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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.
  • International Currency Hedging
    Majority of my foreign exposure to equities and bonds are unhedged against USD. My timing was bad in 2007 when my local currency EM Pimco bond tanked badly and took over 3 years to recovered. Think it was my mistake of jumping in all at once instead building up the position over 6-12 months.
  • Mid Cap Value Funds
    Janus Henderson Mid Cap Value JNVSX
    Did you mean Janus (JNMCX) or Jensen (JNVSX), or both?
    Toward the end of their fund management tenure with JNMCX, the Perkins seemed to have lost their mojo. In the past few (about 5) years the change in management has brought some improvement. Still, nothing to get excited about. FWIW the cheaper Janus D shares recently reopened.
    @Observant1 identified another fund recently reopened, TRMCX. That's a better fund. TRP has one of the best records in handling changes in management, transitioning slowly and not surprising investors.
    I agree with the others about NMVAX's high turnover rate. The prospectus even declares: "The Fund’s annual portfolio turnover rate will generally be 100% or greater." So the high turnover last year isn't an exception. While M* says that the fund's portfolio has been blend for the past three years, it still classifies the fund as value. OTOH, Lipper classifies it as midcap core (blend). The high turnover might suggest that the fund will follow market trends, drifting more quickly to value if there is rotation. Or the fund might simply be a value poseur.
    Another factor you might want to consider if you're thinking about market rotation is the possibility that foreign equities could start outperforming domestic ones. Small and midcap funds tend not to invest as much abroad. Exceptions include TRMCX (15%, of which 1/5 is EM), and NMVAX (20% but no EM). FLPSX (41%, but only about 1/15 EM) is in a class by itself here, holding more foreign stocks than some global funds including Fidelity's own Worldwide FWWFX (37%, 1/8 EM) (mentioned for reference purposes only).
  • International Currency Hedging
    @rono: Do you look at this fund as a short term (spiff) play ?
    Be glad that you didn't purchase back in 2011 when this fund evolved !
    Stay Safe, Derf
  • Not all the pain has passed’: Worst is yet to come warns Pimco’s Tournier
    https://citywireselector.com/news/not-all-the-pain-has-passed-worst-is-yet-to-come-warns-pimco-s-tournier/a1398295
    FUND MANAGER VIEWS
    ‘Not all the pain has passed’: Worst is yet to come warns Pimco’s Tournier
    LONG READ: Bond manager overseeing $23bn at US giant is preparing her major portfolios for a tougher times ahead and ‘serious consequences’ of interventionist policies.
    Could be more icebergs ahead/ more volatility and market downturns short- medium terms with c19 and elections. Pimco management is handling situations reasonably well and placing interesting bet options...hold on to the ride
  • The value-growth spread Explained - Value is short tech
    Many of them seem susceptible to slow-moving changes in the regulatory environment, trade war, and/or sudden changes in fashion.
    None of them make anything that feeds me, cleans me, moves me, shelters me, or provides physical comfort.
    The only reason Buffet stopped investing in cigar butts was because he had too much money to invest. Dinky linky.
    My cigar-butt strategy worked very well while I was managing small sums. Indeed, the many dozens of free puffs I obtained in the 1950s made that decade by far the best of my life for both relative and absolute investment performance.
    Most of us won't face that problem investing in mutual funds.
  • Mid Cap Value Funds
    I have no idea if there will be a rotation to value or mid-caps in the near-future. Regarding turnover, I generally avoid equity funds with turnover greater than 40%.
    The ARTQX management team outperformed the mid-cap value category for a number of years based on total return/risk-adjusted return. However, poor stock selection and the retirement of one of the senior managers seems to have taken a toll. ARTQX has lagged its category every calendar year from 2014 - 2019 (except 2016).
    TRMCX is a good fund. Although there is some key-person risk, T. Rowe Price is well-resourced and generally handles manager transitions well. Purchase of this fund may be restricted to customers who trade directly with T. Rowe Price.
    If you're not opposed to indexing, VMVAX may also be worthy of consideration.
  • The value-growth spread Explained - Value is short tech
    Interesting perspective. I skipped the “machine learning” aspects, but they are saying that value funds contain very little new tech companies, very little FAANG+M stocks.
    https://sparklinecapital.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/sparkline_value_investing.pdf
    Executive Summary
    Value investing has a long and distinguished pedigree but is currently in a deep thirteen-year drawdown. We believe this is because value has rotated into a massive losing bet against technological disruption.
    *****
    ...look at the companies you actually get when you buy a value portfolio. Exhibit 4 shows the sector composition of Russell 1000 Value and Growth....Value investors are making an epic 34.7% short bet against the technology sector. Moreover, this bet is more than fully explained by their underweight to the FAANG+M companies. Value has a meager 1.4% position in FAANG+M compared to Growth’s 39.4%. Not only are value investors short tech, but they are short Big Tech. And in a big way. Once we neutralize its anti-disruption bet, we find that value’s lost decade disappears. Value’s drawdown is fully explained by its big bet against disruption.
    Buffett gradually evolved his approach beyond that of his mentor. With the help of his partner, Charlie Munger, he realized that Graham’s “cigar-butt” investment style was neither scalable nor sustainable. Meanwhile, the economy was evolving, marked by the rise of the great American consumer brands, such as Coca-Cola, which enjoyed loyal customers and wide moats. Buffett embraced a more holistic focus on brand and management quality. His new blueprint: “Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.”
    Conclusion
    Value investing has rotated into a massive bet against technological disruption. This position cuts across diverse industries but can be isolated using machine learning. The anti-tech bet explains value’s ongoing drawdown. We suggest that value investors evolve their framework to accommodate the rising role of technology in our economy. Meanwhile, we believe allocators must invest in developing an informed view on technological trends in order to truly underwrite their value managers.
    This concurs with my opinion that big tech is flying towards the sun and if we wait long enough it will crash back to earth. And the Liz Ann Sonders piece Charles referenced recently.
    href="http://"https://advisorservices.schwab.com/content/high-hopes-sp-500-hits-all-time-high-amid-pandemicrecession
  • Does 40% bond allocation make sense in today's portfolio
    https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/retirement-planning/601350/does-a-40-bond-allocation-make-sense-in-todays-portfolios?amp
    Does 40% bond allocation make sense in today's portfolio
    Whether you’re the kind of investor who meets regularly with an adviser or the set-it-and-forget-it type who rarely looks at your 401(k), there’s a good chance your portfolio is set up with something close to a 60/40 mix of stocks and bonds.
    Think it depends on your age and risks assertion. For us have 20s-25s% in bonds distribution, these levels maybe right for us. BTW we also hold other vehicles for risk stratification (strategy)
  • Mid Cap Value Funds
    I am looking at a few Mid Cap Value funds because I believe we are due for a style rotation to Value and Mid Cap soon. I am interested in the following Nuance Mid Cap Value NMAVX, Artisan Mid Cap Value ARTQX , JP Morgan Mid Cap Value JAMCX, Janus Henderson Mid Cap Value JNVSX. I do like the look of the Nuance Fund, but it has a turnover of over 100% And how can you be a value investor with a high turnover such as that. Any one that has any feedback will be much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
    I'ld be leery of any value fun with a turnover higher than 50%. Shoot. I'm leery of any fund over that.
    If they're turning it over at 124% I'ld have to have faith that their stock-picking is so freaking smart that they'll beat the index more often than not. I would study their strategy thoroughly.
    So far, they do look pretty smart. M* call them a blend. So they may be sneaking some growth stocks in there.
  • Mid Cap Value Funds
    If you want mid-cap value look at DON. I like the wisdom tree methodology, and it's been beaten down good this year (still down 19%). So, you get mean reversion too.
  • Mid Cap Value Funds
    I am looking at a few Mid Cap Value funds because I believe we are due for a style rotation to Value and Mid Cap soon. I am interested in the following Nuance Mid Cap Value NMAVX, Artisan Mid Cap Value ARTQX , JP Morgan Mid Cap Value JAMCX, Janus Henderson Mid Cap Value JNVSX. I do like the look of the Nuance Fund, but it has a turnover of over 100% And how can you be a value investor with a high turnover such as that. Any one that has any feedback will be much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
  • 20 Year Returns
    Because returns compound, what you're computing is a multiplicative, or "geometric" average, rather than an additive, or "arithmetic" average. But the concepts are the same, so I'll try to address your question using the more familiar arithmetic average.
    If I start with $100, and just add amounts every year (say, by savings, not by earnings), after 5 years I can ask: on average how much did I add per year?
    Say I add $20, $50, $30, $40, $35. You can compute the average increment by adding them all up (to $175) and dividing by 5. (It's $35).
    If I already know the ending amount of $275 (which is $100 + $20 + $50 + $30 + $40 + $35), then I know that all the yearly additions added up to (end value - start value) = $275 - $100 = $175. I divide by the number of years (5).
    The point is that if you have the start and end values, you know what the difference is and you don't have to use all the individual values to compute their sum. If you don't have the end value, then it's easier to add up year by year. Either way, you divide by the number of years.
    Same idea with annualized returns, except we're dealing with multiplication instead of addition.
    For instance, if my $100 earns 10% one year and 20% the next, then after 1 year I've got $110 (10% more than $100), and after two years, I've got $132 (20% more than $110). That's 32% more than I started with. I don't get this by adding 10% and 20%, but by multiplying
    (1 + 10%) x (1 + 20%) = (1 + 32%).
    As with the arithmetic average, if you've already got the end value, you can get the result of all the multiplications by dividing the end value by the start value. But if you don't have the end value, you multiply (1 + annual return pct) for each year, take the nth root (where N is the number of years), and subtract 1.
    In my shortened example above, I multiplied the two years (10% and 20%), and got 132% (before subtracting 1). The 2nd (square) root of 132% is 1.1489, so the average annual yield is 0.1489, or 14.89%. A little less than you get by simply "averaging" 10% and 20%.
    On the other hand, if I know that I started with $100 and ended with $132, I don't have to know how I got there. I just take 132/100 (i.e. 132%), and calculate as before. The 2nd (square) root is 1.1489, so the annualized yield is 14.89%.
  • Buffet investing in Japanese Companies
    https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/55234/japanese-stocks-are-well-placed-to-confound-the-skeptics
    Since I posted the above story 6 months ago, Price’s PRJPX is up about 9.4%. YTD it’s up by 10%, and for one year It’s up 26%. Their Nikkei stock market is still recovering from one of the greatest boom & bust cycles in recorded history. I’m not recommending it as an investment, though I do like multi-nation funds that have maybe 10-25% exposure to Japan.
    (Above cited data from Yahoo and Lipper)
    The 2018 Accord Hybrid I bought 2 years ago is a superbly designed auto for its price range (mid-20s). Probably the best overall build-quality of anything I’ve owned. The car was assembled in Ohio, but the engine was imported from Japan.
    Sony still makes some fine electronics. I have two of its SRX series bluetooth speakers. It’s amazing what the SRX-XB41 can do. (Completely waterproof too, in case I decide to take it swimming.)
    +1 @MikeM - Barron’s is still a fine read. Nice broad education in financial & investment thinking. When you get down to it, the ability to weigh data and compare subjective opinions and than fashion your own investing approach is much more valuable and longer lasting than the latest “hot tip” on what to buy. I hear Barron’s doesn’t have the charts / data it once did. That’s probably true. Who needs it with everything on the internet now?
  • 20 Year Returns
    Here's a streamlined online calculator that just does powers. You enter the number, e.g. 7.158868, and then the power 0.05 (1/20th). That will get you the 20th root of the number.
    https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/algebra/exponent.php
    Scientific calculators often have power functions (x^y) and may have root functions, i.e. y-th root of x.
    You can use the power function to get the 20th root by taking a number to the 0.05 power. If there's a root function, you take the 20th root directly.
    For example, here's an online scientific calculator: https://calculator-1.com/scientific/
    Enter 7.158868, press the x^y (power) key, enter 0.05 (1/20th), close paren ')', and =.
    Or enter 7.158868, press the y√x (root) key, enter 20, close paren ')', and =.
  • 20 Year Returns
    You can coax 20 year data (or any other performance data you want) out of M* by using its charts and selecting the desired start and end dates. This works with both the legacy charts and the new ones. The granularity is one day.
    To find a legacy chart for a fund, use the link below, replacing FLPSX with your fund's ticker.
    http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/fund/chart?t=FLPSX
    Here's the 20 year legacy chart (9/7/2000 through 9/6/2020) for FLPSX.
    It shows that $10K grew to $71,588.68. That's 7.158868 x the original value. To annualize, just take the 20th root (and subtract 1 to get the percentage increase). If you prefer, in Excel that would be EXP(LN(71588.68/10000)/20) -1. That's 10.34%.
    You can do the same thing with the new M* pages, but it's a little harder to set the dates, and one can't link to the chart.
    No M* login, not even basic, is needed to get these charts.
  • Saving for Retirement Is Never Easy. The Covid Pandemic Has Made It Even Harder.
    https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=IR5WX4rLGbKvtgWqkLvICQ&q=Saving+for+Retirement+Is+Never+Easy.+The+Covid+Pandemic+Has+Made+It+Even+Harder.&oq=Saving+for+Retirement+Is+Never+Easy.+The+Covid+Pandemic+Has+Made+It+Even+Harder.&gs_lcp=ChFtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1ocBADUKsYWKsYYPIiaABwAHgAgAHZAYgB2QGSAQMyLTGYAQCgAQKgAQGwAQA&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-hp
    Saving for Retirement Is Never Easy. The Covid Pandemic Has Made It Even Harder.
    Ed Daizovi, a 57-year-old career diplomat, entered the retirement homestretch earlier this year: He had just moved back from Africa and was setting up a new home in Miami where he planned to retire next year with his wife of 29 years, after investing diligently to fund a comfortable retirement.
    But the coronavirus pandemic—and the volatility stirred first by the market’s crash and quick recovery, and now by uncertainty heading into the election—is making Daizovi wary about his retirement timeline
    Many folks indeed are suffering. We hope c19 conditions improve in the near future and more peoplemay get their old jobs back/lives back in orders. Heard so many personal stories of misdeeds, financial turmoils/ family restrains and conflicts previously.
  • nibbling away
    Your wife got lucky. My coworkers traveled on United and they were not please with the full flight. Some low cost operators even reduce the number of flight so to reduce the fixed cost. We love to travel overseas but many countries do not want Americans due to the high COVID cases.
    Blocking the middle seat is Delta policy until January 6, 2021 per their website.
  • nibbling away

    I'm not in a rush to get on a commercial flight anytime soon.
    Ditto. Plain and simple. And Hawaiian Air just killed change-fees, along with a couple of other big Legacy Carriers. Funny, though, how the FARE rose so much on the new date you choose to fly..... ALWAYS.
  • 20 Year Returns
    What is the best source for finding 20 year returns for mutual funds? 15 years is the longest term the main Morningstar site provides. The only place I have found the 20 year returns is on the wells fargo site. The information is provided by and branded as Morningstar. It's calculated once a month at the conclusion of the month and takes a few days to appear. Any alternatives?
  • nibbling away

    I hear that the airlines still pack the planes. The only social distancing they practice is before boarding. Face covering is mandatory and yet some still fight this public health rule. It will be sometime before the airlines return to normal when the COVID-19 is contained with the vaccines.
    Not my wife's experience on Delta this past Friday. Middle seats were vacant. Masking was strictly enforced. I don't know how they handle it on narrower air frames.
    OTOH. Normal for the airlines never leads to a better experience since Carter deregulated them.