RiverPark Short Term High Yield Fund (RPHYX/RPHIX), May 2017

This is an update of a profile first published in July 2011.

Objective

The fund seeks high current income and capital appreciation consistent with the preservation of capital, and is looking for yields that are better than those available via traditional money market funds. They invest primarily in high yield bonds with an effective maturity of less than three years but can also have money in short term debt, preferred stock, convertible bonds, and fixed- or floating-rate bank loans.

Adviser

RiverPark Advisers. Executives from Baron Asset Management, including Continue reading →

RiverPark Short Term High Yield (RPHYX)

The fund:	RiverPark Short Term High Yield (RPHYX)
Manager:	David Sherman of Cohanzick Management, LLC
The call:	For about an hour on September 13th, David Sherman of Cohanzick Management, LLC, manager of RiverPark Short Term High Yield (RPHYX) fielded questions from Observer readers about his fund’s strategy and its risk-return profile. Somewhere between 40-50 people signed up for the RiverPark call. Highlights include: they expect to be able to return 300 – 400 basis points more than a money market fund they manage to minimize risk, not maximize return they do not anticipate significant competition for these assets expenses are unlikely to move much NAV volatility is more apparent than real – by any measure other than a money market, it’s a very steady NAV. The conference call (When you click on the link, the file will load in your browser and will begin playing after it’s partially loaded.)
The profile:	People are starting to catch on to RPHYX’s discrete and substantial charms. Both the fund’s name and Morningstar’s assignment of it to the “high yield” peer group threw off some potential investors. To be clear: this is not a high yield bond fund in any sense that you’d recognize. The Mutual Fund Observer profile of RPHYX, updated October, 2012 The audio profile
Web:	RiverPark Funds Website 2013 Q3 Report RPHYX Fact Sheet Fund Focus: Resources from other trusted sources

RiverPark Short Term High Yield Fund (RPHYX), July 2011, updated October 2012

This profile has been updated. Find the new profile here.

Objective

The fund seeks high current income and capital appreciation consistent with the preservation of capital, and is looking for yields that are better than those available via traditional money market and short term bond funds. They invest primarily in high yield bonds with an effective maturity of less than three years but can also have money in short term debt, preferred stock, convertible bonds, and fixed- or floating-rate bank loans.

Adviser

RiverPark Advisors, LLC. Executives from Baron Asset Management, including president Morty Schaja, formed RiverPark in July 2009. RiverPark oversees the six RiverPark funds, though other firms manage three of them. RiverPark Capital Management runs separate accounts and partnerships. Collectively, they have $567 million in assets under management, as of July 31, 2012.

Manager

David Sherman, founder and owner of Cohanzick Management of Pleasantville (think Reader’s Digest), NY. Cohanzick manages separate accounts and partnerships. The firm has more than $320 million in assets under management. Since 1997, Cohanzick has managed accounts for a variety of clients using substantially the same process that they’ll use with this fund. He currently invests about $100 million in this style, between the fund and his separate accounts. Before founding Cohanzick, Mr. Sherman worked for Leucadia National Corporation and its subsidiaries. From 1992 – 1996, he oversaw Leucadia’s insurance companies’ investment portfolios. All told, he has over 23 years of experience investing in high yield and distressed securities. He’s assisted by three other investment professionals.

Management’s Stake in the Fund

Mr. Sherman has over $1 million invested in the fund. At the time of our first profile (September 2011), folks associated with RiverPark or Cohanzick had nearly $10 million in the fund. In addition, 75% of Cohanzick is owned by its employees.

Opening date

September 30, 2010.

Minimum investment

$1,000.

Expense ratio

1.25% after waivers on $197 million in assets (as of September 2012). The prospectus reports that the actual cost of operation is 2.65% with RiverPark underwriting everything above 1.25%. Mr. Schaja, RiverPark’s president, says that the fund is very near the break-even point.

There’s also a 2% redemption fee on shares held under one month.

Update Our original analysis, posted September, 2011, appears just below this update. Depending on your familiarity with the fund’s strategy and its relationship to other cash management vehicles, you might choose to read or review that analysis first.	October, 2012
2011 returns: 3.86%2012 returns, through 9/28: 3.34%
Asset growth: about $180 million in 12 months, from $20 million
People are starting to catch on to RPHYX’s discrete and substantial charms. Both the fund’s name and Morningstar’s assignment of it to the “high yield” peer group threw off some potential investors. To be clear: this is nota high yield bond fund in any sense that you’d recognize. As I explain below in our original commentary, this is a conservative cash-management fund which is able to exploit pieces of the high yield market to generate substantial returns with minimal volatility.In a September 2012 conference call with Observer readers, Mr. Sherman made it clear that it’s “absolutely possible” for the fund to lose money in the very short term, but for folks with an investment time horizon of more than three months, the risks are very small.Beyond that, it’s worth noting that: they expect to be able to return 300 – 400 basis points more than a money market fund – there are times when that might drop to 250 basis points for a short period, but 300-400 is, they believe, a sustainable advantage. And that’s almost exactly what they’re doing. Through 9/28/2012, Vanguard Prime Money Market (VMMXX) returned 3 basis points while RPHYX earned 334 basis points. they manage to minimize risk, not maximize return – if market conditions are sufficiently iffy, Mr. Sherman would rather move entirely to short-term Treasuries than expose his investors to permanent loss of capital. This also explains why Mr. Sherman strictly limits position sizes and refuses to buy securities which would expose his investors to the substantial short-term gyrations of the financial sector. they’ve done a pretty good job at risk minimization – neither the fund nor the strategy operated in 2008, so we don’t have a direct measure of their performance in a market freeze. Since the majority of the portfolio rolls to cash every 30 days or so, even there the impairment would be limited. The best stress test to date was the third quarter of 2011, one of the worst ever for the high-yield market. In 3Q2011, the high yield market dropped 600 basis points. RPHYX dropped 7 basis points. In its worst single month, August 2011, the fund dropped 24 basis points (that is, less than one-quarter of one percent) while the average high yield fund dropped 438 basis points. they do not anticipate significant competition for these assets – at least not from another mutual fund. There are three reasons. (1) The niche is too small to interest a major player like PIMCO (I actually asked PIMCO about this) or Fidelity. (2) The work is incredibly labor-intense. Over the past 12 months, the portfolio averaged something like $120 million in assets. Because their issues are redeemed so often, they had to make $442 million in purchases and involved the services of 46 brokers. (3) There’s a significant “first mover” advantage. As they’ve grown in size, they can now handle larger purchases which make them much more attractive as partners in deals. A year ago, they had to beat the bushes to find potential purchases; now, brokers seek them out. expenses are unlikely to move much – the caps are 1.0% (RPHIX) and 1.25% (RPHYX). As the fund grows, they move closer to the point where the waivers won’t be necessary but (1) it’s an expensive strategy to execute and (2) they’re likely to close the fund when it’s still small ($600M – $1B, depending on market conditions) which will limit their ability to capture and share huge efficiencies of scale. In any case, RiverPark intends to maintain the caps indefinitely. NAV volatility is more apparent than real – by any measure other than a money market, it’s a very steady NAV. Because the fund’s share price movement is typically no more than $0.01/share people notice changes that would be essentially invisible in a normal fund. Three sources of the movement are (1) monthly income distributions, which are responsible for the majority of all change, (2) rounding effects – they price to three decimal points, and changes of well below $0.01 often trigger a rounding up or down, and (3) bad pricing on late trades. Because their portfolio is “marked to market,” other people’s poor end-of-day trading can create pricing goofs that last until the market reopens the following morning. President Morty Schaja and the folks at RiverPark are working with accountants and such to see how “artificial” pricing errors can be eliminated. Bottom Line This continues to strike me as a compelling opportunity for conservative investors or those with short time horizons to earn returns well in excess of the rate of inflation with, so far as we can determine, minimal downside. I bought shares of RPHYX two weeks after publishing my original review of them in September 2011 and continue adding to that account.

Comments

The good folks at Cohanzick are looking to construct a profitable alternative to traditional money management funds. The case for seeking an alternative is compelling. Money market funds have negative real returns, and will continue to have them for years ahead. As of June 28 2011, Vanguard Prime Money Market Fund (VMMXX) has an annualized yield of 0.04%. Fidelity Money Market Fund (SPRXX) yields 0.01%. TIAA-CREF Money Market (TIRXX) yields 0.00%. If you had put $1 million in Vanguard a year ago, you’d have made $400 before taxes. You might be tempted to say “that’s better than nothing,” but it isn’t. The most recent estimate of year over year inflation (released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 15 2011) is 3.6%, which means that your ultra-safe million dollar account lost $35,600 in purchasing power. The “rush to safety” has kept the yield on short term T-bills at (or, egads, below) zero. Unless the U.S. economy strengths enough to embolden the Fed to raise interest rates (likely by a quarter point at a time), those negative returns may last through the next presidential election.

That’s compounded by rising, largely undisclosed risks that those money market funds are taking. The problem for money market managers is that their expense ratios often exceed the available yield from their portfolios; that is, they’re charging more in fees than they can make for investors – at least when they rely on safe, predictable, boring investments. In consequence, money market managers are reaching (some say “groping”) for yield by buying unconventional debt. In 2007 they were buying weird asset-backed derivatives, which turned poisonous very quickly. In 2011 they’re buying the debt of European banks, banks which are often exposed to the risk of sovereign defaults from nations such as Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Spain. On whole, European banks outside of those four countries have over $2 trillion of exposure to their debt. James Grant observed in the June 3 2011 edition of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, that the nation’s five largest money market funds (three Fidelity funds, Vanguard and BlackRock) hold an average of 41% of their assets in European debt securities.

Enter Cohanzick and the RiverPark Short Term High Yield fund. Cohanzick generally does not buy conventional short term, high yield bonds. They do something far more interesting. They buy several different types of orphaned securities; exceedingly short-term (think 30-90 day maturity) securities for which there are few other buyers.

One type of investment is redeemed debt, or called bonds. A firm or government might have issued a high yielding ten-year bond. Now, after seven years, they’d like to buy those bonds back in order to escape the high interest payments they’ve had to make. That’s “calling” the bond, but the issuer must wait 30 days between announcing the call and actually buying back the bonds. Let’s say you’re a mutual fund manager holding a million dollars worth of a called bond that’s been yielding 5%. You’ve got a decision to make: hold on to the bond for the next 30 days – during which time it will earn you a whoppin’ $4166 – or try to sell the bond fast so you have the $1 million to redeploy. The $4166 feels like chump change, so you’d like to sell but to whom?

In general, bond fund managers won’t buy such short-lived remnants and money market managers can’t buy them: these are still nominally “junk” and forbidden to them. According to RiverPark’s president, Morty Schaja, these are “orphaned credit opportunities with no logical or active buyers.” The buyers are a handful of hedge funds and this fund. If Cohanzick’s research convinces them that the entity making the call will be able to survive for another 30 days, they can afford to negotiate purchase of the bond, hold it for a month, redeem it, and buy another. The effect is that the fund has junk bond like yields (better than 4% currently) with negligible share price volatility.

Redeemed debt (which represents 33% of the June 2011 portfolio) is one of five sorts of investments typical of the fund. The others include

Corporate event driven (18% of the portfolio) purchases, the vast majority of which mature in under 60 days. This might be where an already-public corporate event will trigger an imminent call, but hasn’t yet. If, for example, one company is purchased by another, the acquired company’s bonds will all be called at the moment of the merger.
Strategic recapitalization (10% of the portfolio), which describes a situation in which there’s the announced intention to call, but the firm has not yet undertaken the legal formalities. By way of example, Virgin Media has repeatedly announced its intention to call certain bonds in August 2011. Buying before call means that the fund has to post the original maturities (7 years) despite knowing the bond will cash out in (say) 90 days. This means that the portfolio will show some intermediate duration bonds.
Cushion bonds (14%), a type of callable bond that sells at a premium because the issued coupon payments are above market interest rates.
Short term maturities (25%), fixed and floating rate debt that the manager believes are “money good.”

What are the arguments in favor of RPHYX?

It’s currently yielding 100-400 times more than a money market. While the disparity won’t always be that great, the manager believes that these sorts of assets might typically generate returns of 3.5 – 4.5% per year, which is exceedingly good.
It features low share price volatility. The NAV is $10.01 (as of 6/29/11). It’s never been high than $10.03 or lower than $9.97. Their five separately managed accounts have almost never shown a monthly decline in value. The key risk in high-yield investing is the ability of the issuer to make payments for, say, the next decade. Do you really want to bet on Eastman Kodak’s ability to survive to 2021? With these securities, Mr. Sherman just needs to be sure that they’ll survive to next month. If he’s not sure, he doesn’t bite. And the odds are in his favor. In the case of redeemed debt, for instance, there’s been only one bankruptcy among such firms since 1985 and even then the bondholders are secured creditors in the bankruptcy proceedings.
It offers protection against rising interest rates. Because most of the fund’s securities mature within 30-60 days, a rise in the Fed funds rate will have a negligible effect on the value of the portfolio.
It offers experienced, shareholder-friendly management. The Cohanzick folks are deeply invested in the fund. They run $100 million in this style currently and estimate that they could run up to $1 billion. Because they’re one of the few large purchasers, they’re “a logical first call for sellers. We … know how to negotiate purchase terms.” They’ve committed to closing both their separate accounts and the fund to new investors before they reach their capacity limit.

Bottom Line

This strikes me as a fascinating fund. It is, in the mutual fund world, utterly unique. It has competitive advantages (including “first mover” status) that later entrants won’t easily match. And it makes sense. That’s a rare and wonderful combination. Conservative investors – folks saving up for a house or girding for upcoming tuition payments – need to put this on their short list of best cash management options.

Financial disclosure

Several of us own shares in RPHYX, though the Observer has no financial stake in the fund or relationship with RiverPark. My investment in the fund, made after I read an awful lot and interviewed the manager, might well color my assessment. Caveat emptor.

Fund website

RiverPark Short Term High Yield

Fact Sheet

RiverPark Short Term High Yield Fund (RPHYX) – July 2011

This profile has been updated since it was originally published. The updated profile can be found at http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2012/09/riverpark-short-term-high-yield-fund-rphyx-july-2011-updated-october-2012/

Objective

The fund seeks high current income and capital appreciation consistent with the preservation of capital, and is looking for yields that are better than those available via traditional money market and short term bond funds. They invest primarily in high yield bonds with an effective maturity of less than three years but can also have money in short term debt, preferred stock, convertible bonds, and fixed- or floating-rate bank loans.

Adviser

RiverPark Advisers. Executives from Baron Asset Management, including president Morty Schaja, formed RiverPark in July 2009. RiverPark oversees the five RiverPark funds, though other firms manage three of the five. Until recently, they also advised two actively-managed ETFs under the Grail RP banner. A legally separate entity, RiverPark Capital Management, runs separate accounts and partnerships. Collectively, they have $90 million in assets under management, as of May 2011.

Manager

Management’s Stake in the Fund

30% of the fund’s investments come from RiverPark or Cohanzick. However, if you include friends and family in the equation, the percentage climbs to about 50%.

Opening date

September 30, 2010.

Minimum investment

$1,000.

Expense ratio

1.25% after waivers on $20.5 million in assets. The prospectus reports that the actual cost of operation is 2.65% with RiverPark underwriting everything above 1.25%. Mr. Schaja, RiverPark’s president, says that the fund is very near the break-even point. Update – 1.25%, after waivers, on $53.7 million in assets (as of 12/31/2011.)

Comments

Redeemed debt (which represents 33% of the June 2011 portfolio) is one of five sorts of investments typical of the fund. The others include

Corporate event driven (18% of the portfolio) purchases, the vast majority of which mature in under 60 days. This might be where an already-public corporate event will trigger an imminent call, but hasn’t yet. If, for example, one company is purchased by another, the acquired company’s bonds will all be called at the moment of the merger.
Strategic recapitalization (10% of the portfolio), which describes a situation in which there’s the announced intention to call, but the firm has not yet undertaken the legal formalities. By way of example, Virgin Media has repeatedly announced its intention to call certain bonds in August 2011. The public announcements gave the manager enough comfort to purchase the bonds, which were subsequently called less than 2 weeks later. Buying before call means that the fund has to post the original maturities (five years) despite knowing the bond will cash out in (say) 90 days. This means that the portfolio will show some intermediate duration bonds.
Cushion bonds (14%), refers to a bond whose yield to maturity is greater than its current yield to call. So as more time goes by (and the bond isn’t called), the yield grows. Because I have enormous trouble in understanding exactly what that means, Michael Dekler of Cohanzick offered this example:

A good example is the recent purchase of the Qwest (Centurylink) 7.5% bonds due 2014. If the bonds had been called on the day we bought them (which would have resulted in them being redeemed 30 days from that day), our yield would only have been just over 1%. But since no immediate refinancing event seemed to be in the works, we suspected the bonds would remain outstanding for longer. If the bonds were called today (6/30) for a 7/30 redemption date, our yield on the original purchase would be 5.25%. And because we are very comfortable with the near-term credit quality, we’re happy to hold them until the future redemption or maturity.

Short term maturities (25%), fixed and floating rate debt that the manager believes are “money good.”

What are the arguments in favor of RPHYX?

It’s currently yielding 100-400 times more than a money market. While the disparity won’t always be that great, the manager believes that these sorts of assets might typically generate returns of 3.5 – 4.5% per year, which is exceedingly good.
It features low share price volatility. The NAV is $10.01 (as of 6/29/11). It’s never been higher than $10.03 or lower than $9.97. Almost all of the share price fluctuation is due to their monthly dividend distributions. A $0.04 cent distribution at the end of June will cause the NAV will go back down to about $9.97. Their five separately managed accounts have almost never shown a monthly decline in value. The key risk in high-yield investing is the ability of the issuer to make payments for, say, the next decade. Do you really want to bet on Eastman Kodak’s ability to survive to 2021? With these securities, Mr. Sherman just needs to be sure that they’ll survive to next month. If he’s not sure, he doesn’t bite. And the odds are in his favor. In the case of redeemed debt, for instance, there’s been only one bankruptcy among such firms since 1985.
It offers protection against rising interest rates. Because most of the fund’s securities mature within 30-60 days, a rise in the Fed funds rate will have a negligible effect on the value of the portfolio.
It offers experienced, shareholder-friendly management. The Cohanzick folks are deeply invested in the fund. They run $100 million in this style currently and estimate that they could run up to $1 billion. Because they’re one of the few large purchasers, they’re “a logical first call for sellers. We … know how to negotiate purchase terms.” They’ve committed to closing both their separate accounts and the fund to new investors before they reach their capacity limit.

Bottom Line

Financial disclosure: I intend to shift $1000 from the TIAA-CREF money market to RPHYX about one week after this profile is posted (July 1 2011) and establish an automatic investment in the fund. That commitment, made after I read an awful lot and interviewed the manager, might well color my assessment. Caveat emptor.

Note to financial advisers: Messrs Sherman and Schaja seem committed to being singularly accessible and transparent. They update the portfolio monthly, are willing to speak individually with major investors and plan – assuming the number of investors grows substantially – to offer monthly conference calls to allow folks to hear from, and interact with, management.

Fund website

RiverPark Short Term High Yield

Update: 3Q2011 Fact Sheet

A Dinner and Walk with David Sherman, fund manager of Crossing Bridge Funds.

Last week I had the opportunity to sit down for dinner with one of our own, the legendary David Sherman. He is no stranger to regular readers of MFO. His funds, public and private funds through Cohanzick and CrossingBridge and the RiverPark Short Term High Yield Fund, for which he’s the sub-adviser, are uniformly first rate. He’s articulated four investing principles that are embodied in each of his portfolios: Continue reading →

RiverPark Strategic Income Fund (RSIVX)

Objective and strategy

The fund is seeking high current income and capital appreciation consistent with the preservation of capital. The managers invest in “money good” securities; that is, in securities where the underlying strength of the issuer is great enough that “the risk of loss of principal due to permanent impairment is minimal.” It can invest in both investment grade and non-investment grade securities depending on market conditions and opportunities. They can also invest in Continue reading →

The Investor’s Guide to 2023: Three Opportunities to Move Toward

I have no idea what the best investment of 2023 will be, and neither does anyone else. The annual exercise in futility and fantasy is well underway in the financial press and market pundit community, notwithstanding the fact that their 2022 forecasts were laughably wrong, as were their 2021, 2020, 2019 …

Section 1, The Terrified Investor

Section 2, The Exhausted Investor

Section 3, The Enterprising Investor

The Terrified Investor

If you’re obsessed about 2023, our best advice is Continue reading →

An Investor’s Journeys, In Body and Mind

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Continue reading →

Intrepid Income Fund (ICMUX), February 2022

Objective and strategy

The fund’s goal is to generate current income. In particular, they want to offer an attractively higher yield than comparable maturity US Treasury securities without taking significant default or interest rate risk.

The managers invest primarily in shorter duration corporate bonds, both investment grade, and high yield. They might also own other income-producing securities such as securitized loans and convertible securities. Generally, the majority of securities in the portfolio are part of smaller issues of less than $500 million.

Comments

For investors, there is only one risk: Continue reading →

June 1, 2021

Dear friends,

Welcome to summer.

On the morning of Sunday, May 23, Dean Wendy Hilton-Morrow sent the following short email from the floor of the convention center in which our commencement was held.

Subject: It’s showtime!

The stage is set.

The players are gathering, nervously, outside. Over the next eight hours we’re going to celebrate Continue reading →

Snowball’s Indolent Portfolio

A tradition dating back to the days of FundAlarm was to annually share our portfolios, and reflections on them, with you. My portfolio, indolent in design and execution, makes for fearfully dull reading. That is its primary charm.

2020 was replete with adventures and surprises Continue reading →

November 1, 2020

And now we wait.

I’m writing this less than 48 hours before the end of the most divisive and likely most consequential presidential election in a hundred or a hundred and fifty years. (It depends on your view of the sea change enacted in 1932 or the tumult of 1860.) I am exceptionally distracted by the unfolding events.

In general, I have faith that things will work out okay. People are, on the whole, sensible when not terrified. And, while many of our fellow citizens are terrified – in part because conditions in many parts of the country are unremittingly hard and, in part, because political parties have learned that it’s in their best interests to enflame our worst fears – we have an okay track record of tempering our fears with Continue reading →

Portfolio update #2: added T. Rowe Price Multi-Strategy Total Return

On August 31, I added T. Rowe Price Multi-Strategy Total Return (TMSRX) to my non-retirement portfolio. I funded that position by transferring about half of my stake in T. Rowe Price Spectrum Income (RPSIX).

Why does this make sense?

I traditionally have minimal savings, in the sense of money in a savings account at the bank. That decision makes sense for me because my income is incredibly predictable (a perk of being a tenured senior member of the faculty at a strong college), though it grows minimally. Because savings accounts have for so long offered near-zero to negative real returns, I chose to keep the money otherwise destined for savings in exceedingly low volatility funds that offered the prospect of low- to mid-single-digit returns. RiverPark Short Term High Yield (RPHYX, 3% annual returns, 0.8% standard deviation, 1% maximum Continue reading →

H.R. Pufnstuf: 10 funds to buy when things get rough.

Jimmy, Freddy the magic flute and Mayor Pufnstuf (right).

H.R. Pufnstuf was the answer to the question, “Who’s your friend when things get rough?” Pufnstuf starred in a Sid and Marty Krofft cult classic TV show which debuted during “the summer of love” in 1969 and continued in reruns as late as 1999. The show’s theme song assured us that Pufnstuff, Mayor of The Living Island, was “your friend when things got rough” because “he knew just what Continue reading →

Snowball’s Indolent Portfolio

A tradition dating back to the days of FundAlarm was to annually share our portfolios, and reflections on them, with you.

Four rules have governed my portfolio for the past 15 years or so.

I maintain a stock-light asset allocation.

For any goal that’s closer than 10-15 years away, stock investing is speculation. Stocks rise and fall far more dramatically than other investments and, once they’ve fallen, it sometimes feels like they can’t get up. Equity income funds are typically very conservative vehicles, and yet they took four years to regain their October 2007 peaks. International large cap core funds took seven years to reach break-even while domestic large-cap core funds were underwater for five-and-a-half years. The worst-hit categories languished for nine years.

Research conducted by T. Rowe Price and shared here, on several occasions, led me to conclude that I wouldn’t gain much from a portfolio that exceeds 50% stocks. My target allocation is 50% income (half in cash-like investments, half in somewhat riskier ones) and 50% growth (half in firms domiciled in the US and half elsewhere). Based on a review of 70 years of returns (1949-2018), this allocation would typically Continue reading →

Briefly Noted

Updates

Effective December 31, 2019, founder Bill Nasgovitz resigned as president of the Heartland Funds and retired from its Board of Directors. He was succeeded, on January 1, 2020, by his son Will.

On December 31, 2019, founder James Oelschlager and his wife Vanita, the owners of Oak Associates, completed the transaction to sell substantially all of their ownership interest to a group led by members of their management team

A quick congratulations to Dennis Baran for being sharp-eyed and active. In December, our Elevator Talk focused on Joe Shaposhnik of the entirely-excellent TCW New America Premier Equities (TGUSX). Dennis, the author of several fine fund profiles for us, was intrigued by what he read, investigated and discovered that while Continue reading →

November 1, 2019

Dear friends,

It’s November 1, the traditional beginning of the holiday avoidance season. It’s the time of year when I program-out the local radio stations (not listening to you, Mix96) that switched to the 24/7 Christmas music today and the big box retailers who have declared that November 1 is Black Friday. (Looking at you, Kohls.) I will, with all my might, avoid their tinsel-festooned commercial caverns all of this month, and as much of next as I might.

That’s not because I dislike the year-end holidays. No, quite to the contrary: I’ve always embraced the communal spirit of celebration, the defiance Continue reading →

Reviewing Your Portfolio Hedges

There are a number of critical activities that most of us swear we’ll do tomorrow: schedule a colonoscopy, get to the gym, talk to your siblings, check your portfolio’s downside.

It’s time!

T.S. Eliot declared Continue reading →

Death Cleaning my portfolio

Or, since I teach at a historically Swedish-Lutheran college, I might use the original Swedish term: I was döstädning my portfolio.

By way of background, my income comes from teaching at the aforementioned Augustana College; it’s exceedingly secure but has not increased much, in real or inflation-adjusted terms, in quite a while. It has “bond-like” qualities. I invest about 13% pretax for retirement, the college has a match that adds about 10% and I squirrel away around 10% of my take-home pay each month. Our home in Davenport is small, snug and affordable. Our cars are used but clean and efficient. Our splurges often enough involve live music and Continue reading →

January 1, 2019

Dear friends,

January 1, 2019. Welcome to a New Year!

Or not.

January 1.

The whole question of why we designate January 1 as the start of a new year is a bit unsettled. As you think about it, January 1 aligns with nothing. No major historical event. No astronomical occurrence. No grand moment in any of Continue reading →

Objective

Adviser

The fund:

Manager:

The call:

The profile:

Web:

Objective

Adviser

Manager

Management’s Stake in the Fund

Opening date

Minimum investment

Expense ratio

Update

Bottom Line

Comments

Bottom Line

Financial disclosure

Fund website

Objective

Adviser

Manager

Management’s Stake in the Fund

Opening date

Minimum investment

Expense ratio

Comments

Bottom Line

Fund website

Objective and strategy

The Terrified Investor

Objective and strategy

Comments

And now we wait.

Updates

January 1.