Reply to @Ted:
Hi Ted,
Congratulation on your short term winners. I too have similar holdings (PRHSX, PRMDX & USNQX). I also own a fund similar to Catch's in USAGX.
My strategy (not to speak for Catch or anyone else) is to take some winning and reposition them into other under performing long term holdings I own. Right now that happens to be USAGX and some others in my portfolio. I will admit that this is a bit of a "falling knife" reinvestment strategy.
Being a long term owner USAGX (over ten years), I took your chart out a little farther back in time to point out that I was a buyer of your funds/ETFs when they under performed and a periodic seller of USAGX (FSAGX) as it out performed.
5 year Comparison:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=FSAGX+Interactive#symbol=fsagx;range=5y;compare=ijh+qqq+prhsx;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;
I calculate "out performance" based on my buy point to when I have achieved a 10% gain. This triggers a 10% sale and a realization of my winnings. If this out performance continue I take profits for each 5% gain thereafter. I try to reallocated these gains elsewhere. For me, elsewhere has been: USAGX, VDE, TGBAX, WAEMX, and PRPFX most recently. I try to keep track of my gains and losses...the ebb and flow...sometimes, the sky rocketing and the sky diving...of my funds. My hope is that my active reallocation will help balance these dynamics out and in the end improves my overall long term gains.
I will also say that when interest rates rise I will reconsider my commodities and gold holdings but for now I maintain exposure in these areas...somewhere between 5-10%.
Over the years I have learned a lot the from you and others here at MFO (and Fund Alarm)...I hope we can continue to share, learn, and grow from each other.

Hi Flack, Skeeter here …
Thanks for the update. You have me wondering … Why you decided to close the short position and go net long and not to more neutral position? Remember the market peaking process ... I feel it is close if not here.
As you know I am somewhat defensive at the moment while I await an anticipated pull back occurring sometime this summer or early fall (May through October). Currently, I am with a moderate equity allocation based upon my tolerance for risk at 50% equity. A conservative allocation for me would be in the 40% range and an aggressive allocation for me would be in a 60% range … so, being in the 50% range in equities I rate this as moderate. If I were to sell down much further, I would have to start reductions in a taxable account and with this I would have to deal with the payment of taxes on realized long term capital gains (no losses to carry forward) and, I would also lose a good stream of dividend income, which is currently favorably taxed at the moment.
Speaking of income, I just opened my April brokerage statement and from it’s review in comparison to the year ago statement my income is up better than 25% including short term investment activity. As you may recall in years past about 15% of my portfolio was in cash with 5% being in demand deposits and about 10% being in time deposits. I am now at about 25% cash with most of it in demand with little left in the CD ladder.
So how is my income up over the same period from a year ago? A good part of it comes from making the cash part of the portfolio more productive by buying special equity ballast positions; and, then selling them off when a set goal was obtained. Thanks Flack, for your help with the technical analysis lessons you provided on the board a few years back. However, I am now utilizing one of the virtues important for every investor that is … patience.
My portfolio’s asset allocation is one that provides me with great flexibility for varying market conditions as I am currently sitting on 25% cash, 25% income and 50% equity. Most everything I own is in some shape, form or fashion is kicking off an income stream with the exception being cash (little income here). Most that read my post know that some of it will be deployed for an anticipated return opportunity when the right set up appears in the equity market (S&P 500 Index or S&P 1500 Index). Even if I sit tight through the rest of the year with my cash and do nothing more with it I have more than doubled what I would have made off interest at the old CD ladder annual rate of about five percent. That’s right … thus far this year alone I am up better than ten percent form my special cash allocated investment profits.
I wish you well with your recent net long position … Please know I am also net long in my equities. We will see how the summer goes as I am looking for a five percent perhaps even a ten percent pullback … something bad happens … an even greater pull back ... perhaps twenty percent or more. This is why I am holding a larger cash position than normal. As Catch 22 says, we are living in interesting times.
My best to all,
Skeeter
PS. I am now on an early extended vacation as I work off some of my accrued benefit time over the coming months before I retire. I will still be on the board from time-to-time but not as often. If you ping me and I don’t respond it is because I am out of pocket ... and, no where close to a computer.

Can someone in-the-know give us more details on this fund? Yahoo lists an inception date of Aug 11, 2000 for this fund, but gives no dividends or capital gains, which is suspicious. Touchstone's site lists A,C,Y, and Inst shares, but not Z. I wonder if this was an Old Mutual fund that they acquired/merged?

Just as a reminder.
Four profiles, three of them updates. I'm going to try to update all of the old profiles in rotation, as well as add some new funds. My recent flu goofed the plan slightly (Osterweis and Huber got moved to June), but I've done a pretty thorough rereading of Amana Developing World, Artisan Global Value, and LKCM Balanced. We've also added (at your request!) FMI International.
A new "best of" column, featuring financial news aggregators. Junior identified two good human-curated sites. Many of your know, and work with, Abnormal Returns. David Sherman of Cohanzick, adviser to the RiverPark Short-Term High Yield fund, recommended Counterparties.com. It's a new site from Reuters and does good work.
Beyond that, a story about an old friend (remember the Technology Value Fund, titan of the 90s) that's morphed into a new form (publicly-traded venture capital fund, but with the same team). Through mid-April, they made either 3% or 175%, depending on when you got out. Also a small rant about the lackadaisical response by fund companies to dwindling public interest and a cheerful discovery: RiverNorth is partnering with Manning & Napier to launch an intriguing hybrid.
For what interest it holds,
David

Hey rono & OJ,
I have held GASFX which seem to be somewhat a NG play. It has enjoyed recent gains as the price of NG has slid. GASFX is a combination of energy and utility companies that provides a dividend of 2.41%. This dividend has help lower the funds volitality while at the same time has a concentration of stocks in the fund...the top ten holdings make up almost 50% of the fund. Cheniere Energy is out performing 110% YTD while most of its other holdings have not broken out to any significant levels.
I wonder if the Export side of this industry (LNG) might be a good way to take advantage of the pricing advantage we have verses the rest of the world.
The Coming Utility Surge:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052702303863404577283650908288014.html?ru=yahoo?mod=yahoo_itp
Here's a short video on the GASFX fund:
"We are the Saudi Arabia of NG"
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/video/11230037/gas-utility-index-fund-piping-hot.html?cm_ven=YAHOOV&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA&s=1

Howdy folks,
Natural gas is starting to move and it's time to start scaling in . . . time to make a few bucks. Nat gas has been a $4-5 item for ever but in recent months got down just under $2. It's not bounced back and is around $2.38 as I write.
How best to play this commodity and get the most leverage is the nut question.
If you want to make a momentum play, it's relatively easy. Decide that a small percentage of your portfolio will be 'play money'. For ease of instruction, I'll use $10,000 as your mad money. When you see a divergence in a particular sector, segment, region, whatever, watch to see if it continue to diverge for the norm. If it does and looks interesting, make an initial play of 25% of your intended investment or, in this case, $2500. Now watch it and see what it does. If it loses, use a 10-20% stop loss. If it stays flat, keep watching it. If it gains, add another $2500. And watch it. If it continues to go up, add the rest. Now, use that same mental stop loss of 10-20% as a signal to start scaling out when the price breaks and the trend ends.
Enough of school.
How do you kids think we should play natural gas?
peace,
rono

Reply to @MJG: i agree, judging from my own experience and that of others, that wisdom, if it comes at all, comes with age.
40 yo demand is quite arbitrary however. While I understand your assumptions, not everyone's career path and experience is identical. Having lived through the latest recession and a huge credit contraction could affect the younger manager's judgment more than the older one's similar length experience in the 90s. Also, some people never learn. John Meriwhether's Long-Term Capital had all the right models and assumptions for the relatively safe arb strategies. He was right in the end, and his trades made money, but AFTER the fund was bailed out as his leveraged positions were considered systemic risk. He then open another fund -- totally identical to LTCM, but 2-3 times leveraged instead of 8-10. He treated his LTCM experience as a 100 year flood and didn't believe in the repeat. And then 2008 happened. So overconfidence is a problem that might not go away with age. Also, as was (or wasn't) mentioned before, luck, investment culture, discipline in taking either gains or losses, corporate set up and support etc. etc.-- contribute to the manager's success. In terms of women being calmer investors, i witnessed a PM so calm that her financial hedge fund rode many of her favorite longs all the way to zero. You could argue that a male PM would have cut his losses at some point or gone short.

Hi Catch22,
Ok, let me state this another way.
Because of the higher yield found in the Federated fund, FMUAX, will have a higher payout to your pocket while USBLX will have the higher total return of the two with greater capital appreciation but with less money paid to your pocket over the referenced time frame of one, three and five years. It is true, at some point in time, with USBLX's ability to grow it's principal faster, it's payout while lower will evenutally catch up to that of FMUAX's payout, and even pass it, most likely at some time in the future. But, over the given time frame referenced FMUAX's payout in the form of yield, income generation, will be higher.
Form where I come from ... Yield is defined as the income that is generated from an investment; and, a higher yielding investment will pay out more income than a lower yielding one.
Perhaps this made the mud more clear ... perhaps not.
Have a good evening ...
Skeeter

"The so called gifted are created, not born. Practice has the potential (not the certainty) to make perfect. That’s a healthy lesson. ..... In Ericsson’s concluding section, he writes: 'We found no rigorous reproducible evidence that innate abilities, excepting height and body size, prevent healthy individuals from attaining expert levels of performance.' " -
MJG, Surely you don't mean to say any healthy child given the right parenting and education can attain equally "gifted" levels of accomplishment? All my 60+ years of life experience tell me that is not the case. I'll submit that stand-outs in their fields like Einstein, Hawking, Picasso, Bach or Mozart owe at least part of their high achievement to innate inborn traits - not to diminish the important role parents & education play.
As for selecting a fund manager - I suppose age, sex, & other human factors might conceivably affect attitudes or abilities in some manner. However, I believe by far the most important ingredient here is the investment "culture" within the firm through which said investment manager emerges. If invested in T Rowe Price's Capital Appreciation fund, I can be pretty certain of having a highly competent individual at the helm and that he or she will pretty much operate according to the charter they are given. In this case, I won't worry whether it be male or female or whether the person be 35 or 65 years of age. Sure, the company can change (we need to remain vigilant) and they can screw up just like any of us. However, I'll trust them and their processes (over my own abilities to screen a manager) until they provide reason not to. Just my 2 cents.

Hey There Skeeter,
You noted: "If money in your pocket is important, one might wish to look at how much the fund also puts in your pocket along with its total return."
Okay, you got me go'in down the road of confusion with this.
Total return is total return, yes? Be it from yield and/or capital appreciation or the combination.
Example: Two equity/income funds have a blend of equity and income holdings, with each having different yields at any given time, over a period of time.
It is possible that both funds could have near identical "total returns" over a period of time. But this doesn't indicate that one fund is better than the other from looking at just the yield.
Regards,
Catch

Honestly, I might prefer a fund like OAKBX (closed but I keep an open door to it) of FPACX, but Vanguard Tax Managed funds are very interesting for anyone who does not like to make bets on a single manager. And they may become even more interesting once the taxes on dividends and capital gains will grow.

I own USBLX, USAA Growth and Tax Strategy. The fund invests primarily in Municipal bonds which are federally tax exempt as well as blue chip stocks. Its equity holdings make up 45% of the fund with the rest in munis. I believe munis bond funds have a good chance of capital appreciation since many cities and states will try and restructure their debt at lower rates over the next few years.
I have witnessed first hand the capital appreciation of my Long Term Treasury bond funds as the federal government has restructured their debt through all kinds of QE. I see a QE on the horizon for states and local agency's long term obligations. Of course, this all will end and reverse itself with a rise in interest rates but, in the mean time this seems to me a logical short term investment idea. Municipal bonds for tax free capital appreciation and stock market downturn protection while at the same time holding blue chip stocks for dividend and growth in market upturns.
USBLX profile:
"The investment seeks a conservative balance for the investor between income, the majority of which is exempt from federal income tax, and the potential for long-term growth of capital to preserve purchasing power. The fund typically invests a majority of assets in tax-exempt bonds and money market instruments and the remainder in blue chip stocks. It is managed with the goal of minimizing the impact of federal income taxes to shareholders."
I hold this fund in a taxable account and I like the performance so far. Yahoo categorizes it as a conservative allocation fund but, I believe its tax efficiency makes it a bit unique when compared with this group of funds. I would like to think it might match up against VWINX but, with a bit more tax efficiency. Here are the two compared over the last three years. VWINX was less volatile during the during the 2009-2009 downturn but USBLX has bounce back nicely. I will keep and eye on both as the muni debt restructuring story unfolds.
Here's one from Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-27/yields-seen-declining-based-on-200-year-history-muni-credit.html
Wondering if anyone is aware of similar type funds that would have a slice of municipal bonds and a slice of equities?

Howdy,
Again, a thank you to all who post the links and also start and participate in the many fine commentaries woven into the message threads.
For those who don't know; I ramble away about this and that, at least once each week.
NOTE: For those who visit MFO, this portfolio is designed for retirement, capital preservation and to stay ahead of inflation creep. This is not a buy and hold portfolio, and is subject to change on any given day; based upon perceptions of market directions. All assets in this portfolio are in tax-sheltered accounts; and any fund distributions are reinvested in the funds. Gains or losses are computed from actual account values.
While looking around.....May-Be there will be the Go Away in May within the next 30 days and return again in October, eh? 2010 and 2011 had these cycles; with special help from Europe, and in particular, Greece's situation, let alone mention the U.S. debt downgrade in July, 2011. Ted recently noted that he will be off-loading equities and moving to cash at the end of May. For the numerous investors at MFO who have the skills to move monies in a timely fashion; they may find equity returns of +20 through +40% for 2012, depending on the equity sectors and percentages involved in their holdings. I sincerely salute all who will be able to attain these goals.
To the "lite" side of life. I will soon begin my special weekend project helping the local school band boosters raise monies for various projects with selling raffle tickets for the "cow pie" drop. The annual town carnival will be in place the first week of June. A young cow, will be inside a small corral; with numbered squares placed upon the ground. As a "cow pie" is produced, the square number will be noted. From a box of sold raffle tickets, the related number ticket will be drawn for the winner. "Cow pie on number 4 and the 4th ticket drawn is the winner. Winners will be drawn on Sat. and Sun.; as pies are produced. A $1 ticket = a $100 chance win.
As to sector rotations below; for the past week: (Note: any given fund in any of these sectors will have varing degrees of performance based upon where the manager(s) choose to be invested.)
--- U.S. equity +.55% through + 3.2%, avg. = +.4%
--- Int'l equity -1% through + 1.9%, avg. = +.34%
--- U.S. eq. sectors - 3.5% through +3.9%, avg. = +.4%
--- U.S. IG bonds -.08% through +.46%, avg. = +.03%
--- HY bonds +.20% through +.87%, avg. = +.18%
The 3 best groups among the U.S. equity sectors were retail, nat. gas and biotech. The best in the IG bonds were TIPS funds, with Ginnie Mae's being slightly down and in last place. Int'l equity (generally Europe) performed the best overall, with Latin America and China regions being weakest with losses. There is an obvious large spread among some of the areas listed above. Now if we can only discover the forward paths.
You may consider our portfolio to be quite boring, but you may be assured that it moves and bends about each and every day; from forces beyond our control. We retail investors will find many interesting investment periods to ponder, as usual, in the coming years.
I have added a few blips related to our portfolio and market observations at the below SELLs/BUYs and Portfolio Thoughts.
SELLs/BUYs THIS PAST WEEK:

--- NONE ---
Portfolio Thoughts:
Our holdings had a + .67 % move this past week. Sidenote: The average return of 200 combined Fidelity retail funds across all sectors (week avg = +.29, YTD +10.2%). Plodding along. While IG bonds are not setting returns on fire; they are not giving ground to the recent equity rally. Among the writing and talking head professionals, one will find enough folks in both camps who won't own anything but equity or bonds. These folks are always at war to make profits. Both camps, using the best of their skills will make a profit. For we retail investors; it comes down to your risk/reward tolerance in conjunction with your skills, as well as how much money you can afford to lose and still maintain a most comfortable life style. We surely are not all in the same boat for this area. The so-called 1% and 99% exists here, and with other retail investors, too.
The old Funds Boat is at anchor, riding in the small waves and watching the weather. To the high praise of MFO and the members, it is very difficult to find a topic to note here that has not been placed into the discussion boards. Excellence, as usual.
I have retained the following links for those who may choose to do their own holdings comparison against the fund types noted.
The first two links to Bloomberg are for their list of balanced/flexible funds; although I don't always agree with the placement of fund styles in their categories.
Bloomberg Balanced
Bloomberg Flexible
These next two links are for conservative and moderate fund leaders YTD, per MSN.
Conservative Allocation
Moderate Allocation
A reflection upon the links above; we attempt to establish a "benchmark" for our portfolio to help us "see" how our funds are performing. Aside from viewing many funds within the balanced/flexible funds rankings (the above links), a quick and dirty group of 5 funds (below) we watch for psuedo benchmarking are the following:
***Note: these week/YTD's per M*
VWINX .... + .72 week, YTD = + 4.67%
PRPFX .... + .81 week, YTD = + 5.66%
SIRRX ..... + .22 week, YTD = + 2.69%
TRRFX .... + .84 week, YTD = + 6.98%
VTENX ... + .80 week, YTD = + 6.24%
Such are the numerous battles with investments attempting to capture a decent return and minimize the risk.
We live and invest in interesting times, eh? Hey, I probably forgot something; and hopefully the words make some sense. Comments and questions always welcomed.
Good fortune to you, yours and the investments.
Take care,
Catch
---Below is what M* x-ray has attempted to sort for our portfolio, as of March 9, 2012---
U.S.Stocks 10.5%
Foreign Stocks 6.8%
Bonds 78.5% ***
Other 4.2%
Not Classified 0.00%
***about 35% of the bond total are high yield category (equity related cousins)
---This % listing is kinda generic, by fund "name"
-Investment grade bond funds 26.8%
-Diversified bond funds 19.8%
-HY/HI bond funds 23.2%
-Total bond funds 17.8%
-Foreign EM/debt bond funds 4.3%
-U.S./Int'l equity/speciality funds 8.1%
This is our current list: (NOTE: I have added a speciality grouping below for a few of fund types)
---High Yield/High Income Bond funds
FAGIX Fid Capital & Income
SPHIX Fid High Income
FHIIX.LW Fed High Income
DIHYX TransAmerica HY
---Total Bond funds
FTBFX Fid Total
PTTRX Pimco Total
---Investment Grade Bonds
APOIX Amer. Cent. TIPS Bond
DGCIX Delaware Corp. Bd
FBNDX Fid Invest Grade
FINPX Fidelity TIPS Bond
OPBYX Oppenheimer Core Bond
---Global/Diversified Bonds
FSICX Fid Strategic Income
FNMIX Fid New Markets
DPFFX Delaware Diversified
TEGBX Templeton Global (load waived)
LSBDX Loomis Sayles
---Speciality Funds (sectors or mixed allocation)
FRIFX Fidelity Real Estate Income (bond/equity mix)
FDLSX Fidelity Select Leisure
FSAGX Fidelity Select Precious Metals
RNCOX RiverNorth Core Opportunity (bond/equity)
---Equity-Domestic/Foreign
FDVLX Fidelity Value
FSLVX Fidelity Lg. Cap Value
FLPSX Fidelity Low Price Stock
MACSX Matthews Asia Growth-Income

Dear Tony: I intend to liquidate my capital appreciation portfolio of funds the last week of May, and move to cash and bond funds. I will re-enter the equities market in early October.
Regards,
Ted
Trading Calendar: http://www.cxoadvisory.com/trading-calendar/

Hi scott,
Yes, I agree. But, our house is not beyond hanging monies out here and there; while still maintaining a balance towards more captial preservation areas (whatever those may be in the years ahead...) To this, as we have discussed, there may be a point in time within the next 10 years when some bond types will not be preservers of capital.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Catch

Reply to @catch22:
Hi Catch,
Thanks for your response to my question that I presented to you that asked how you felt one should position for a rising interest rate environment.
Reading what you wrote … In short words … You felt that high yield, short maturity and floating rate funds should fair better than other sectors. I trend to agree with you on that. Currently, I don’t hold any floating rate funds although I do hold some funds that have some floating rate securities in them along with some convertible securities.
Below I have listed what I consider to be my income generating funds within my portfolio. The yield is detailed in (x.xx%) following the name of the fund. I do own some stocks but I have not listed them.
Most of my income funds are listed below in which I hold meaningful positions. They are LIGRX, Loomis Sayles Investment Grade Bond Fund (5.16%) … LALDX, Lord Abbett Short Duration Income Fund (4.41%) … NEFRX, Loomis Sayles Core Bond Fund (4.14%) … STIAX, Federated Strategic Income Fund (5.66%) … CAPAX, Federated Capital & Income Fund (5.22%) … FKINX, Franklin Income Fund (6.56%) … NEFZX, Loomis Sayles Strategic Income (5.85%) … ISFAX, Lord Abbott Diversified Income Fund (5.44%) … PASAX, Pimco All Asset Fund (6.63%) … PGBAX, Principal Global Diversified Income Fund (5.29%) … TPINX, Templeton Global Bond Fund (6.12%) … IGPAX, ING Target Payment Fund (6.29%) … TSIAX, Thornburg Strategic Income Fund (6.32%).
Some of my growth and income funds that are kicking off good distributions are AZNAX, Allianz NACM Income & Growth Fund (8.70% distribution) … TBIAX, Thornburg Investment Income Builder (6.36%) … EADIX, Eaton Vance Tax Managed Global Dividend Income Fund (4.97%) … AMECX, Income of America Fund (4.02%) … CBIAX, Capital Income Builder (4.11%) … PMDAX, Principal Small & Midcap Dividend Income Fund (4.08%) … LPEFX, Financial Private Equity Fund (9.33%) … and, JCRAX, Jefferies Asset Management Commodity Strategy Fund (8.02%) plus a few others as this list is getting to long (twenty funds) to keep going, but these are the higher yielding ones.
Let me just say this … currently if it is not kicking off some type of income distribution in some form and fashion … I don’t own it … anywhere within my portfolio … even with my small and mid cap funds they have to provide some income. As you can see the theme here is diversified income generation.
I don’t know how this “hodge podge” of funds will hold up in a down draft … but, before the risk grade site closed … to individual investors … most of these funds scored real well. Boy, I do miss that site.
Catch thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts on fixed income. I went beyond fixed income in my response back to you … but, as you can see I am all across the board with funds that generate income for me … perhaps, it might help some readers find some income generating funds that they might wish to do their own due diligence.
Thanks again for your response … I’ll take a look see at some floating rate funds.
Skeeter

Reply to @Flack:
Hi Flack,
Good to hear from you.
Actually, I was thinking of you the other day as I was thinking this was the type of market that the new age investor would enjoy in so much as it was now getting more challenging, at least it has for me. From my thoughts the easy money has been made until we have a good ten percent pull back or so. This would put the S&P 500 Index around 1280 off its recent high of around 1420 and/or Morningstar is showing stocks with a good 10% discount in their Market Valuation Graph. Naturally, I’ll use technical analysis to help pick entries and average in through a process. Curremtly I have the market (S&P 500 Index) around a P/E Ratio of 13.
You may recall when our paths first crossed I was 15% cash, 30% income and 55% equity. Within cash, I was 5% demand and 10% time deposits (CDs). I lightened up income by 5% in October of 2010 as fixed was facing a rising interest rate environment until the European debt crisis came on the scene and with this many investors moved back into fixed an exited equities. I did not as I was finding better opportunities in equities as I played the equity swing with special positions. Today, I am still doing this but, I will have to wait for the next set up before I begin to load special equity positions again. I was fortunate last summer as I caught the markets in a good pull back and bought special positions during the summer. I began to sell them off with good gains as the market moved upward. I completed this process recently leaving my equity allocation at 50% which is a neutral equity allocation for me. I plan to wait here at 25% cash, 25% income and 50% equity until the next equity set up comes. Besides, I now have more demand cash as a good number of my CDs have matured … and, I need to make at least lost interest money. I have now more than done that thus far this year.
Fortunately for me, I don’t have to max my special investments to the extent that a hedge fund or an institutional investor might. I just need to continue to make enough to make my world work. So, I don’t take the risk they do through the use of leverage, shorting and other special strategies they use to maximize return although I do hold some mutual funds that do this. The burden to execute these strategies rest with them and not me and that is why I pay their fees for doing this. Besides I believe this is beyond my skill level as an individual investor. However, I can, somewhat, regulate my risk exposure by adjusting my asset aoolcation.
I believe, one of the board’s missions is to help other investors transverse the path of investing. With this, I enjoy being a contributor of post that I believe others will find of interest. I am happy that this post has found the interest that it has and you chose to make input.
I going to close saying … I await the next set up.
Take care Flack … it was indeed good to hear form you … and, as always your input and comments are welcome. They helped me in the past and I am sure they have helped others that you have not heard from.
My best,
Skeeter

A new stimulus: Have Wall Street bail out Main Street
-A mass mortgage refi solution is getting support from both sides of the political aisle. And it wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime.
-Written in January of 2012 by Allan Sloan of Fortune:
"Main Street taxpayers have bailed out Wall Street. Now it's time for Wall Street to return the favor by footing the bill to help millions of honorable Main Street borrowers pay lower interest rates on their mortgages, something that should have happened years ago. Wall Street giving back to Main Street -- imagine that!"
It's impact on REIT Investors:
"We're talking about doing $2.1 trillion of refis: 13 million at an average of $160,000. That's about $150 billion of lost market value to holders of the securities. Some small investors would be hurt, and I feel for them. But they -- or the managers of REITs or mutual funds in which they invested -- knew or should have known about prepayment risk. There's no reason to put these investors' interests above those of home-owners."
The politics:
"President Obama could order mass refis, a natural for him given his recent populist bent and the obvious (at least to me) "Wall Street pays back Main Street" trope.Now, to Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Given the uproar over his Bain Capital career, Romney might welcome a "Wall Street helps Main Street" proposal that costs taxpayers nothing. Romney wouldn't have to look far for expertise: Hubbard, the big mass-refi proponent mentioned above, is one of his economic advisers."
Article:
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/18/mortgage-refis-assistance/

I think you listed legitimate concerns about all 3 funds. I own both PRPFX and the other Yacktman fund, YAFFX. I am not concerned at all at this point on YAFFX. I would be more concerned if Yacktman senior left the fund (or retired). But so far I haven't heard that to be the case. PRPFX is 15% of my portfolio. I intend to reduce that percentage some time this year. I, myself, would not gamble on MERDX with the loss of Aster.
If you are looking for consistency and a manager that has capital preservation as his first goal, you may want to add FPACX to your short list. I'm very comfortable with this manager. Another consideration if you are looking for an income oriented fund might be PGDIX. I recently started to invest in this fund. It is listed as a large value world fund by Morningstar. But it really invests in a variety of income producing vehicles. Here is a link to the funds web site description:
http://www.principalfunds.com/investor/promo/gdif/
Good luck with your choice.

Howdy,
Again, a thank you to all who post the links and also start and participate in the many fine commentaries woven into the message threads.
For those who don't know; I ramble away about this and that, at least once each week.
NOTE: For those who visit MFO, this portfolio is designed for retirement, capital preservation and to stay ahead of inflation creep. This is not a buy and hold portfolio, and is subject to change on any given day; based upon perceptions of market directions. All assets in this portfolio are in tax-sheltered accounts; and any fund distributions are reinvested in the funds. Gains or losses are computed from actual account values.
While looking around..... The equity and bond kids continue the battle. While there remains decent YTD returns in many equity sectors, the bond kids are not buying into the whole picture; at least as is reflected in the so-called "safe harbor" issues of the U.S. Treasury, German bunds, British gilts and Japan's bonds. The Spanish bond auctions this past week performed better than I expected. However, both the Spanish and Italian 10 year bonds remain close to a 6% yield. While this yield would not be out of place during a period of growth for these or other country economies; I am not convinced that such a yield/payment burden upon these two countries is sustainable given the current existing debt burdens, delevering at many levels, potential for growth and ongoing austerity programs. If one could find a statistic; I would not be surprised to find for this summer, that the number of increase in size or new vegetable gardens among the citizens of Greece, Italy and Spain, in particular, as well as many other European countries. This would be another indicator of economic quality.
As to sector rotations; at least relative to the U.S. (Note: any given fund in any of these sectors will have varing degrees of performance based upon where the manager(s) choose to be invested.)
--- U.S. equity +1.5 through - 1.2%, avg. = +.6%
--- Int'l equity +3 through 0%, avg. = +1.4%
--- U.S. eq. sectors +4 through -2.6%, avg. = +.5%
--- U.S. IG bonds +.2 through 0%, avg. = +.05%
--- HY bonds +.7 through +.1%, avg. = +.3%
The best groups among the equity sectors were health/medical, utilities and consumer staples. The best average in the IG bonds were TIPS funds. Int'l equity (generally Europe) performed much better than the broad U.S. equities. There is an obvious large spread among some of the areas listed above. Now if we can only discover the forward paths.
Meanwhile, the IMF continues to beg for money to support and/or stablize some European countries. To a point, I don't really care about or give credit to words that continue to flow from the mouths of many of the heads of these various groups. On any given day one may find a reversal of what these folks word to the microphone about the quality of a region or the prospect for global growth. Behind closed doors, I suspect one would find a great deal of concern as to "how do we get out of this mess?" Of course, a possible true scenario may be that "reality bites" and to allow the unwind to take place. Perhaps this is the plan with all of the money being thrown about; as what took many years to acccumlate will also take many years to unwind. Sadly, the uttered and changing words and thoughts from some of these folks in high places is of little value or comfort; and only causes more uncertainty. I find very few upfront leaders anywhere who are associated with politics, governments or the numerous global monetary organizations. Surprise, surprise; eh?
You may consider our portfolio to be quite boring, but you may be assured that it moves and bends about each and every day; from forces beyond our control. We retail investors will find many interesting investment periods to ponder, as usual, in the coming years.
I have added a few blips related to our portfolio and market observations at the below SELLs/BUYs and Portfolio Thoughts.
SELLs/BUYs THIS PAST WEEK:

--- NONE ---
Portfolio Thoughts:
Our holdings had a + .20 % move this past week. Sidenote: The average return of 200 combined Fidelity retail funds across all sectors (week avg = +.16, YTD +8.8%). What is cash? This is a periodic question at MFO. For our house, we consider our IG bond holdings to be our cash in the current market conditions. One will find MM funds as a pure cash acct.; but even if fees are waived at this time, the average return for the past 3 years for a MM fund we could use (FDRXX) is .01%. Our IG bond funds have an average .45% expense ratio. An interesting question arises as to why in the world would one use a TIPS fund at all, let alone as a cash holding; and especially with the most recent TIPS auction closing with another negative yield? Move past the negative yield thought and to the fact that the yield also currently reflects a price/NAV increase. This is where the money is made today. Our two TIPS funds, APOIX and FINPX have YTD's of 1.9% and 2.2%, respectively. We find this return acceptable for parked money; with the added bonus of total flexibility to move the monies on a days notice to something more favorable.
The old Funds Boat is at anchor, riding in the small waves and watching the weather. To the high praise of MFO and the members, it is very difficult to find a topic to note here that has not been placed into the discussion boards. Excellence, as usual.
I have retained the following links for those who may choose to do their own holdings comparison against the fund types noted.
The first two links to Bloomberg are for their list of balanced/flexible funds; although I don't always agree with the placement of fund styles in their categories.
Bloomberg Balanced
Bloomberg Flexible
These next two links are for conservative and moderate fund leaders YTD, per MSN.
Conservative Allocation
Moderate Allocation
A reflection upon the links above; we attempt to establish a "benchmark" for our portfolio to help us "see" how our funds are performing. Aside from viewing many funds within the balanced/flexible funds rankings (the above links), a quick and dirty group of 5 funds we watch for psuedo benchmarking are the following:
***Note: these YTD's per M*
VWINX .... + .64 week, YTD = + 3.92%
PRPFX .... + .44 week, YTD = + 4.82%
SIRRX ..... + .13 week, YTD = + 2.47%
TRRFX .... + .51 week, YTD = + 6.08%
VTENX ... + .47 week, YTD = + 5.39%
HSTRX .... - .16 week, YTD = + .07% (to be removed, fund no longer matches our mix)
Such are the numerous battles with investments attempting to capture a decent return and minimize the risk.
We live and invest in interesting times, eh? Hey, I probably forgot something; and hopefully the words make some sense. Comments and questions always welcomed.
Good fortune to you, yours and the investments.
Take care,
Catch
---Below is what M* x-ray has attempted to sort for our portfolio, as of March 9, 2012---
U.S.Stocks 10.5%
Foreign Stocks 6.8%
Bonds 78.5% ***
Other 4.2%
Not Classified 0.00%
***about 35% of the bond total are high yield category (equity related cousins)
---This % listing is kinda generic, by fund "name"
-Investment grade bond funds 26.8%
-Diversified bond funds 19.8%
-HY/HI bond funds 23.2%
-Total bond funds 17.8%
-Foreign EM/debt bond funds 4.3%
-U.S./Int'l equity/speciality funds 8.1%
This is our current list: (NOTE: I have added a speciality grouping below for a few of fund types)
---High Yield/High Income Bond funds
FAGIX Fid Capital & Income
SPHIX Fid High Income
FHIIX.LW Fed High Income
DIHYX TransAmerica HY
---Total Bond funds
FTBFX Fid Total
PTTRX Pimco Total
---Investment Grade Bonds
APOIX Amer. Cent. TIPS Bond
DGCIX Delaware Corp. Bd
FBNDX Fid Invest Grade
FINPX Fidelity TIPS Bond
OPBYX Oppenheimer Core Bond
---Global/Diversified Bonds
FSICX Fid Strategic Income
FNMIX Fid New Markets
DPFFX Delaware Diversified
TEGBX Templeton Global (load waived)
LSBDX Loomis Sayles
---Speciality Funds (sectors or mixed allocation)
FRIFX Fidelity Real Estate Income (bond/equity mix)
FDLSX Fidelity Select Leisure
FSAGX Fidelity Select Precious Metals
RNCOX RiverNorth Core Opportunity (bond/equity)
---Equity-Domestic/Foreign
FDVLX Fidelity Value
FSLVX Fidelity Lg. Cap Value
FLPSX Fidelity Low Price Stock
MACSX Matthews Asia Growth-Income