Category Archives: Briefly Noted

Briefly Noted

By David Snowball

All the developments that are worth knowing but aren’t worth separate stories, including 50 funds that just earned headstones rather than headlines. An absolute disaster? 10% of vanishing funds promising “absolute returns.” Wells Fargo promises that you can trust them, just before announcing millions of additional fines. Tadas moves up, a favorite fund closes quick and hard, Monrad celebrates his 58th and the Mathers Fund leaves this veil of tears after 53 eventful years. Continue reading →

Briefly Noted

By David Snowball

Updates

In October 2016, Dennis Baran profiled City National Rochdale Emerging Markets (RIMIX/CNRYX). His bottom line on the fund,

CNRYX offers an investor exposure to emerging markets by its concentrated strategy in Asia. Since inception, the fund has adhered to its six-country Asian allocation and not included other EM Asian countries or EM countries outside of that region in any meaningful way. The manager believes that the long-term positives of the region discussed here can become a virtuous cycle that could last for decades and lead to fund outperformance. The results thus far support that thesis: the fund has earned a five-star designation from Morningstar, is ranked highest by Lipper in total return, consistent return, tax efficiency, expense, and is a MFO Great Owl.

Continue reading →

Briefly Noted . . .

By David Snowball

Update

Two notable updates from the folks at Zeo.

Our 2014 profile of Zeo Strategic Income celebrated their “extraordinarily thoughtful relationship between manager and investor. Both their business and investment models are working. Current investors – about a 50/50 mix of advisors and family offices – are both adding to their positions and helping to bring new investors to the fund, both of which are powerful endorsements. Modestly affluent folks who are looking to both finish ahead of inflation and sleep at night should likely make the effort to Continue reading →

Briefly Noted

By David Snowball

Updates

The 2018 Thomas Reuters Lipper Fund Awards have been announced. By their calculation, the top fund families overall are Thrivent Mutual Funds and TIAA Investments. Thrivent represents the universe of small fund companies while TIAA represents large firms. The top small fund families were PRIMECAP (equities), Ashmore (fixed income) and Allianz Global Investors (mixed assets).

Individual funds worth noting Continue reading →

Briefly Noted

By David Snowball

Updates (and notes from careful readers)

Several MLP funds – including Center Coast MLP Focus Fund (CCCAX) and Global X MLP ETF (MLPA) – have announced that the recent tax law changes affects them. They’re treated as “a regular corporation” for the purpose of tax law, which means that the statutory tax rate that affects them has dropped from 35% to 21%. It is not yet clear that the rate change will have any appreciable effect on shareholders or the funds’ returns because of the complexity of calculating corporate taxes, then or now.

FPA U.S. Value Fund (FPPFX) has affirmed the proposition that Continue reading →

Briefly Noted

By David Snowball

Updates

In December’s story, “There’s no idea so dumb that it won’t attract a dozen ETFs,” I derided the notion of blockchain ETFs. That’s because they have so few meaningful investments; there just aren’t many publicly traded blockchain-focused firms to build a portfolio around. I described their investment universe as “a small, motley collection of firms that recently changed their names to blockchainify them (360 Capital Financial suddenly became 360 Blockchain), over-the-counter stocks, foreign small caps and recent IPOs.”

Shortly thereafter, Long Island Iced Tea Corporation – literally, guys who make Continue reading →

Briefly Noted

By David Snowball

Updates

It’s been a good first year for Laura Geritz, the folks at the Rondure funds and her partners at Grandeur Peak. Rondure New World (RNWOX) has drawn $90 million in assets since its May 1, 2017 launch. Rondure Overseas (ROSOX) has drawn just $15 million so far, despite having stronger absolute and relative returns than its sibling. New World is an unconstrained all-cap fund investing in firms that are either in or are substantially tied to, the emerging markets. Overseas has a much lower market cap reflecting, in part, New World’s investments in huge multinational corporations that have substantial interests in the emerging world. Both funds have about 8% cash and portfolios that are reassuringly out-of-step with their peers; that is, both Continue reading →

Briefly Noted …

By David Snowball

 

The $12 million Global Strategic Income Fund (VEEEX) has a couple upgrades planned for the next month. “These changes included the appointment of a new adviser and sub-adviser to the Fund; revisions to the Fund’s investment objective; revisions to the Fund’s investment strategy; a change to the name of the Fund; changes to certain service provider agreements; and the addition of new share classes as well as the conversion of Class C Shares into Class A Shares.” Nominally the current version of the fund had a global, all-asset strategy; practically, it was a global equity fund with a 30-day SEC yield of 0.00%. The new fund will be Continue reading →

Briefly noted

By David Snowball

I’ve lost track of many of the funds that we profiled back in the FundAlarm days. This month one surfaced, Capital Advisors Growth Fund (CIAOX), and it was awfully nice to see that (a) they’re still providing exactly what they promised long ago – cautious equity exposure with no glitz – and (b) we were right, nine years ago, in assessing it as an exceptionally solid citizen for equity investors interested in sleeping well at night.

Briefly the number of mutual funds liquidating matched the number of ETFs liquidating, then September 29th came around and Continue reading →

Briefly Noted

By David Snowball

Updates

PIMCO fee roulette. PIMCO is changing the advisory fees on a bunch of their funds, some up, some down, and some both. Here’s the snapshot:

PIMCO All Asset Fund (PASAX), management fees go up 0.05% for D shares.

PIMCO All Asset All Authority Fund (PAUAX) up 0.05% for D shares

PIMCO Total Return Fund (PTTAX) up 0.05% for D shares, down 0.05% for A shares.

PIMCO Unconstrained Bond Fund (PUBAX), down 0.11% for all asset Continue reading →

Briefly noted

By David Snowball

The industry appears to be in full summer-beach mode, or its doing so splendidly that there’s no need to even think about changing anything. In any case, July saw the smallest number of announced changes in about five years.

Updates

Our July 2017 profile of Matthews Asia Credit Opportunities (MCRDX/MICPX) described it as investing in high-yield bonds. That’s correct but incomplete. Manager Satya Patel reminded us that the fund’s core investments can include “convertibles, hybrids and derivatives with fixed income characteristics.” Indeed, since inception convertible bonds have represented 20-25% of the portfolio. We’ve corrected the profile to reflect that. The fund has built a substantial performance advantage over its peers since inception, similar to the consistent success of its older Continue reading →

Briefly noted

By David Snowball

It’s been an unusually busy month in the industry, with nearly three dozen funds liquidated or slated for liquidation, as well as a surprising number of open funds closing to new investors and closed funds opening to them. And, as ever, the “smoke and marketing” crowd has re-branded a bunch of funds; most, not surprisingly, aren’t very good. Continue reading →

Briefly Noted . . .

By David Snowball

On April 20, 2017, UMB announced that it signed an agreement to sell Scout Investments and Reams Asset Management to Carillon Tower Adviser, a wholly owned subsidiary of Raymond James. In announcing its 2016 creation, James described Carillon as “new company to provide transparency and create efficiencies among its asset management firms.” As I note in our story on the Morningstar interviews, Carillon wasn’t particularly transparent and the guy representing Scout was curt to the point of being rude.

Sentinel Asset Management has agreed to sell its mutual funds to Touchstone. Details aren’t yet available.

The previously announced plan to Continue reading →

Briefly Noted

By David Snowball

Updates

Third Avenue Management, Marty Whitman and former president David Barse have agreed to a $14.25 million cash settlement of a lawsuit brought on behalf of investors in Third Avenue Focused Credit. The fund, if you recall, made headlines first through huge losses in the completely illiquid positions that dominated the portfolio, then by moving all of its assets into a locked trust which kept investors from reclaiming their money. The plan was to liquidate the illiquid when “rational” prices prevailed; after about 18 months, that process is still not complete. The whole mess has cost Third Avenue over $3 billion in assets and threatened its Continue reading →

Briefly Noted . . .

By David Snowball

Updates

Stay of execution: the Mirae Asset Asia Fund (MALAX) and Emerging Markets Fund (MALGX) were both scheduled for liquidation. “[A]fter further consideration,” the Board changed its mind. Both are very solid little funds, with an emphasis on the “little.” They have $25 million in assets between them after almost seven years of operation. At the same time, both are four-star funds with the same manager and both are distinguished by capturing a bit less of the downside and a bit more of the upside than their peers. The question remains whether, given the current infatuation with passive funds, that will ever be enough for the funds to reach economic viability. Continue reading →

Briefly noted

By David Snowball

Updates

It feels like an unusually consequential month for some of the fund industry’s most trusted voices. Scott Burns, long-time Dallas Morning News columnist, announced his retirement after “40 years of deadlines, 36 in national syndication. That’s over 5,000 columns and more than 3.5 million words.”  Rather than share final thoughts on personal finance (which you should have been able to glean from his preceding 3.5 million words), Scott offered “collection of columns that I wrote by leaving my computer, office and comfort zone.” If you write him, he’ll Continue reading →

Briefly Noted

By David Snowball

SMALL WINS FOR INVESTORS

Effective January 1, 2017, the management fee for AMG River Road Long-Short Fund (ARLSX, formerly ASTON/River Road Long-Short Fund) will be reduced from 1.10% to 0.85% . At the same time AMG River Road Select Value Fund (ARSMX, formerly ASTON/River Road Select Value Fund) drops from 0.9 to 0.75%. In both cases, the total e.r. then falls as well.

AQR Global (AQGNX) and International Equity Funds (AQINX) have reduced their expense ratios by 10 and 5 basis points, respectively.

Ariel has lowered fees on both International (AINTX) and Continue reading →

Briefly noted

By David Snowball

In a peculiarly peculiar move, Praxis Small Cap (MMSCX) is becoming Praxis Small Cap Index Fund. Praxis might, charitably, be described as “bad” (its five-year record trails its peers by 600 basis points annually) and “expensive” (1.68% with a 5.25% sales load). In an attempt to be less “bad,” they’re giving up active management but remaining expensive (1.13% with a 5.25% sales load). Here’s advice to prospective providers of index funds: if you can’t make it cheap, you’re going to lose. Praxis is attempting to dodge that ugly truth by being not-quite-an-index funds: its benchmark is the S&P SmallCap 600 but “the Fund seeks to avoid companies that are deemed inconsistent with the stewardship investing core values. In addition, the Adviser uses optimization techniques to Continue reading →