Morningstar conference: the Day Two agenda Dear friends,
Day Two is always a bit challenging.
8: Cliff Asness of AQR and Rob Arnott of Reseach Affiliates riff on "the big picture" questions as the General Session speakers.
9: John Bragg and Steve Scruggs, Queens Road Value and Queens Road Small Cap Value. We'll likely chat about the recent reopening and why you'd do it in a market they're skeptical of.
11: Shannon Ericson, LMCG International Small Cap fund and LMCG Global Market Neutral Fund. The global market neutral fund has a, well, global portfolio, which strikes me as an interesting twist.
12: Mark Travis and Matt Berquist, Intrepid Capital and the Intrepid Funds. Mr. Travis is the firm's founder, president and CEO, as well as a portfolio manager. Matt is one of the marketing/media guys.
1:45: David Marcus, Evermore Global Value. He's a "special situations" investor with roots in the Mutual Series funds. Really thoughtful guy, wonderfully diverse experiences.
2:30: Matt Shaver, Lyndhurst Partners. Lyndhurst is a sort of marketing firm that tries to identify a handful of small, distinctive firms and help them succeed.
3:30: Mike Dzialo, founder of Managed Asset Portfolios and manager for Catalyst/MAP Global Capital App fund and Catalyst/MAP Global Total Return. Tiny, solid 3-year numbers.
5: John Blau, Poplar Forest. Mr. Blau had been president of Oppenheimer Asset Management and now leads to outreach/marketing effort for Mr. Harvey and the Poplar Forest funds. I'll be likely to ask about the relatively new Outliers fund.
7: Dinner with Gregory Nathan, manager of FPA US Value (formerly Perennial) since September 2015. It's been an ugly first year and the fund has surprising low cash holdings (10%) by FPA standards. I'll be interested to hear what he has to say.
In any case, if you have topics you'd like me to pursue with any of these folks, please do let me know. I'll learn what I can on your behalf.
As ever,
David
discussion topics for Andrew Foster Dear friends,
Charles and I will have dinner Monday with Andrew Foster, "the seasoned and skilled skipper" (saith Morningstar) of Seafarer Overseas Growth and Income.
Emerging Markets High Yield Bond - What is his
1 yr, 5 yr,
10 yr outlook.
Morningstar conference: the Day One agenda For what interest it holds, Charles and I will be at Morningstar throughout the conference. Ed returns to town Tuesday afternoon and will join us Wednesday. By my count, I'll be meeting with 11 managers or teams over two days plus a handful of other thoughtful and interesting folks. I'll try to give you a heads-up tonight about the interviews, with an offer to add topics that I ought be raise. Energy permitting, I'll try to share a precis of the day's events each evening.
Monday's agenda: I'll arrive in Chicago about 1, meet Tadas Viskanta at 2, Michael Hasenstab speaks at 3, Bill Bernstein (whom I really respect, you should check the guy's bio) is one of the three General Session speakers at 4, Teresa Kong of Matthews Asia is at 6 and Andrew Foster, Charles and I will share dinner at 7. It's also good to ease into things with a slow first day.Charles is already in Chicago and, mostly, has a separate set of folks he's pursuing.
More soon,
David
Get Real: Billions Set To Pour Into Real-Estate Investments According to a recent Morningstar Instant Xray analysis (6/3) my portfolio holds about 6.1% in real estate while the 500 Index hold about 2.4%. This is about 2.5 times what the Index holds so, with this, I plan to do nothing as some of my funds might be buying (maybe some selling). Anyway, 6% to 9% is all I wish to hold in any of the minority sectors of materials, real estate, communication services and utilities; and, 9% to 12% in any of the majority sectors of consumer cyclical, financial services, energy, industrials, technology, consumer defensive and healthcare. Overall in the minority sectors I am holding a total of 28% which is more than double the 500 Index weightings with the balance being held in the majority sectors (72%). On average this computes to about a 7% weighting in each of the minority sectors and a 10% average weighting in each of the majority sectors.
Get Real: Billions Set To Pour Into Real-Estate Investments FYI: (This is a follow-up article)
A big change is coming in how stock indexes measure the market, one that's likely to push tens of billions of dollars into real-estate investments, according to estimates. All that cash could drive further gains for a group of stocks that's already done quite well since the financial crisis. Critics say it could also make an area of the market that they call overvalued even more so.
The deluge of cash is the result of a re-think by index providers about how they see the market's construction. The Standard & Poor's 500 and other indexes have long split the market into
10 main sectors, such as technology companies or utilities or industrials. After the market closes on Aug. 3
1, S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI will carve out real estate to become the
11th sector.
Regards,
Ted
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ebe0d17e6ae747f89df70a400299c2bd/get-real-billions-set-pour-real-estate-investments
Vanguard: How America Saves FYI: This summer marks the
10th anniversary of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA)—landmark legislation designed to enhance workers’ retirement security—being passed into law. Coinciding with this milestone, Vanguard today released a special
15th anniversary edition of its How America Saves report with findings that reflect the impact of the law on improving plan construction and participant investing behaviors in defined contribution plans over the past decade.
How America Saves, Vanguard’s comprehensive annual defined contribution report, has become a premier source of 40
1(k) data and serves as a resource to Vanguard plan sponsor clients and the industry at large as a plan benchmarking tool. First published in 2000, the report is based on
1,900 plans and 3.9 million participants.
Regards,
Ted
https://pressroom.vanguard.com/nonindexed/HAS2016_Final.pdf
The Lowdown On Adding Foreign Bonds To Your Portfolio Long story short:
If the market rate for a
1 year bond is
1%, you might buy a bond at:
-
100 with a
1% coupon (returning
100 in principal in a year),
-
10
1 with a 2% coupon (returning
100 in principal in a year), or
- 99 with zero coupon (returning
100 in principal in a year).
The current yield on these bonds are roughly
1%, 2%, and 0%. But all of them give you a
1% yield to maturity - you end the year with
1% more than you started.
That's the idea behind SEC yield - it does for a portfolio with various bonds what yield to maturity (actually yield to worst) does for a single bond. It's more accurate for what you actually earn over time, but doesn't tell you the amount of the next interest check.
@Crash - the SEC yield is a formula; if it's wrong, it's the fund company that used the formula for its fund that is lying. Regardless, you're right - it's a matter of trust.
Closed End Junk Bond Funds Bought this in early Dec.Reinvesting monthly divs.Cut div by 5% in Feb.No history of Roc distributions.Watch for weakness if oil prices drop.Non marginable
@SchwabBabson Capital Global Short Duration High Yield Fund
(Ticker:BGH)
Strategy
Fund will invest at least 80 percent of its managed assets in corporate bonds, loans and other income-producing instruments that are rated below investment grade
Fund may invest up to 50 percent of its managed assets in bonds and loans issued by foreign companies
Seek to maintain a weighted average portfolio duration of three years or less
Weighted AveragesMarket Price ($) $88.57
Duration (Yrs) 2.33 yrs
Leverage 23.60%
Global
36.57% non-US
Number of Holdings
130 issuers
as of 4/30/20
16
Industry % of AssetsOil And Gas
14.09%
Chemicals, Plastics And Rubber 9.32%
Healthcare, Education And Childcare 8.
16%
Automobile 6.74%
Finance 6.56%
Cargo Transport 4.85%
Containers, Packaging And Glass 4.67%
Electronics 4.27%
Telecommunications 4.26%
Leisure, Amusement, Entertainment 4.23%
http://www.babsoncapital.com/assets/user/media/Babson_Capital_Global_Short_Duration_High_Yield_Fund_Factsheet.pdfhttp://www.cefconnect.com/fund/BGH
any of these look good? Interested to see this. I've been tracking LXP, Lex. Realty Trust. It's on their list. But by now, I'm thinking that it would be smart to wait for a pullback. Too close to 52-week high, yes? Screaming BUY, according to Morningstar. But that is literally just one man's opinion. If anyone's interested to look further, check it out on a page called "Simply Wall Street." You can hunt down any stock there. Limit of
10. When that happens, erase your cache, and it will magically think you are new, when you go back to it. You can construct a stock Watch List there, also.
http://www.morningstar.com/stocks/XNYS/LXP/quote.html
Closed End Junk Bond Funds +1
How Aberdeen Small Cap Fund Crushes Its Peers Crushes its peers? From the current manger's start date through July 2015, it barely beat the category average. It's had one good year.
China's A-Shares Prepare To Flood Your ETFs FYI: (Click On Article title At Top Of Google Search)
This week could be a momentous one for index geeks. A ruling on how China’s mainland stocks are classified would affect $
1.5 trillion tied to emerging-market indexes operated by MSCI—and, ultimately, the exchange-traded funds based on those benchmarks.
At issue is whether MSCI deems China’s A-shares—stocks listed on exchanges in Shanghai or Shenzhen—as “emerging” instead of their current status as unaffiliated “stand-alone” players. MSCI has formally insisted since 20
13 that improvements in China related to market accessibility could lead to a change in the designation.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=China’s+A-Shares+Prepare+to+Flood+Your+ETFs+Barron's 
