One of my funds has hit rock-bottom (PRAFX)

hank

PRAFX is sporting a 1-star rating at Morningstar at this time. Guess that’s due to its only being up 50% over the past year. Don’t intend to sell based on this dismal assessment. Only hold a “smigin” anyway, choosing to complement it with 3 other funds inside my 7.5% allocation to “real assets”. Just points to how crazy the M* ratings can get.

There is no consistent approach in the commodifies / real assets sector. Anything from gold miners
to John Deere farm equipment - and from oil rigs to mobile home parks is fair game for these type of funds and their managers. So trying to award “stars” on some kind of commonality among them is pretty futile.

In contrast, Lipper gives PRAFX the following scores (scale of 1-5)

Total Return 5
Consistent Return 5
Capital Preservation 1
Low Expense 5
Tax Efficiency ) 5

Admittedly, there’s a world of difference between Morningstar’s rating system and the “ranking” by percentiles that Lipper publishes.

Anybody else sitting on a 1-star fund? This is my first ever - based on recollection. No place to go but up …

Crash

I was quite surprised when M* demoted MAPOX to "Neutral." And not long ago, it was GOLD. Then SILVER. But they maintain their 4-star rating, anyhow. Hard to make ANY sense out of all THAT. There isn't a more steady and solid fund, anywhere. Surely, the jumbled mess of a ratings-picture re: MAPOX at Morningstar is all about giving algorithms the job of evaluating, rather than people. I've never owned a 1-star fund, though. Because, along with all my other homework, I find the Morningstar rating system is not ENTIRELY worthless--- especially when plugged into a Big Picture that gives me a decent sense of the quality of a fund. "Decent" is not saying much, but it's better than guessing, playing "pin the tail on the donkey." (Or soon, a single stock. I'm eyeballing ENIC these days. It's an income play, and I've lately seen some positive prognostications about it, particularly after the recent election. One day last week, it tanked by over 8%, due to the election, says the item. It's an electric utility. People are still going to need electricity--- and an increasing number will be using electricity to charge-up their car battery. Even in Chile.)

carew388

RPHYX Like others on this site, I use the fund as a cash substitute.

msf

M* classifies the fund as a world large cap blend fund; Refinitiv Lipper classifies it as a real return fund. Very different sets of peers. About 3/4 of the fund is comprised of an equal mix of basic materials and real estate.

The fund wouldn't fit well into M*'s commodity broad-based; those funds do have a lot of basic materials, but tend to also have a lot of energy companies. Real estate isn't a commodity.

In case it makes you feel any better, a TRP-managed clone of this fund is rated 3* in a different category! M* considers MMRFX to be a natural resources fund.

hank

In case it makes you feel any better, a TRP-managed clone of this fund is rated 3* in a different category!

That’s interesting. Dunno about feeling better ….

Hope folks don’t take my OP as an endorsement of PRPFX. It’s not. Am sure there are better ones out there. But, as I said, these type funds take quite different approaches.

Price has a much older fund PRNEX that also seeks to offer inflation protection. M* gives that one 3 stars. I’ve owned both. They often diverge in performance. PRNEX is much more heavily concentrated in energy & the big refiners. Oil’s phenomenal rise in a year’s time goes a long way tin explaining why PRNEX has outperformed recently. But I feel better with PRAFX.

Observant1

The M* fund category assigned to a fund may not be a good fit.
For example, NWFFX is classified as a Diversified Emerging Markets fund but it allocates substantial capital (averaging ~ one-third of total assets) to developed markets.
Also, all World Large Cap funds were lumped together into a single category until recently.
Performance rankings for many value-oriented World Large Cap funds were noticably lower compared to their growth-oriented "peers". I'm not very familiar with PRAFX but the fund appears to be unlike the standard index used by M* (MSCI ACWI NR USD).