Despite pervasive skepticism based on: Russian invasion. China US tension. Inflation. Rising rates. Bank collapses. Default fears. The S&P 500 has been climbing generally for 9 months. Axios describes this year’s market as “climbing a wall of worry.”
A strong June of 6.6% return propelled the index to 26% over its October low, which qualifies the advance as a new bull market. Continue reading →
Morningstar held its annual investment conference [Morningstar Investment Conference US (MICUS) 2023] this past week beginning 24 April in Chicago, where tulip gardens bloomed on the city’s walkways.  Continue reading →
This past week we upgraded our payment portal on MFO Premium from PayPal Standard to PayPal Commerce Platform. We’re hopeful the new portal will make subscribing and resubscribing easier and safer.
We introduced MFO’s Rating System nearly 10 years ago, which included metrics that we found difficult to obtain at the time, like Continue reading →
On Friday, 6 January, we will be conducting our year-end webinar to review funds and MFO Premium. If you can make it, please join us by registering here. There will be just one session this year: 9 a.m. Pacific (noon Eastern).
We will use MultiSearch Pre-Set screens and other custom criteria to review fund performance in 2022. MultiSeach is the site’s main tool, enabling searches with numerous screening criteria. We will also demo some of the many features across the site.
MFO Premium includes the Continue reading →
All fund risk and return metrics, ratings, and analytics were uploaded to MFO Premium today, 31 October, Halloween 2022. We used Lipper’s Friday data drop to get an early peek … and today markets seemed tame enough, so numbers should be pretty close to month’s end.
October was a decent one for equity funds, especially value. The Dow was up an extraordinary 14%. But still Continue reading →
All fund risk and return metrics, ratings, and analytics were uploaded to MFO Premium Sunday, 31 July, reflecting performance through July 2022.
When we run the monthly update that close to the last business day, we will normally re-run the ratings the following Saturday to pick up any late reporting funds. This past month that version was uploaded Sunday, 7 August. We also uploaded Continue reading →
In our April 2021 commentary, David highlighted: “The Total Stock Market Index is up 62% in the past 12 months. 291 funds (and uncounted ETFs) have 12-month returns in excess of 100% …” By the end of the bull run in December, that number had grown to 730 mutual funds and 1102, including ETFs. The S&P 500 ended up 90%.
If we examine just US & Global Equity funds and ETFs but exclude trading (e.g., leveraged) and sector funds, The 100 Club tallied 705 or more than a quarter of the 3000 products available in the US. Continue reading →
The next MFO Premium webinar will occur Tuesday, July 12th.
Our premium search tool site helps individual investors and financial advisers 1) sort through the vast number of funds available today based on criteria important to them, 2) maintain candidate lists of promising funds to conduct further due diligence on, and 3) monitor risk and return performance of their current portfolios. Continue reading →
Numerous bear sightings occurred these past several weeks, but with June’s awful performance, the new bear is clear and present. Intra-month, the S&P 500 closed down more than 20% from its previous peak and at month’s end, it closed down level at 20%, similar to the CV-19 bear of March 2020. In June alone it dropped more than 8%. This retraction marks the seventh bear market since 1968 (or tenth since 1926), as depicted in the chart below.
It remains quite astounding what a 3% rise in the 10-year T-Note has done to equity and bond markets over the past 6 months. Some good news? 10-year CDs are now yielding close to 4%. Continue reading →
Our MFO Premium search tool site now makes it quick and easy to run several analytics that previously required accessing through the main MultiSearch tool. Users can click on the Analyze link in the navigation bar atop any page, including Home, to run Chart, Compare, Correlate, Rolling Averages, Trend & Momentum, and Ferguson.
On first run, users will be prompted to enter up to 12 tickers. Once run, those same tickers can be used to run any other analysis tool or modify accordingly. This feature gets us one step closer to enhanced mobility, enabling focused fund analysis via your cell phone.
Here is screenshot of quick-access, pull-down analysis menu …
Morningstar held its annual investment conference [Morningstar Investment Conference US (MICUS) 2022] in Chicago during the beautiful month of May, beginning on the month’s 16th day.
And with it came the return of …
A quick sampling of recent headlines …
We’ve just gone live with Interactive Charts on our premium site. The capability is a long time in coming and addresses an ongoing complaint (aaah … request) from David that the site should offer more than table-based screening tools, more specifically DataTables based. It does now.
The new charting tool provides Continue reading →
We posted month ending January 2022 performance to MFO Premium site early Thursday morning, 3 February. Pretty tough month! Nearly all funds should be included in this “incremental” drop from Refinitiv, but any omissions will be incorporated in the full monthly drop on Saturday.
We hosted our year-end review webinar on 4 January. Thank you again to all who participated! I benefit from these sessions just as much as I hope you do. It was the third consecutive year in which most domestic equity funds did Continue reading →
Refinitiv dropped month-ending December data, capping 2021, early this New Year’s Day.
We are on schedule to post year-end fund results to the MFO Premium site this evening.
We added a couple of features to MultiSearch, the site’s main tool, this past month worth calling out: Continue reading →
On Tuesday, 4 January, we will be conducting our year-end webinar to review funds and the site. If you can make it, please join us. Register here for the morning session (11 a.m. Pacific) and/or here for the afternoon session (2 p.m. Pacific).
We will use MultiSearch Pre-Set screens and other custom criteria to review fund performance in 2021. MultiSeach is the main tool on MFO Premium.
We will also review Continue reading →
One of the earliest articles in my tenure with MFO was entitled “Ten Market Cycles.” It characterized the risk and return metrics of the S&P500 during full market cycles (comprising bear and bull markets) beginning in the mid-1950s. This piece evolved through the years using month-ending instead of day-ending prices, making it a little easier to see the big picture, and adding new cycles. The series, if you will, is Continue reading →
Last month, in “A Leap of Faith – MICUS Chicago 2021,” we noted that Morningstar’s CEO Kunal Kapoor recently described US equities as “one of the greatest bull markets.” The statement looks past March 2020, of course. Similarly, many who discuss the great bull markets of the 1980s and 1990s, don’t acknowledge the sudden decline of October 1987, so-called “Black Monday.”
Basically, both retractions were so short, each just three months, they just Continue reading →
The Welcome
Last week Morningstar’s CEO Kunal Kapoor welcomed 700 in-person attendees to Chicago and the Morningstar Investment Conference [MICUS 2021, the “US” short for United States]. This was the first such in-person event since before COVID. Another 1400 attended virtually. This hybrid approach to conferencing likely signals the way forward.
While many 2021 events were being rescheduled or canceled because of the unexpected Delta variant surge, Morningstar pressed on. And it was so welcomed! [Literally, attendees could watch the sunrise over Lake Michigan Continue reading →
That’s what Brad Ferguson, an Indianapolis-based financial adviser, strives to achieve for his clients at Halter Ferguson Financial: consistent outperformers, as depicted in the quad chart below Continue reading →
