commodities underlying an Instrument and results in increased volatility, which means the Fund will have the potential for greater gains, as well as the potential for greater losses, than if the Fund does not use Instruments that have a leveraging effect. Leveraging tends to magnify, sometimes significantly, the effect of any increase or decrease in the Fund’s exposure to a particular commodity or commodity sector and may cause the Fund’s NAV to be volatile. There is no assurance that the Fund’s use of Instruments providing enhanced exposure will enable the Fund to achieve its investment objective.
As a result of the Fund’s strategy, the Fund may have highly leveraged exposure to one or more commodity sectors at times. The 1940 Act and the rules and interpretations thereunder impose certain limitations on the Fund’s ability to use leverage; however, the Fund is not subject to any additional limitations on its exposures.
The Fund and the Subsidiary use a drawdown control approach to mitigate loss of value and reduce volatility. This approach gradually and systematically reduces exposure across all commodity sectors as commodity markets decline and volatility increases. There can be no assurance that this approach will be successful in controlling the Fund’s risk or limiting portfolio losses.
The Fund currently intends to invest up to 25% of its total assets in the Subsidiary. The Subsidiary is a wholly-owned and controlled subsidiary of the Fund, organized under the laws of the Cayman Islands as an exempted company."
Summary:
https://www.aqrfunds.com/OurFunds/AlternativeInvestmentFunds/RiskBalancedCommoditiesStrategyFund/Overview.aspx
Risk Balancing Across Sectors: In a risk-balanced portfolio, every sector contributes roughly equally to the volatility of the total portfolio and no one commodity dominates near-term returns. To achieve this, less volatile sectors are given larger notional allocations, while volatile sectors get a smaller notional allocation.
Risk Balancing Through Time: Over time, the volatility of a commodities portfolio can vary significantly. During stress periods when the volatility across commodities increases sharply, such as 2008, the riskiness of a commodities portfolio may become higher than desirable. By monitoring volatilities and correlations of each commodity, it is possible to increase or decrease portfolio-wide exposures in order to target a pre-specified risk level for the fund and keep returns smoother over time.
Drawdown Control: We believe volatility targeting should be supplemented by a systematic, pre-set drawdown control policy, dictating how portfolio risk will be reduced during a prolonged crisis to help control the size of absolute drawdowns. As soon as markets stabilize, the drawdown policy ensures that the fund returns to being fully invested. We believe that this improves investors’ odds of sticking with a long-term allocation.
Active Management: The fund is actively managed, and the fund managers will vary the fund’s positions in individual commodities and commodity sectors (even going short in some commodities at time) based on an evaluation of the attractiveness of the positions. These shifts in allocations will be determined using AQR’s proprietary models. Information that is evaluated includes the roll yield, inventory, and supply and demand relationships of each commodity, as well as the macroeconomic environment and other factors.

Reply to @catch22:
Bummer. Will be interesting to know where Rao ends up. MFCFX had done really well and is a unique fund...world stock fund with ability to go defensive and invest across capital structure. I am also interested in hearing about alternatives/replacement funds.

RBC Wealth Management
Michael D. Ruccio, AAMS
Senior Vice President -Financial Advisor
25 Hanover Road
Florham Park, NJ 07932-1407
(p) (866) 248-0096
(f) (973) 966-0309
[email protected]
michaelruccio.com
MARKET WEEK: JULY 9, 2012
The Markets
Even the small gains seen in equities early in the week fizzled after the holiday on discouraging economic news from around the globe. Only the Nasdaq and small-cap Russell 2000 were still in positive territory by Friday's close. U.S. Treasury prices benefitted once again from the bad news as the 10-year yield headed south.
Market/Index 2011 Close Prior Week As of 7/6 Week Change YTD Change
DJIA 12217.56 12880.09 12772.47 -.84% 4.54%
Nasdaq 2605.15 2935.05 2937.33 .08% 12.75%
S&P 500 1257.60 1362.16 1354.68 -.55% 7.72%
Russell 2000 740.92 798.49 807.14 1.08% 8.94%
Global Dow 1801.60 1831.63 1814.28 -.96% .70%
Fed. Funds .25% .25% .25% 0 bps 0 bps
10-year Treasuries 1.89% 1.67% 1.57% -10 bps -32 bps
Equities data reflect price changes, not total return.
Last Week's Headlines
Unemployment remained stalled at 8.2% and the U.S. economy added just 80,000 new jobs in June. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average monthly increase in new jobs during the second quarter was only 75,000 compared to the 226,000 monthly average in Q1.
Economic news abroad wasn't encouraging. Eurostat said the unemployment rate in the European Union hit a record 11.1% in May, and there also were signs of weakening manufacturing activity in Germany. The European Central Bank cut its key interest rate to a record low 0.75%, and Spanish and Italian 10-year bond yields rose above 7% and 6% respectively. China also cut its one-year rate for the second time in two months, lowering it to 6%.
According to the Institute for Supply Management, manufacturing activity in the United States fell in June for the first time in three years. The ISM's index dropped to 49.7% from 53.5% the previous month; any number below 50% is considered a contraction. The ISM said new orders and exports also contracted for the first time since mid-2009. However, the Commerce Department said factory orders were up 0.7% in May, and durable goods orders were up even more, by 1.3%.
Meanwhile, China's manufacturing sector also slowed in June to its lowest level in seven months; the National Bureau of Statistics' 50.2 reading was just barely in expansion territory. However, China's services sector saw solid expansion with a 56.7 reading by the NBS.
The U.K. Serious Fraud Office announced it will investigate possible criminal charges in connection with manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). Barclay's PLC was fined £290 million by the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority the previous week after it admitted that false LIBOR-related information had been repeatedly submitted since 2005. It also had previously been fined $160 million by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The International Monetary Fund urged the United States to reduce uncertainty about the impending "fiscal cliff." The IMF said the package of tax increases and government spending cuts scheduled to take effect in 2013, coupled with the anticipated renewed wrangling over an increase to the U.S. debt ceiling at year's end, could threaten an already tepid economic recovery.
Eye on the Week Ahead
The week kicks off with Alcoa's earnings release, which marks the unofficial start of the Q2 earnings season. Also, eurozone finance ministers will meet to try to figure out how to implement the recent agreement to tighten fiscal union among countries. Meanwhile, auctions of 10- and 30-year U.S. Treasury securities will suggest whether recent strong demand will continue.
Key dates and data releases: eurozone finance ministers' meeting (7/9); balance of trade, Federal Open Market Committee minutes (7/11); wholesale inflation (7/13).

Sequoia Fund sequx and T.Rowe Price Capital Appreciation prwcx seem to have navigated the ups and downs pretty well over a long period of time.

"ASTON has removed M.D. Sass Investors Services as a second subadvisor on ASTON/MD Sass Enhanced Equity (AMBEX). Anchor Capital Advisors will remain as the sole subadvisor, and the fund's name will change to ASTON/Anchor Capital Enhanced Equity."
This is interesting because I think AMBEX is one of the long-short funds that David was planning to profile in the near future.

Understanding that I'm not very good with knowing when to get in or out of the market, I've evolved to a portfolio that basically has funds that either are well diversified or have proven managers that weight the equity holdings in their funds based on their economic view. I was wondering if others are taking the same approach to portfolio building - using funds you are comfortable with as buy and hold.
Here is a list of the funds I've come to trust as long term funds, core funds if that word makes sense here. With these funds, I believe management has capital preservation first and foremost as their investing theme or the fund is well diversified in it's approach.
Equity funds:
YAFFX
ARIVX
UMBWX
ODVIX (new to my group thanks to BobC. one of the least volatile EM funds I've found.)
Allocation or Balanced type funds:
FPACX
PRPFX
PGDPX
MACSX
I also own FAAFX in this space but conservative it is not.
And the Bond side:
MWTRX
RPSIX
LSBRX
FGBRX
These funds are the bulk of my 401k and the ones I have become comfortable with. What funds do others have a high comfort level with through thick and thin?

I just sold my position in GRSPX yesterday. It has been lagging for several years and with small/md cap stocks doing pretty well during that time. Like Mike said, it does do well in downturns. It could be that the manager shifted towards larger names ( cisco ) and they've done poorly too. That money purchased more shares of JPVTX. It can also invest in small/mid cap names.. but the Perkins group has much better research with international investing. I also like that the fund pays out every month. Perkins picks the stocks and Janus the bonds - I like the idea.
Given the long term record of JABAX ( Janus balanced ) I can't see anything but good from this newer fund. Perkins is one fine value shop that has some very good small and mid cap funds. I already own OAKBX, and FPACX.
"Legend has it that Albert Einstein once called compound
interest the most powerful force in the universe. To that end,
compound investment returns can be just as powerful, with one
additional important requisite: consistency. For an investment to fully capitalize on its compounding potential, it must preserve capital during down periods, thus allowing future portfolio returns to build upon previous results. An inconsistent
investment (that is, one with a pattern of sharp gains and
steep losses) is always battling to get back to “even” and is
challenged to produce a long-term positive return."
https://ww3.perkinsinvestmentmanagement.com/perkins_siteobjects/published/B290ADC8822C8C1B07D8AC1A5B08858B/976BEE2FA8EF453D69E6460A08D37A0D/pdf/Perkins Quality Whitepaper_JCG exp 12-30-12.pdf

rbc wealth managements weekly commentary
MARKET WEEK: JULY 2, 2012
The Markets
The sight of eurozone officials agreeing to measures designed to ease the region's immediate debt crisis and promote longer-term stability helped power equities upward last Friday. The measures also boosted prices for both oil and gold, while U.S. Treasuries ended the week relatively unchanged.
Market/Index 2011 Close Prior Week As of 6/29 Week Change YTD Change
DJIA 12217.56 12640.78 12880.09 1.89% 5.42%
Nasdaq 2605.15 2892.42 2935.05 1.47% 12.66%
S&P 500 1257.60 1335.02 1362.16 2.03% 8.31%
Russell 2000 740.92 775.13 798.49 3.01% 7.77%
Global Dow 1801.60 1792.14 1831.63 2.20% 1.67%
Fed. Funds .25% .25% .25% 0 bps 0 bps
10-year Treasuries 1.89% 1.69% 1.67% -2 bps -22 bps
Equities data reflect price changes, not total return.
Last Week's Headlines
Under pressure from Italy and Spain, European Union leaders agreed that a single body--possibly the European Central Bank--should oversee banks in all 17 eurozone countries, and that details should be finalized by year's end. Once that is in place, the current bailout fund and its replacement, the European Stability Mechanism, will be able to lend directly to struggling banks in countries whose governments have been struggling to assist them, such as Spain. The summit also reassured investors that any loans to Spain to address its immediate debt crisis would not be treated as senior to existing bonds.
Implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act will continue in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling that the health-care reform legislation is constitutional. The 5-4 decision held that the penalty to be paid by those who choose not to buy health insurance as required by the law is constitutional as part of Congress's power to tax and spend.
The final number for first-quarter GDP remained at 1.9%; that's substantially lower than the 3% of Q4 2011. The Bureau of Economic Analysis said increases in personal spending, exports, and investments in business inventories and both residential and nonresidential investments were partly offset by reduced government spending at the federal, state, and local levels. Expiration of an investment tax credit helped cut corporate profits by 0.3%, compared to Q4's 0.9% increase.
Consumers spent less and saved more in May, according to the Commerce Department. Spending was down 0.1%, while the savings rate went from 3.7% to 3.9%.
After two months of declines, orders for durable goods popped up 1.1% in May, according to the Commerce Department. Even setting aside the 4.9% jump in the commercial aircraft sector, orders for goods intended to last for three years or more were up 0.4%.
The Commerce Department said new home sales shot up 7.6% during May. That put sales at their highest level in more than two years and almost 20% higher than a year earlier. The Northeast and South saw the biggest increases, while sales in the Midwest and West were down.
There also was a bit of good news on home prices. The S&P/Case-Shiller index was up 1.3% in April, and 19 of the 20 cities measured by the index saw gains (Detroit had a 3.6% loss). However, that still left prices 1.9% below last April, though that was better than the 2.6% year-over-year decline of the previous month.
Eye on the Week Ahead
With a midweek holiday in the United States and the Q2 earnings season on the horizon, domestic trading volume could be light, though global investors will continue to assess the impact of last week's EU summit. And as always, Friday's unemployment data will be closely watched.
Key dates and data releases: U.S. manufacturing sector, construction spending (7/2); factory orders (7/3); unemployment/payrolls (7/6).

Reply to @catch22: Doesn't seem like we've had sufficient, sustained upticks for Heebner's style to pay off.
As Scott notes, I don't know why CGM hasn't been shorting.
I track my "lifetime gains" on all my holdings. Still down quite a bit on CGMFX. Very glad I never got suckered into letting it play a larger role in my portfolio. He's really stinking up the joint.

Thanks again for everybody's comments. I've done some more thinking so I'll rephrase my question as follows:
Let's say say you have a 60/40 or 70/30 split between stocks/bonds. In this scenario, I believe the bond portion should serve the following purposes:
1. Preserve capital: The bond fund should be relatively low risk (relative to the equity portion) in case of an emergency where you need more cash. Also in case of a crash in stocks, you can rebalance and buy on the lows.
2. Low or negative correlation to stocks: You don't get any benefits of diversification if the bonds and stocks go up and down at the same times.
3. Decent amount of return: You should expect the bonds (over time) to return more than cash (savings, CDs, etc).
My questions are: Do you agree with the above goals for the bond portion of a stock/bond portfolio? And if so, does RPHYX meet all of these criteria?
Ultimately what I'm getting at is, let's say you have a stock-tilted portfolio and you could only have one bond fund. Would RPHYX qualify or would you still choose one of the more typical core bond funds such as the offerings from Doubleline, Pimco, Vanguard, etc.

Reply to @dporwan: No, ARVIX and YAFFX are not balanced funds. But the managers have no problem going to cash when they believe stocks are over valued or economic conditions look ominous. Their primary objective is to preserve capital. Many investors don't like their managers going to cash. They believe their funds should always be fully invested... I don't. I'm not good at timing market conditions, so if I can find managers that have show that ability I'm more apt to hold on in rough times.
I'm not keen on balanced funds that just use stocks and bonds as their investment vehicles. FPACX is a balanced fund that uses more then stocks and bonds. It will use cash, convertibles, options and even short. Again, I like FPACX for the same reasons I like ARIVX and YAFFX. Preserving capital is foremost on their investing agenda. I'll let these guys time what to allocate to because I can't.
A newer fund I started investing in a few months ago is PGDIX. This is a well diversified allocation fund with the primary goal of achieving dividend income. I sold off some of my PRPFX to buy it and plan to increase my percentage. It doesn't have a long track record, but 3 year volatility is low (measured by standard deviation) and return has been very good. Here is some info on it if you are interested.
http://www.principalfunds.com/investor/promo/gdif/

from seekingalpha.com:
The Asset Allocation Lie starts like this, "Studies have shown that over the long-term it is not your individual investments that determine your investment results, but your investment allocation." Now let's step back and think on this for a second. Warren Buffet is generally considered the greatest investor ever. In one sentence, every Financial Advisor has just belittled and indeed, insulted his life work. They have not only insulted his investment decisions and results of the past six decades, but also his lifelong desire to teach the public at large about how to invest appropriately. This insult continues on to his shareholders who invested in his company on the belief that they might reap excess investment rewards in the future. Every Hedge Fund Manager, every Portfolio Manager, that has utilized proper stock selection, like Mr. Buffet, as their investment strategy and has achieved success with that investment strategy is being insulted. Every one of their investors, who invested with them in the belief that they could utilize proper stock selection as an investment strategy, is also being insulted. And there is one final person who is also insulted by this entirely false concept, and that is: everyone else, literally. Every individual investor who has not invested with or even heard of Warren Buffet is being insulted by almost every financial firm and advisor in the industry since these strategies, enacted by the successful investment managers, are not being presented as options to the public at large. This is the Lie.
Then there is the Deception. The Deception uses the Lie to get you, the unknowing individual, to trust the Financial Advisor (or more accurately described, the Salesperson) and utilize their services as well as their firm. Because as long as you don't know about the other, more effective investment strategies of elite investment managers, you'll turn your money over to idiots. The idiots are active investment managers who are incapable of beating relevant benchmarks over a reasonably significant period of time.
Finally, there is the Steal. The firm and the advisor charge what seems to be a "low fee" in relation to historical returns, but is in fact a very high fee for the actual services they perform for the client. This "low fee" grows over time as you save and invest more capital and have some positive investment returns. As the "low fee" grows, the compensation to the firm and advisor grows while they continue to do effectively nothing. This is the second part of the joke in action, "But if you steal a little bit of money, from a large segment of people over an extended period of time, you get rich." Who gets rich? Not the client, but the firm and the advisor.

Reply to @MikeM: But getting into some of the US bank stocks in 2009 is not the same as getting into Spanish banks now. While US bank stocks throughout 2009-2010 still suffered from airing out the dirty laundry - the worst of the worst had passed from an economic perspective and bailouts already issued.
Spain is in the process of getting worse and worse economically and at the beginning stages of some needed bailout money.
For the US banks - let's see how things play out 5 years from now.
Remember - we've heard on Fox Business News and all the capitalists about government interference and contraining the bank's potential for earnings BUT the Canadian banks have chugged along in a more stricter regulatory environment and have held safer/higher capital ratios yet have absolutely wonderful 10-year returns!
TD Bank: 15.34%
Royal Bank of Canada: 13.59%
Bank of Nova Scotia: 14.34%
Strong, well-run banks with dividend growth can do well.
I'm not saying now is the time to jump into Spanish Banks as I would let the volatile environment play out longer but eventually averaging into a top-notch Spanish bank could be a decent *long-term* play.
Do you know what the worst asset class was in 2000?
==> Emerging Markets! Were they in good shape? No, they're considered EM because their markets were not mature, riddled with debt, have to borrow from IMF and where we had witnessed major fallouts from the Asian contagion, Russian default and Argentina collapse right before our eyes. And we heard many investors say that they wouldn't touch EM with a 10-foot pole.
Fast forward 10-12 years later and what has happened to what was the worst & scariest asset class? In fact, in 1999 - probably the worst Tech Stock was probably Apple.
Why do you think John Templeton jumped into Japanese stocks in the 60's and 70's after being beaten to a pulp that no American would come near a Japanese stock --- and he made an absolute killing for over a decade. No, not in 6 months, 1 year or 2 years time.