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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.
  • Longterm LC choices for 30yo

    PRBLX is a solid fund that held up nicely during the '08 GFC - I own it and still add to it.
    For large or megacap check Bridgeway 35 (BRLIX too -- only .15 ER (cheap!) and a nice allocation/weighting of companies.
  • Laura Geritz (Wasatch) is out
    One of the articles indicated that they (Wastach) wished her will in her endeavors. I guess she decided it was time to move on. She will continue on at Wasatch until 6/30.
    http://www.wandtv.com/story/32153365/wasatch-announces-portfolio-manager-changes
  • Yacktman Special Opportunities Fund
    @davidmoran: For YASSX (Service Shares) its $2,000, YASLX ( Institutional Shares) $100,000.
    Regards,
    Ted
  • Longterm LC choices for 30yo
    Instead of HDV, how about VYM? More diversified (400+ vs. 73 stocks), lower turnover (11% vs. 63% vs. category avg 34%), lower cost (if you amortize the Fidelity commission as a one time cost). They share 14 of the largest holdings (though HDV seems to weight them more than twice as heavily, consistent with its smaller portfolio).
    Key stocks held only by Vanguard include MSFT, GE, T, JPM. HDV has no 1%+ holding not shared with VYM.
    For value leaning LC/MC, you might consider BPAIX/BPAVX. Fits right between FLVCX (mid cap value) and LC, reasonable (0.95%) to good ER (for institutional shares, $100K min), modest turnover (33%), and seems to be somewhat overlooked ($1.3B AUM).
  • Laura Geritz (Wasatch) is out
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/806633/000119312516613617/d202782d497.htm
    497 1 d202782d497.htm WASATCH FUNDS TRUST
    WASATCH FUNDS TRUST
    Supplement dated June 6, 2016 to the
    Prospectus and Summary Prospectus each dated January 31, 2016
    Investor Class
    Wasatch Frontier Emerging Small Countries Fund® - Investor Class (WAFMX)
    This Supplement updates certain information contained in the Wasatch Funds Prospectus for Investor Class shares and the Wasatch Frontier Emerging Small Countries Fund Summary Prospectus for Investor Class shares, each dated January 31, 2016 as amended. You should retain this Supplement, the Prospectus and Summary Prospectus for future reference. Additional copies of the Prospectus may be obtained free of charge by visiting our web site at www.WasatchFunds.com or calling us at 800.551.1700.
    PORTFOLIO MANAGERS
    Effective June 6, 2016, Roger Edgley will be the Lead Portfolio Manager of the Wasatch Frontier Emerging Small Countries Fund (the “Fund”), Jared Whatcott will be a Portfolio Manager of the Fund, and Scott Thomas will be a Portfolio Manager of the Fund.
    All references to Laura Geritz are hereby deleted.
    PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
    WASATCH FUNDS TRUST
    Supplement dated June 6, 2016 to the
    Prospectus and Summary Prospectus each dated January 31, 2016
    Institutional Class
    Wasatch Frontier Emerging Small Countries Fund® - Institutional Class (WIFMX)
    This Supplement updates certain information contained in the Wasatch Funds Prospectus for Institutional Class shares and the Wasatch Frontier Emerging Small Countries Fund Summary Prospectus for Institutional Class shares, each dated January 31, 2016 as amended. You should retain this Supplement, the Prospectus and Summary Prospectus for future reference. Additional copies of the Prospectus may be obtained free of charge by visiting our web site at www.WasatchFunds.com or calling us at 800.551.1700.
    PORTFOLIO MANAGERS
    Effective June 6, 2016, Roger Edgley will be the Lead Portfolio Manager of the Wasatch Frontier Emerging Small Countries Fund (the “Fund”), Jared Whatcott will be a Portfolio Manager of the Fund, and Scott Thomas will be a Portfolio Manager of the Fund.
    All references to Laura Geritz are hereby deleted.
    PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
    WASATCH FUNDS TRUST
    Supplement dated June 6, 2016 to the
    Prospectus and Summary Prospectus each dated January 31, 2016
    Investor Class
    Wasatch International Opportunities Fund® - Investor Class (WAIOX)
    This Supplement updates certain information contained in the Wasatch Funds Prospectus for Investor Class shares and the Wasatch International Opportunities Fund Summary Prospectus for Investor Class shares, each dated January 31, 2016 as amended. You should retain this Supplement, the Prospectus and Summary Prospectus for future reference. Additional copies of the Prospectus may be obtained free of charge by visiting our web site at www.WasatchFunds.com or calling us at 800.551.1700.
    PORTFOLIO MANAGERS
    Effective June 6, 2016, Jared Whatcott will be a Portfolio Manager of the Wasatch International Opportunities Fund (the “Fund”) and Linda Lasater will be a Portfolio Manager of the Fund.
    All references to Laura Geritz are hereby deleted.
    PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
    WASATCH FUNDS TRUST
    Supplement dated June 6, 2016 to the
    Prospectus and Summary Prospectus each dated January 31, 2016
    Institutional Class
    Wasatch International Opportunities Fund® - Institutional Class (WAIOX)
    This Supplement updates certain information contained in the Wasatch Funds Prospectus for Institutional Class shares and the Wasatch International Opportunities Fund Summary Prospectus for Institutional Class shares, each dated January 31, 2016 as amended. You should retain this Supplement, the Prospectus and Summary Prospectus for future reference. Additional copies of the Prospectus may be obtained free of charge by visiting our web site at www.WasatchFunds.com or calling us at 800.551.1700.
    PORTFOLIO MANAGERS
    Effective June 6, 2016, Jared Whatcott will be a Portfolio Manager of the Wasatch International Opportunities Fund (the “Fund”) and Linda Lasater will be a Portfolio Manager of the Fund.
    All references to Laura Geritz are hereby deleted.
    PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE ...
  • Yacktman Special Opportunities Fund
    @ep1: For your information, I have linked an overview of Yacktman Special Opportunities Fund, YASSX (Investor Shares) from AMG Website.
    Regards,
    Ted
    https:https://ip.amgfunds.com/investment/yacktman_special_opportunities_fund?shareclass=Service
  • Yacktman Special Opportunities Fund
    has anyone looked at Yacktman Special Opportunities Fund? Only $17mm of assets and can't seem to find much on it.
  • U.S. Municipal Debt Draws Rush Of Investors
    FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search)
    Investors are buying municipal debt at a record clip, enduring low returns in exchange for the relative stability of bonds sold by U.S. state and local governments.
    Municipal-bond funds had more than $632 billion in assets as of June 1, a record high, according to Lipper data going back to 1992. Investors have poured a net $22.5 billion into such mutual funds in 2016 through Wednesday, the best start to a year since 2009. They have pulled $39.97 billion from equity funds in the same time
    Regards,
    Ted
    https://www.google.com/#q=U.S.+Municipal+Debt+Draws+Rush+of+Investors++WSJ
  • Is Your Value Fund Just Smoke And Mirrors?
    Thanks Ted. Really good post by our friend Dr. Wesley Gray. Sure hope he's right!
    Originally on Alpha Architect site ...
    http://blog.alphaarchitect.com/2016/06/01/want-to-spot-a-real-value-investor-look-for-horrible-recent-performance/#gs.TUuAuxE
    Closet-indexing is a great way to achieve asset collection, and accommodate scale, when mixed with powerful marketing and confused buyers. But unfortunately, 1) closet-indexing funds are not exploiting the documented anomaly they intend to exploit and 2) they are really just noisy reincarnations of a product that is already available in the market at extraordinarily low-costs — passive index funds!
    Plan to have an update on QVAL from Alpha Architect and SYLD from Cambria Funds in July commentary.
  • Looking for a good High Yield Municipal fund.

    PYMDX is also somewhat higher up the credit quality chain, according to the literature and from the percentages by rating I got from Pimco a few months ago. Pimco doesn't publish credit quality figures for oef's, but the CSRs will give them out over the phone if you call.
    I'd be interested in that breakdown, because the average credit quality computed by M* is not a straight (unweighted) average of the ratings of bonds in a fund's portfolio. Rather it is weighted by the likelihood of a default, so that what you come up with is a rating for the whole portfolio that reflects the likelihood of defaults.
    For example, according to M*'s methodology paper, a B rated bond is nearly three times as likely to default as a BB bond.
    So there can be a huge difference between the average (unweighted) credit quality of a portfolio, and the actual default risk of that portfolio. Case in point: OPITX.
    58% A or better, 21% BBB. So nearly 4/5 investment grade. Unweighted average grade above A (somewhat less than half way to AA, depending on how one scores its 5.5% unrated bonds).
    But overall, its credit risk is like a BB bond. Just because it's got 1/8 of its portfolio in below B-rated bonds.
    To see the same effect with a very different distribution, there's TSHTX. No unrated bonds, just 3.88% below B, nearly 3/5 (59.5%) investment grade, yet still a BB portfolio as calculated by M*.
    So a slug of higher quality bonds in and of itself doesn't make the fund a better quality risk. That's why I'm curious about PYMDX's portfolio breakdown.
  • Looking for a good High Yield Municipal fund.
    Fun with numbers. NCHRX, another misclassified California muni junk bond fund, shows numbers just like VWAHX, and for the same reason - it's been tossed in with investment grade funds for comparison.
               VWAHX           NCHRX
    1Mo.: 1 percentile   1 percentile
    3Mo.: 1 percentile   1 percentile
    YTD:  2 percentile   1 percentile
    1 Yr.:  3 percentile   1 percentile
    3Yr.:   5 percentile   1 percentile
    5Yr.:   4 percentile   1 percentile
    10Yr.: 1 percentile   5 percentile
    15Yr.: 1 percentile
    Also like VWAHX, it has had some lousy years (relative to its "peer" funds, not junk funds), bottoming out at 95th percentile in both 2007 and 2008, with a third bottom quintile performance in 2013, same as VWAHX.
  • Stop Lying To Yourself About Value Investing
    FYI: Value investing has been in the doghouse for a decade. That's right, growth stocks have trounced value stocks for a DECADE.
    Some investors are betting that it's finally value's time to shine. According to Bloomberg data, investors poured $5.5 billion into value ETFs and withdrew $6.2 billion from growth ETFs so far this year.
    Regards,
    Ted
    http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20160603/BLOG09/160609965?template=printart
  • Looking for a good High Yield Municipal fund.
    Trying to make @msf 's point. Muni's can provide tax exempt and possible attractive after-tax returns.Regular I R A 's and 401k type plan withdrawals will be taxed @ your tax rate without any exemption provisions.
    From
    About PTIMX
    Investment Objective
    The Fund's objective is to provide a high level of current interest income that is substantially exempt from regular federal income taxes and is consistent with preservation of capital. Performance Trust Municipal Bond Fund can be a highly effective solution for investors seeking attractive levels of tax-free income and long-term after-tax total return potential.
    Investment Approach
    This provision is probably the norm for most open-end funds.
    The Fund invests in, but is not limited to, at least 80% of its net assets in investment-grade municipal securities. The Fund may invest up to 20% of its net assets in below investment-grade municipal securitiesI do not own
    http://www.ptiafunds.com/about-ptimx
    Presently very low % in below BBB rated securities.
    http://www.ptiafunds.com/images/website/documents/fund-documents/ptimx_factsheet.pdf
    General Ratings Explanation Linked from https://www.invesco.com/portal/site/us/investors/closed-end/product-detail?productId=30303&ticker=OIA&title=invesco-municipal-income-opportunities-trust
    Ratings spelled out from "AAA to Venezuela ? "
    http://www.spratings.com/en_US/understanding-ratings#firstPage
    In the past week I bought some OIA. Not too "junky" or highly leveraged but a little pricey for a C E F .Premise: Taxes are going to rise.Income inequality ,high student debt the "unfairness of it all" have resonated with enough voters to keep the country leaning to the left of center.There will be a demand for tax advantaged investments and plenty of politicians with ideas to use the money to enhance a state's or city's "livability rating".
  • Looking for a good High Yield Municipal fund.
    Much of the outperformance of the high yield munis, especially PYMDX, can be attributed to their exposure to tobacco bonds. Morningstar had an informative article (which I can't link) to the dangers lurking there.
    PYMDX - over 15% in tobacco bonds, wow.
    This may be the M* column you're talking about; I can access it without even logging in to M*:
    Reading the Smoke Signals in the Municipal Markets
  • Looking for a good High Yield Municipal fund.
    MMHAX and PYMDX look less risky than NHMAX because they are of shorter duration (8.6 and 7.0 years vs. 10.1 years).
    PYMDX is also somewhat higher up the credit quality chain, according to the literature and from the percentages by rating I got from Pimco a few months ago. Pimco doesn't publish credit quality figures for oef's, but the CSRs will give them out over the phone if you call.
    NHMAX uses inverse floaters, sometimes pretty significantly, apparently selectively. See for example p. 4 of the Q1 commentary (PDF available here).
  • Looking for a good High Yield Municipal fund.
    @MFO Members: You talk about consisent performance VWAHX track record !
    Regards,
    Ted
    1Mo.: 1 percentile
    3Mo.: 1 precentile
    YTD: 2 percentile
    1 Yr.: 3 percentile
    3Yr.: 5 percentile
    5Yr.: 4 percentile
    10Yr.:1 percentile
    15Yr.:1 percentile
    Regards,
    Ted
    VWAHX Performance:
    http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/performance-return.action?t=VWAHX&region=usa&culture=en_US
  • Looking for a good High Yield Municipal fund.
    MMHAX and PYMDX look less risky than NHMAX because they are of shorter duration (8.6 and 7.0 years vs. 10.1 years). Neither existed in 2008 (though the institutional share class PHMIX did), which also tends to make them look better.
    In the case of PHMIX, even though it existed in 2008, M* does not incorporate that data into its calcuations, because M* generally bases its combined figures on 3, 5, and 10 year figures. PHMIX has not existed for 10 years, so only its 3 and 5 year data are included (conveniently skipping 2008 for now).
    The best one can do with these funds is look at 2013, the next worst year, to get some sense of risk. Again, I suggest looking at BCHYX. You'll see that these other funds fell over 5% (just a shade less than the category average), while BCHYX fell 3.17% and VWAHX was nearly a perfect match falling 3.22% for that year.
    For completeness, NHMAX fell 4.69%, an impressive one year performance for a fund that on paper has more risk.
  • The Lowdown On Adding Foreign Bonds To Your Portfolio
    MAPOX & PRWCX = 51.7% of portf. (Both are balanced funds)
    DLFNX = 2.5%
    PRSNX = 11%
    PREMX = 14.3%
    (Not the entire portfolio.)
    ***************************************
    M* X-RAY shows
    10% Cash
    43% US stocks
    8% foreign stocks
    37% bonds of all sorts.
    .....EM bonds are flying high.
    "World bonds" pretty alright, too.
    I won't be adding. What I will be adding to is a utility stock, to build quarterly divs. for current income in a taxable account. I have 8.5 years before RMDs kick-in on the IRA.
  • Beposke's Asset Class ETF Performance Matrix 6/3/16
    In a hurry to get out on the links this morning Ted? Beposke's indeed! Tee it up mister, I'll be waiting for you at the 19th hole. Just messing with you.
  • Informed Simplicity from Charles’ Balcony
    10 years ago I decided to simplify, for several reasons, by moving our investments from a handful of mutual fund companies and 10 mutual funds to 1 mutual fund company and largely 1 fund, a moderate allocation fund (PRWCX). Very simple and easy to manage.
    After about six years I found myself thinking that maybe it would be wise to be better diversified than basically being all-in on one fund, so I transferred all our investments to an online brokerage account to gain easier access to other fund families and funds.
    Today, I find myself slowly moving an increased percentage of assets back towards PRWCX as finding other MA funds or a combination of other funds to form a MA that comes anywhere near the performance of this singular, diversified fund difficult...including combinations of index funds.
    Our online brokerage account rep is trying to convince me to hand over at least a portion of our portfolio to him which would be invested in ETF's...and many of them. Past performance of these ETF portfolios with similar equity/bond ratio does not warrant it. Also, I can't help but feel that it would be just as good to be invested in a couple index funds rather than an array of 18 or more ETF's...only justification for that many funds seems to be to justify their management fees!