February 2021 IssueLong scroll reading

Introducing MFO Premium’s Saved Searches Feature

By Charles Boccadoro

Our friends at Gaia Capital Management once again encouraged us to upgrade MultiSearch, our main tool on MFO Premium. This request was to enable stored search criteria; thereby, relieving them from the task of re-entering the various screening criteria they employ each month. (The Compare Funds tool was also developed for Gaia, as described in the April 2019 commentary. )

The new feature is particularly helpful when employing various screens with numerous criteria. For example, the MFO Premium’s Best Funds of the Decade, which we published in January 2020 (a short lifetime ago), involved half a dozen criteria.

They included, across the decade and in their respective categories:

  • highest risk adjusted return rank based on Martin,
  • top quintile absolute return and Martin for the past 10, 5, and 3 years,
  • top quintile average absolute return across rolling 3-year periods,
  • annualized return above the 10-year T-Bill at the start of the decade, which was 3.7%.

All those criteria can now be entered into MultiSearch and then saved to your user profile, like Watchlists and Portfolios. Once saved, just click the Run button next to the saved Search to get the update. Up to 25 Searches can be saved to your portfolio with customized names.

Here are the current results of those same criteria one year later:

It’s an impressive list! Dodge & Cox Income (DODIX), Morgan Stanley’s Global Advantage (MIGIX) and International Advantage (MFAIX), and T Rowe Price Capital Appreciation (PRWCX), Vanguard California Intermediate Term Tax-Exempt (VCAIX), and Virtus KAR Small-Cap Growth (PXSIX). But none are from the same list a year ago.

Here’s how the Search is saved on the MultiSearch Input page, right under the Watchlists:

They are best saved by performing a normal search then hitting the Export/Searches button on the results page. The criteria are saved in a rather cryptic form, but don’t worry … just name it appropriately!

Curious how the 2020 Funds of the Decade did this year? Below are the year-end results. Not great. But they all delivered healthy returns. Their 10-year numbers are still awesome.

Also this month, thanks to a suggestion by long-time subscriber Laurie Rubin at our recent webinar, we increased the number of Watchlists and Portfolios that can be saved from 10 to 25. And, thanks to a similar suggestion by Michael Ball of Ball Financial Group, LLC of Tempe, AZ, users can now hold up to 50 funds in each Portfolio in the Portfolio Analysis tool. Each Watchlist can hold 100 funds.

Please enjoy the latest features!

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About Charles Boccadoro

Charles Boccadoro, BS (MIT), Post Graduate Diploma (von Karman Institute, BELGIUM). Associate editor, data wizard. Described by Popular Science as “enthusiastic, voluble and nattily-dressed,” Charles describes himself as “a recently retired aerospace engineer.” He doesn’t brag about a 30 year career that included managing Northrop Grumman’s Quiet Supersonic Platform and Future Strike Systems projects, working with NASA and receiving a host of industry accolades. Charles is renowned for thoughtful, data-rich analyses and is the driving force behind the Observer’s fund ratings and fund screeners.