Howdy,
Again, a thank you to all who post the links and also start and participate in the many fine commentaries woven into the message threads.
For those who don't know; I ramble away about this and that, at least once each week.
NOTE: For those who visit MFO, this portfolio is designed for retirement, capital preservation and to stay ahead of inflation creep. This is not a buy and hold portfolio, and is subject to change on any given day; based upon perceptions of market directions. All assets in this portfolio are in tax-sheltered accounts; and any fund distributions are reinvested in the funds. Gains or losses are computed from actual account values.
While looking around..... The Big Hmmm... for we investors, eh? This weeks thoughts are prefaced with the assumption that the machines and/or those who use them for trading; reportedly, are major factors for 85% of investment markets activity. Whether you agree with this or not; the large market forces do move our investment fortunes. If we had a 4' x 8' lcd screen upon the wall that displayed the various sector groups; this is what I would see traveling the days of last week: The U.S. found strength in retail, biotech, housing, consumer staples, air trans., tele-com. and utilities, until Friday. Real estate, both U.S. and Int'l kept some strength for the week; with some utilities closing slightly positive on Friday. The biggest gains on Thursday & Friday were the
inverse funds in almost every equity/commodity sector globally; followed with smaller, but positive gains in most bond sectors. Overall, it appears the largest U.S. equity sector losses were lg. and small cap value. Bonds found the largest gains in IG areas; being some corp., Treasury (including TIPS) and muni bonds, as well as surprising support for many HY types; with most EM bond areas maintaining. Recently arriving home early Sunday evening and also finding Sarkozy has lost his bid for renomination in France. Some of this outcome may be factored into markets last week; but may have other implications, come Monday.
Overall, many equity sectors globally are a little stinky; and many bonds the opposite direction. Obviously, the duration and strength of these moves will hold more short/medium term clues.
As to sector rotations below; for the past week: (Note: any given fund in any of these sectors will have varing degrees of performance based upon where the manager(s) choose to be invested.)
--- U.S. equity - 1.9% through - 5.3%, avg. = -3.2%
--- Int'l equity + .7% through - 4%, avg. = - 2.3%
--- U.S. eq. sectors + .1% through -5.4%, avg. = - 3%
--- U.S. IG bonds + .8% through +.0%, avg. = +.3%
--- HY bonds - .1% through +.8%, avg. = +.4%
The 5 best groups among the U.S. equity sectors: real estate, utilities, telecom, con. staples and air trans, although few finished the week positive; but with smaller losses. Int'l equity found China with slight positives, and Canada (commodity and U.S. exposure?) being the worst this week at about a -4%; with all other somewhere in between. There is an obvious large spread among some of the areas listed above. Now if we can only discover the forward paths.
You may consider our portfolio to be quite boring, but you may be assured that it moves and bends about each and every day; from forces beyond our control. We retail investors will find many interesting investment periods to ponder, as usual, in the coming years.
I have added a few blips related to our portfolio and market observations at the below SELLs/BUYs and Portfolio Thoughts.
SELLs/BUYs THIS PAST WEEK:
The remainder of FSAGX was sold on May 3 with the proceeds equally moved to FNMIX and FRIFX. FSAGX was purchased on 8-11-11 with the first half being sold on 3-16-2011 (- 9.8%) along with all of FFGCX, which is 1/3 each of energy, metals and agriculture companies. The remaning 50% of FSAGX was sold with a -26%. We have been in and out of this sector about 10 times since the mid-80's and are still ahead of the curve in this sector. Not unlike any fund area you choose to review, the cycles have been and remain in place; as this is the nature of the investment beast.
Portfolio Thoughts:Our holdings had a
+ .22 % move this past week. Sidenote: The average return of 200 combined Fidelity retail funds across all sectors (week avg = -1.72%, YTD + 8.09%).
Still plodding along. We will retain our bond holdings; but will keep a close watch in the HY area, as well as any consideration of sells in the equity funds based upon recent and Monday market actions. Final note as to our funds. LSBDX and TEGBX did not react well with Friday's close. Both of these funds had downside pressures during similar market actions in 2011, but did recover. For we retail investors; it comes down to your risk/reward tolerance in conjunction with your skills, as well as how much money we can afford to lose and still maintain one's desired life style. We surely are not all in the same boat for this area. The so-called 1% and 99% exists here, and with other retail investors, too.
The old Funds Boat is at anchor, riding in the small waves and watching the weather. To the high praise of MFO and the members, it is very difficult to find a topic to note here that has not been placed into the discussion boards. Excellence, as usual.
I have retained the following links for those who may choose to do their own holdings comparison against the fund types noted.
The first two links to Bloomberg are for their list of balanced/flexible funds; although I don't always agree with the placement of fund styles in their categories.
Bloomberg BalancedBloomberg FlexibleThese next two links are for conservative and moderate fund leaders YTD, per MSN.
Conservative AllocationModerate AllocationA reflection upon the links above; we attempt to establish a "benchmark" for our portfolio to help us "see" how our funds are performing. Aside from viewing many funds within the balanced/flexible funds rankings (the above links), a quick and dirty group of 5 funds (below) we watch for psuedo benchmarking are the following:
***Note: these week/YTD's per M*
VWINX .... + .08 week, YTD = + 4.63%
PRPFX .... - .80 week, YTD = + 4.58%
SIRRX ..... + .43 week, YTD = + 3.14%
TRRFX .... - 1.00 week, YTD = + 5.90%
VTENX ... - 1.05 week, YTD = + 5.13%
Such are the numerous battles with investments attempting to capture a decent return and minimize the risk.
We live and invest in interesting times, eh? Hey, I probably forgot something; and hopefully the words make some sense. Comments and questions always welcomed.
Good fortune to you, yours and the investments.
Take care,
Catch
---Below is what M* x-ray has attempted to sort for our portfolio, as of March 9, 2012---
U.S.Stocks 10.5%
Foreign Stocks 6.8%
Bonds 78.5% ***
Other 4.2%
Not Classified 0.00%
***about 35% of the bond total are high yield category (equity related cousins)---This % listing is kinda generic, by fund "name"; which doesn't always imply the holdings, eh?
-Investment grade bond funds 26.8%
-Diversified bond funds 20.5%
-HY/HI bond funds 23.2%
-Total bond funds 17.8%
-Foreign EM/debt bond funds 5.1%
-U.S./Int'l equity/speciality funds 6.6%
This is our current list: (NOTE: I have added a speciality grouping below for a few of fund types)
---High Yield/High Income Bond funds
FAGIX Fid Capital & Income
SPHIX Fid High Income
FHIIX.LW Fed High Income
DIHYX TransAmerica HY
---Total Bond funds
FTBFX Fid Total
PTTRX Pimco Total
---Investment Grade Bonds
APOIX Amer. Cent. TIPS Bond
DGCIX Delaware Corp. Bd
FBNDX Fid Invest Grade
FINPX Fidelity TIPS Bond
OPBYX Oppenheimer Core Bond
---Global/Diversified Bonds
FSICX Fid Strategic Income
FNMIX Fid New Markets
DPFFX Delaware Diversified
TEGBX Templeton Global (load waived)
LSBDX Loomis Sayles
---Speciality Funds (sectors or mixed allocation)
FRIFX Fidelity Real Estate Income (bond/equity mix)
FDLSX Fidelity Select Leisure
RNCOX RiverNorth Core Opportunity (bond/equity)
---Equity-Domestic/Foreign
FDVLX Fidelity Value
FSLVX Fidelity Lg. Cap Value
FLPSX Fidelity Low Price Stock
MACSX Matthews Asia Growth-Income
Comments
You reference a big screen in your write up ... So I came up with one; and, I have linked it below ... It is not looking to good for market open on Monday although natural gas is looking good presently.
http://finviz.com/futures.ashx
Have a good evening.
Skeeter
Yes; I do review this site page often. But, this would be a layout format/style with about 1,000 active mutual funds across broad global sectors, as well as a few hundred etf's. 'Course a few keyboard pushes would allow to align by color, price, group by type, location, etc. I am sure someone has this for use in an office someplace.
Regards,
Catch