Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
  • 10 Funds To Buy For High-Yield Preferred Stocks
    NPSAX is the Nuveen fund with a 4.75% load, and available ntf at Fidelity and Schwab.
    That's the one...thanks! Any thoughts on that one?
  • 10 Funds To Buy For High-Yield Preferred Stocks
    NPSAX is the Nuveen fund with a 4.75% load, and available ntf at Fidelity and Schwab.
  • New Details About Wilbur Ross’ Business Point To Pattern Of Grifting - Invesco
    Seems like Invesco may have overpaid for his firm because of Ross's persistent grifting:
    https://forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2018/08/06/new-details-about-wilbur-rosss-businesses-point-to-pattern-of-grifting/
    This is our Secretary of Commerce:
    From Ross’ vantage point, Trump offered the perfect exit. The future cabinet secretary’s private equity funds were underperforming—one on track to lose 26% of its initial value and another two dribbling out mediocre returns—and the accusations were starting to pile up. Roughly two months before the 2016 presidential election, the SEC announced WL Ross was paying a fine and refunding $11.9 million it allegedly skimmed from its investors, including interest. The scheme was complex. Like other private equity firms—including several that coughed up money to the SEC around the same time—WL Ross derived much of its revenue from management fees charged to its investors. With funds as large as $4.1 billion, management fees of 1.5% could alone bring in more than $60 million a year for Ross’ firm—serious money.
    But WL Ross promised that it would give its investors something like a rebate. For example, when Ross and his colleagues got certain fees for working on deals, they were supposed to give at least 50% of that money back to investors. But, according to SEC investigators, the firm gave back less than it suggested it would and pocketed the difference, leading the feds to conclude Ross’ firm broke laws that prohibit defrauding and misleading clients. WL Ross paid the big settlement but never admitted guilt.
    According to the feds, WL Ross charged some of those inappropriate fees in the years before the commerce secretary sold his firm to Invesco for $100 million up front and the possibility of another $275 million down the road. That meant that when Ross cashed out, he presumably did so at bigger valuation than he deserved. In a statement, Ross suggested that Invesco never clawed any of that money back. “The terms of the sale of my business in 2006 remain unchanged,” he said. Invesco declined to comment.
    There is more to the story. According to five former WL Ross employees and investors, the firm was also charging its investors on money that it had lost. Here’s how it worked: If WL Ross made an investment of, say, $100 million that declined dramatically, in the final years of the fund the firm was supposed to charge management fees on the actual value of the investment, not the $100 million starting point. However, WL Ross allegedly continued collecting fees on the amount invested, taking more than it deserved. WL Ross was allegedly even charging fees on one investment that was essentially worthless. When approached about the discrepancy, Wilbur Ross initially insisted his firm was calculating the fees correctly, according to someone familiar with those discussions. “There are all sorts of fee issues,” says an investor, “but it was just the most egregious that I’ve seen.”
    https://bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2018/08/07/invesco-lumped-into-forbes-wilbur-ross-grifting.html
    Invesco has seen its stock plunge since Jan. 26, 2018 — from $38.4 per share to $25.68 as of Tuesday morning.
  • 12 Low-Cost Active Funds That Are Beating The S&P 500
    There are a few differences between a sector fund as bee compared too versus DSENX. In theory, CAPE will rotate sectors within the fund, not stay stagnant with 1 sector. In that it holds a 'diversified' selection of 4 (or is it 5) sectors also sets it apart from a comparison with a specific sector fund. You may not be broadly investing with a fund like DSENX, but you certainly are more diversified than a sector fund like FSMEX. I don't think you can compare returns from the 2.
  • 12 Low-Cost Active Funds That Are Beating The S&P 500
    I had two that made the list of twelve. They are AGTHX & AMCPX ... and, a third fund that was not listed (due to a high expense ratio) that betters both of the above and that is SPECX. These three funds make up my large/mid cap sleeve found in the growth area of my portfolio. At times this sleeve has held VADAX which is an equal weighted S&P 500 fund.
  • 12 Low-Cost Active Funds That Are Beating The S&P 500
    @bee,
    >> isn't sector weighting the very "secret sauce" that make DSENX so special?
    well, hmm, I never thought about it that way. Not really sectors, I think. When you do regular auto-churning per valuation criteria in the SP500 space, I guess it seems to be not very close to the 115 or whatever it is holdings of Fido Sel Tech. But an interesting take.
    Fido should concoct a fund based on auto-cycling among Select portfolios. There used to be a service that did that, or maybe more than one.
  • 12 Low-Cost Active Funds That Are Beating The S&P 500
    Yours are all niche (sector) endeavors, right?
    The article is about broad investing.
    You can always find sector good stuff. I sure wish I had been in 4-5 Fido sectors since they came out in the 1980s.
    Are there truly any other CAPE-based funds?
  • 12 Low-Cost Active Funds That Are Beating The S&P 500
    For some reason FSMEX, FSRPX & PRNHX received no love...that's o.k., please ignore their out performance.
    @davidmoran...I kinda of agree, but CAPE (DSENX) is still not the only "CAPE crusader"...since 2013 (FSMEX has been pretty good):
    image
  • Berkshire Hathaway Profit Surges 67% In Quarter
    Hi sir skeet/old Joe Ted... so busy w work... Pop in and out if have time.... Still 80 20 in 401k. No time to be active so take couch potato approaches... Will likely buy wifey the 2030 2025 portfolio
  • 12 Low-Cost Active Funds That Are Beating The S&P 500
    Investment News seems to be putting out a bunch of top 12 (or whatever) funds. Here, it's "best-performing", not "some of the best performing". I guess I don't understand their criteria, because ISTM there are several funds that belong among these dozen:
    4.5 Fidelity Blue Chip Growth (FBGRX)
    5.5 Harbor Capital Appreciation (HACAX)
    5.8 Vanguard Primecap (VPMAX)
    7.5 Fidelity Growth Discovery (FDSVX)
    8.5 Fidelity Trend (FTRNX)
    8.8 T. Rowe Price Growth Stock (PRGFX)
    (BTW, the ticker for Magellan is wrong - IN's error, not Ted's; should be FMAGX)
    From these "magnificent dozen", one can't infer anything.
    One can't infer that management skill played any role here, since these are all growth funds. The outperformance might be due to your choosing growth over value in the past year, and may have had nothing to do with the fund managers' skill.
    Or skill might have had everything to do with it, and it might be easy for managers to beat the S&P 500. The list of such funds that beat the S&P 500 is clearly larger than twelve. From the information given, you don't know whether there are just six more funds or a thousand more funds that outperformed.
    In short, this doesn't really serve as evidence of much of anything. It's just a somewhat random list of large cap growth funds that happened to beat the S&P 500 over an arbitrarily selected time period (ending July 27) with an arbitrarily chosen cutoff ER.
  • MFCFX vs. PROVX
    This month David provided an interesting follow-on to the merging of Marsico Flexible Capital and Marsico Global. "Briefly Noted," https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2018/08/briefly-noted-24/#more-11945. He thoughtfully researched possible alternatives to MFCFX and came up with a grid of several balanced/allocation funds. As a result, Provident Trust (PROVX) came to light and he commented, "And if you’re suddenly wondering why we haven’t profiled Provident Trust yet, join the club. I’m wondering the same thing."
    I used to own MFCFX and the whole time I wondered how it got categorized as an allocation fund; for me it was a global growth fund whose mandate allowed it to invest in other "stuff." It rarely did and even today it has nothing but stocks and a bit of cash. These days M* has an 85%+ allocation category, the best fit, I think, for a fund that does in fact allocate.
    Apparently PROVX would fall into that category, but M* has it pegged as Large Growth. In any event, PROVX today is a highly concentrated (14 stocks) large-cap growth fund with about 10% cash and 5% bonds. Its performance is terrific, from almost any angle, but most assuredly from the perspective of a 85%+ allocation instrument. I would compliment the fund manager on a succinct and rare summary of what he does, has done in the past, and what market conditions prevail now and into the near future. To wit: https://www.provfunds.com/docs/06.30.18 Shareholder Letter.pdf
    According to the letter, the fund really has been flexible with respect to its equity allocation. I have not followed it. I guess a small fund could jump in and out of stocks efficiently, but I couldn't imagine FPACX (one of the other balanced funds used as a comparison) doing the same. Provident's turnover ratio is so impossibly low as to confound us. I hope David can profile PROVX as it sounds interesting.
  • 12 Low-Cost Active Funds That Are Beating The S&P 500
    HI Guys,
    More evidence that beating the market is not an impossible challenge. But the odds are long against that outcome.
    The percentages change over time and over investment category, but those odds hover under the 5% and less odds. Those are too low from my perspective so Index products are attractive options.
    However, I still like the challenge so a small fraction of my money is committed to actively managed funds. Hope springs eternal!!! The good news for me is that I own a few of the funds that Ted provided in his summary. Probably more luck than skill.
    Best Regards
  • 12 Low-Cost Active Funds That Are Beating The S&P 500
    FYI: With Fidelity Investments resetting the fee-war bar with its new zero-cost index funds, we thought it was time to look at the best-performing actively managed mutual funds with expense ratios below 70 basis points.
    Culling data from CFRA and Morningstar, the following list includes actively-managed U.S. equity mutual funds with at least $100 million in assets.
    The 12-month performance numbers are through July 27 and compare to a 16.1% return by the S&P 500 Index over the same period.
    Regards,
    Ted
    1. PRIMECAP Odyssey Aggressive Growth (POAGX)
    2. PRIMECAP Odyssey Growth (POGRX)
    3. Fidelity Focused Stock (FTQGX)
    4. Vanguard Explorer (VEXRX)
    5. Vanguard US Growth (VWUAX)
    6. Vanguard Capital Opportunity (VHCAX)
    7. Vanguard Mid-Cap Growth (VMGRX)
    8. Vanguard Morgan Growth (VMRAX
    9. Fidelity Magellan (FAMGX)
    10. American Funds Growth Fund of America (AGTHX)
    11 .American Funds AMCAP (AMCPX)
    12. Fidelity Fund (FFIDX)
    http://www.investmentnews.com/gallery/20180803/FREE/803009999/PH/12-low-cost-active-funds-that-are-beating-the-sp-500
  • CEF resources and recommendations
    GOF is a fund of funds so your expense ratio is double. The two Pimcos are excellent, but too expensive to buy now. CEFs go on sale about twice a year, and on a panicked protracted many months long selloff every 2.5 - 3 years. So be patient. Oh, and DSL has nothing going for it, but the name of its manager. NAV return is average, and it hasnt earned its distribution in a while. Overpriced by about 5-7%. Watch and study them. Don't rush.
  • Floating rate loans mitigate interest rate risk
    There's a good overview of floating rate loans by one of the best SA contributors up now. The specific focus is on CEFs, but the first half or so and bits of the rest are about the sector in general.
    Note the subtitle: '"Curb Your Enthusiasm." The authors point out that quality - and this is a junk sector - has been deteriorating for a while, and that next big downturn, the sector will prob'ly just about mirror HY corps. (Of course one of the pluses of loans in the past has been that they're senior to HY and tend to recover considerably more in default; ADS is saying, maybe not the next time.)
    On the other hand, they say, floating loans deserve a place in portfolios, generally speaking, because of the low correlation to equity and traditional bonds.
    If anyone's interested in CEFs, there's a table evaluating the field of individual funds toward the end. Caution, tho -- their evaluation parameters might not be exactly the ones others would choose.
  • Investors Move To Cash, Anticipating Democratic Gains In U.S. Nov Elections
    Hey @Ted, Thanks for posting the article. Seems, Old_Skeet has been thinking much the same as I started my cash build back in June/July with my mutual fund distributions; and, I'll let my fund manages position their respective funds. It's interestingly that I've now noticed a sector rotation shift by comparing a recent Xray of my portfolio to one done back in March. Currently, the Xray shows I am light in tech, industrials and discretionary as compared to the S&P 500 Index. I'm about even in financials. With this, this means I am overweight in a good number of the other S&P 500 sectors such as utilities, energy, materials, real estate, communication services and consumer staples.