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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.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    From JohnN’s above post:
    “ … long term investors absolutely need dca /buy now.”
    I suppose it depends on your definition of long term investors - among other things.
    - If 25 years or more from retirement / needing the money one might ask why they are not already 100% in good equity funds.
    - If we shorten the definition to mean 7-10 years from needing the money, I’d still argue for adding some equities at today’s levels, the degree of which dependent on the individual’s risk tolerance.
    - Some folks consider only 3-5 years “long term”. With that short a time horizon the prospect of adding equities at today’s (still arguably elevated) valuations becomes much dicier. I probably would, but it’s far from a done deal.
    (Not intended as advice)
  • Wealthtrack - Weekly Investment Show
    reminds me of a prof i had for a class many years ago. smart, interesting, but with a voice that was smooth and so soothing, i could not help falling asleep. i went back and listened again, twice. that was some great shit. well worth listening to. thank you.... he recommends diversifiers right now, like EM debt. and commodities. even local currency EM debt. i'm out of EM debt. have been for a long time. it was PREMX. It once upon a time served me very well. but between PREMX and AGEPX, the latter certainly looks like a better deal today. ... as for commodities: he's been reading my own book: I've been averaging-into NHYDY. Vertically integrated. ALUMINUM. They even mine their own bauxite. cutting back on production lately. expected fall in demand. recession.
    "Aluminium is the world's largest exchange commodity for metals in terms of trading volumes. It accounts for nearly a third of all contracts made on the LME."
    https://investor.morningstar.com/quotes/0P000102MI
    https://investor.morningstar.com/quotes/0P00002PHU
    https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/NHYDY
    Forgot Real Estate. PSTL.
    https://www.barrons.com/market-data/stocks/pstl/research-ratings?mod=quotes#subnav
    And here's one I continue to track but do not own: SCHN.
    https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/schn
    ***Confirmation bias, anyone...????????? Hmmmmm? ***
    Anyhow, I can't take credit for following Arnott's advice before ever hearing it.
  • BIVIX
    The fund website indicates about 150 companies each on the short and long side. That is 300 companies. They use technology to screen companies to hold in the portfolio. Is it fair to call this a long-short quant fund?
    If you readily have the links, could you please direct me to info that confirms the fund strategy is long value companies and short growth companies? M* does show the fund in the value box for all years since inception.
    The fund's performance since inception is good, though the fund's negative performance since June 8, 2022 gives me a pause if in a malaise whether cash is not a better option. If we are already getting closer to the bottom of the current bear market, is this the right fund to be in to spring up. I think this is a good fund but I will have to think if now is a good time to get into it, giving up cash.
    With current money market fund yields in the 3-4% range, the fund should be able to cover its ER from the cash it holds (net long seems to vary 20-30%).
  • CGM Funds to liquidate
    I remember Ken Heebner back in his heyday.
    He was quite the gunslinger!
    IIRC, CGMFX short-term performance was frequently either near the top or bottom of its category.
    Also, I was invested in a Mutual Series fund (Beacon?) in the mid 90s when Michael Price managed it.
    You're absolutely correct that manager risk is real.
    I was invested in RCTIX (multisector bond fund) from late 2021 to early 2022.
    I was aware of key-man risk but nevertheless invested in the fund since it was only ~4.5% of my portfolio
    and the risk/reward profile was favorable.
    George Jikovski, RCTIX manager since inception, left unexpectedly in March 2022.
    Mr. Jikovski was in his early/mid 40s.
    There wasn't a good succession plan in place.
  • What is a “Blood in the Streets” Moment?
    @BaluBalu
    Individuals like Putin don't stop with "just a little bit". Button pushing for more won't stop. What's to lose???
    Not unlike Hilter doing a bit of government rework for the country of Czechoslovakia in 1939.
    @catch22,
    Until I saw @Crash post, I assumed that you understood what I thought about Putin - that he is not to be trusted and he will take whatever he can get and more. Just to be clear, I support Ukraine to pursue its dreams and aspirations and the West to stop Putin and not surrender to his threats (nuke or not). I personally like to see Putin defeated and removed from power ASAP because of the societal cohesion it might bring in our own country.
    Notwithstanding my personal desires, I still have to consider the probabilities of various outcomes of the war based on 20+ years of West's dealings with Putin, even when I personally dislike some of those outcomes.
  • CGM Funds to liquidate
    Ken Heebner has managed CGM Realty Fund (CGMRX) since its inception in 1994 and CGM Focus Fund (CGMFX) since its 1997 inception. Both funds have above-average/high expense ratios and above-average/high risk according to M* (CGMRX may be miscategorized).
    CGMFX has considerably lagged the S&P 500 for the 5 yr. and 10 yr. periods ending on 12/31/21.
    CGMRX lagged the S&P U.S. REIT Index significantly for the 1 yr., 5 yr., and 10 yr. periods ending on 12/31/21.
    The environment for active fund managers will continue to be challenging.
    Many investors will not tolerate paying high expenses to receive lower returns when passive funds are available.
  • 2022 YTD Damage
    This has been an extremely challenging year for the traditional 60/40 portfolio.
    It's very rare for stocks and high-quality bonds to both be down for two or more consecutive quarters.
    From Ben Carlson:
    "The 6 month returns for a 60/40 portfolio were in the bottom 2% of rolling returns going back to 1926.
    This means 98% of the time, returns have been better than what we just lived through.
    It was also just the 4th time over the past 100 years or so that stocks and bonds were down two quarters
    in a row at the same time.
    The last time U.S. stocks and intermediate-term bonds were both down two quarters in a row occurred
    in the first two 3 month periods in 1974."

    Link
  • Wealthtrack - Weekly Investment Show
    A year ago on WEALTHTRACK, in September of 2021, Research Affiliates’ Rob Arnott made two macro observations. One, he predicted there were “very high odds” of a resurgence in inflation. Two, that the multi-year outperformance of growth over value stocks was probably finally over. He dated the turn to August of 2020.
    He proved prescient on the inflation call and so far seems to have gotten value’s comeback right.
    Rob Arnott is Chairman of the Board and Founder of Research Affiliates, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Research Affiliates describes itself as a “research-intensive asset management firm that focuses on innovative products.”
    Among the many funds that Arnott created and now co-manages is the PIMCO All Asset Fund, also celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
    In this interview, Arnott shares his outlook on inflation, value stocks, and his cheap diversifiers strategy.


  • Asking for a friend....
    M* classifies HSGFX as long-short equity, which from the portfolio, it is. He's basically short the broad market and long his specific picks. If his picks do better than the indices, like this year, it works: up ~ 15% ytd. HSAFX is for sure less volatile, but it's gone nowhere this year, and it's also not available at some brokerages, e.g., Fidelity.
    But the redemption fee on top of a transaction fee limits the attractiveness of HSGFX, even in the rare year it works. IMHO, trend-following managed futures funds and inverse funds are a better deal in wipeouts like this year, and there are plenty of options in those categories (OEFs and ETFs) these days.
    Are PSTIX and PQTIX similar funds to HSGFX?
  • What is a “Blood in the Streets” Moment?
    And now there's this possibility. Can you begin to imagine the effects on the financial markets?
    Vladimir Putin’s latest frightening gambit lies at the bottom of the ocean
    "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence... three times, it’s enemy action.” As European politicians and security agencies ponder the explosions in the Nord Stream pipelines they may find this adage of Ian Fleming’s helpful in resolving their doubts about who was responsible.
    The strange thing about Putin’s assault on Ukraine was that he clearly hadn’t consulted Valery Gerasimov, the guy who in 2013 had radically reconfigured Russian military doctrine at his behest (and is now chief of the Russian armed forces). Gerasimov’s big idea was that warfare in a networked age should combine the traditional kinetic stuff with political, economic, informational, humanitarian and other non-military activities.
    Putin’s invasion in February ran directly counter to this doctrine. Instead the assault was a 1940s-style blitzkrieg. And it hasn’t worked. So as he returns to the drawing board, it’s conceivable that the Russian leader has, finally, been talking to Gerasimov. If that’s the case, then their conversations will have rapidly turned to topics such as deniability, asymmetric warfare and identifying the critical weaknesses of their western adversaries.
    Which in turn means that they will be thinking less about pipelines and much more about the undersea fibre-optic cables that now constitute the nervous system of our networked world. There are now about 475 of them and they carry more than 95% of all the data traffic on the global internet – $10tn money transfers and at least 15m financial transactions every day. The Telegeography site maintains a terrific up-to-date map of them all.
    These cables are the critical infrastructure of the western world. They are funnelled into the sea via often poorly protected entry points on remote ocean coastlines. The cables mostly belong to a largish number of private companies, and so – up to now at least – have been largely neglected or ignored by governments.
    Lying on the ocean floor, cables are obviously vulnerable to accidental damage. One industry source claims that only about 100 breaks a year are caused by fishing boats and trawlers. Until 2017 it seems that malicious attacks were rare. In that year there were two on transatlantic cables – UK to US and France to US – which were, er, under-reported at the time, but which may have been the trigger for a study written by none other than Rishi Sunak for the thinktank Policy Exchange, which concluded that the vulnerability of the undersea cable network was deeply troubling and that the danger of an attack on the system was “nothing short of existential”.
    In his foreword to the report, Admiral James Stavridis, a former Nato supreme allied commander, pointed out that “Russian submarine forces have undertaken detailed monitoring and targeting activities in the vicinity of North Atlantic deep-sea cable infrastructure”. Which is interesting for two reasons. One is the conversations that are now doubtless going on in the Kremlin. The second is that Stavridis is the co-author of a fascinating thriller, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, in which the trigger for catastrophe comes when a Russian ship severs 30 undersea cables, thereby cutting the US off from the world. I doubt that President Putin has read it. But I bet General Gerasimov has.
    Preceding are abridged excerpts from an article by John Naughton in The Guardian.
  • Asking for a friend....
    M* classifies HSGFX as long-short equity, which from the portfolio, it is. He's basically short the broad market and long his specific picks. If his picks do better than the indices, like this year, it works: up ~ 15% ytd. HSAFX is for sure less volatile, but it's gone nowhere this year, and it's also not available at some brokerages, e.g., Fidelity.
    But the redemption fee on top of a transaction fee limits the attractiveness of HSGFX, even in the rare year it works. IMHO, trend-following managed futures funds and inverse funds are a better deal in wipeouts like this year, and there are plenty of options in those categories (OEFs and ETFs) these days.
  • CGM Funds to liquidate
    End of an era.
    LOMMX is among the oldest allocation/balanced funds with inception 11/6/1929. Very ironic that Barron's cover story this week mentions that after historic selloff due to simultaneous stock and bond bear markets, the allocation/balanced funds may be ready to bounce.
    https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/thread/348/barron-october-2022-market-week?page=1&scrollTo=793
    CGM funds have been led in recent decades by Ken Heebner, the original "Boston Bomber" (now the term has another sad meaning). Heebner got that nickname because if he didn't like a stocks, he would sell millions of shares all at once; the opposite if he liked something.
    Heebner has a very volatile record with CGMFX. Most bear markets ended when CGM funds started to perk up. I suppose that Heebner (about 80 now) just got tired of it all.
    I am surprised that the operations are being ceased and no buyer was found to merge the funds.
  • CGM Funds to liquidate
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/60335/000092963822001509/form497.htm
    497 1 form497.htm
    CGM FOCUS FUND
    CGM MUTUAL FUND
    CGM REALTY FUND
    (each, a “Fund”)
    SUPPLEMENT DATED SEPTEMBER 30, 2022
    TO EACH FUND’S SUMMARY PROSPECTUS, PROSPECTUS
    AND STATEMENT OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
    DATED MAY 1, 2022
    Capital Growth Management Limited Partnership, the Funds’ investment adviser, has determined to cease operations. Accordingly, the Funds’ Board of Trustees has approved a proposal to terminate and liquidate each of the Funds.
    The Funds are expected to cease operations on or about November 30, 2022 (the “Liquidation Date”). Before that date, each Fund’s assets will be liquidated at the discretion of the investment adviser and the Fund will cease to pursue its investment objective.
    The Funds will be closed to new purchases as of the close of market on the date of this supplement, except for the reinvestment of dividends and distributions, if any.
    Shareholders who elect to redeem their shares prior to the Liquidation Date will receive in the ordinary course redemption proceeds equal to the net asset value per share of the Fund as of the redemption date.
    Shareholders who remain in a Fund until the Liquidation Date will receive promptly following the Liquidation Date a liquidation distribution equal to the net asset value of the shares of the Fund that such shareholder then holds.
    The liquidation of the Funds may result in one or more taxable events for shareholders subject to federal income tax. The redemption of shares prior to the Liquidation Date will generally cause a redeeming shareholder to realize a capital gain or loss depending on the shareholder’s tax basis in the shares. Similarly, liquidation proceeds paid to a shareholder as of (or prior to) the Liquidation Date will generally give rise to capital gain or loss depending on the shareholder’s tax basis in the shares. In addition, on or prior to the Liquidation Date, a Fund may declare taxable distributions attributable to its net investment income and net short- and/or long-term capital gain (including capital gains, if any, from the liquidation of the Fund’s assets) in advance of the Fund’s regular distribution schedule. All or a portion of any such distributions may be taxable as ordinary income.
    Shareholders should consult a personal tax adviser with respect to the effects of the liquidation and of any associated distributions.
    Shareholders who hold their shares through an IRA should consult their tax advisers concerning the tax implications of a distribution, their eligibility to roll over a distribution and the procedures applicable to such rollovers. Caution: If you hold shares through an IRA and do not reinvest liquidation or redemption proceeds through your IRA (i.e., if you cash a check representing those proceeds or deposit or reinvest them in a different account), such proceeds may be subject to a 10% penalty and taxed as ordinary income in the year of receipt. Additional information relevant to shareholders who, to the knowledge of the Funds, hold shares through IRAs or other tax-advantaged accounts will be sent separately.
    If you have any questions, please contact CGM Shareholder Services at 800-345-4048 between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. ET.
    Please retain this supplement for future reference.
    From CGM's website:
    https://cgmfunds.com/
  • Asking for a friend....
    Regarding AKREX, I do think funds that are highly concentrated in a few stocks even when they manage risk reasonably well can be suspect in general simply because it's always a question whether the magic can be repeated once the top picks have run their course. With 100 stocks if one drops off and has to be sold, there are still 99 ones left that can drive returns, and you know managers managed to find more than a few good ones instead of perhaps "The One" that makes the manager famous. That said, it does take courage to stick with one's convictions when there are just a handful of names.
    Regarding HSGFX, I think the better option is HSAFX--a much smoother ride.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    JSpiegel say in CNBC earlier long term investors absolutely need dca /buy now
    Also S&P 500 down -24.8% YTD
    Since WWII, only 1974 and 2002 saw worse starts to a year. Sp500 good gain q4 both those yrs ( +7 8%) ... I am hopeful for better Q4, has been absolute bloodbaths last 12months
    Maybe good buy more tip toes/test waters
    Got Tna and soxl assigned puts today.. Cover call leap Monday morning
  • What is a “Blood in the Streets” Moment?
    @BaluBalu
    Individuals like Putin don't stop with "just a little bit". Button pushing for more won't stop. What's to lose???
    Not unlike Hilter doing a bit of government rework for the country of Czechoslovakia in 1939.
  • What is a “Blood in the Streets” Moment?
    The author at that link ends with, "[U]nder any reasonable strategy, using the weapons is unthinkable and so threatening their use is by definition a bluff."
    I would not be so sure. If he has to give up any territory he wants to control (probably smaller than what he claims to be Russia but making Russia contiguous to Crimea which has all along been his goal of this war (NATO threat is a red herring)), he will use all means. He has already made massive areas of Ukraine (he does not want / care for) uninhabitable; nuke is just a word. This war has been in the making for at least 10 years - he played a long, incremental game. USEIA shows Europe substantially increased its energy dependence on Russia after Crimea annexation, clearly sending Putin a signal that Europe is too selfish to stop him. ISTM, as long as he is in Power, either Ukraine gives up or there is going to be no resolution to this war. Does the West really have the resolve to isolate Russia and strangle its economy for at least 10 years if he does not withdraw from Ukraine to pre-2014 borders? It was not easy to strangle South Africa and Russia is a whole different ball game. The West are still working on getting Sweden and Finland into NATO - shows who is in control.
    ISTM, if there is a peace agreement in Ukraine, he will give up some of the Ukraine territory he claims to be Russia but does not control or need. IMO, the [most likely] outcome for this war is not much different from Russia's last war with Finland. Any agreement he enters is only as good as how much of it he wants to adhere to - we know how his agreement with Georgia is being implemented. There never was a Putin or Hitler, without enablers. In Putin's case, there have been plenty of enablers both inside and outside Russia.
    I hope my assessment is wrong for the world's sake and hope there is a speedy resolution to Ukraine's misery, but the above is how I am investing. A positive consequence of the Ukraine war has been that we now have far fewer serious cyber attacks from Russia. Let us hope Russia forgets how to do those for lack of practice!
  • Asking for a friend....
    Our LCG funds are AKREX and BIAWX. The latter is down more than 31% this year, a real disappointment. Both funds show low turnover, so I think the managers don't try to trade around the bad markets. At some point shareholders will bail, probably at the bottom, if one is to believe the received wisdom regarding the poor trading choices of many individual investors. Still holding...
  • What is a “Blood in the Streets” Moment?
    "...Leapfrogging here … one might speculate on the personality types that covet / rise to power, not just in Russia, but in our own country as well."
    Some are power-hungry germs like the trumpster. too many simply enjoy the limelight. And there are no rewards in politics for Introverts like myself. Making sausage-laws requires a considerable watering-down of one's conscience. Then again, some laws and Bills are just nutjob ideas from the get-go.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CROWN_Act_of_2022#:~:text=The Creating a Respectful and,illegal under existing federal law.
    Bring back Ike. And JFK. Hell, let's resurrect HST. Things have taken a Turn Toward The Crazy since those days.
    Personality types?
    Here you go:
    https://www.16personalities.com/personality-types
    But regardless of what personality-types might seek such public recognition and prestige, humans need to nevertheless at least own a conscience. GWB was something of a buffoon, but he was smart enough to recognize the ridiculousness of the trumpster's inauguration speech when he remarked to auntie Hillary: "Well, THAT was some weird shit."