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.
Support MFO
Donate through PayPal
SIGIX Seafarer Growth & Income made the thrilling 30
Interesting how David is still interested in investing in EM even though he mentioned that Leuthold contrarily, they keep getting EM sell signals.
I own both Seafarer funds: Growth and Value. We shall see if the next decade favors EM, international, small cap, value,.. or the magnificient 7 keep on rolling.
No offense to Russ Kinnel, but he's been writing "news" pieces like this for 20 years, and I have yet to read anything that did not make me feel dumber after having read it.
On my EM investments, I'd simple. I have a plan, I stick with it. My average holding time for funds is some combination of "15 years or since inception." I sold my MACSX position mostly because the stock/bond and domestic/international balance was so badly off. That was the same reason that I moved my monthly SIGIX contribution down to quarterly.
As long as Seafarer and Grandeur Peak honor their part of the bargain, I'll honor mine. I'd certainly make more money if I sold at the right time, but I've never shown that skill before and don't suppose it's snuck up on me now.
What's the connection? Is the cheapest quintile requirement intended to bias the selection toward Vanguard, American Funds, D&C (not one of the three firms totaling 18 funds on the list), and Baird? If so, is it also intended to bias against Fidelity and T. Rowe Price? As Kinnel wrote in his 2019 edition, these families tend to have funds with ERs just outside the lowest quintile.
I do think that requiring an analyst rating is a bit hokey. Especially since this builds in an unnecessary bias toward larger firms (the ones M* covers). And it's prospective which makes it less than objective.
M* is nevertheless rational in covering primarily larger firms: that's where the investor money is. 98% of money invested goes into the 150 largest firms.
Aside from a few analyst rating criteria, the other screens used - like ER, manager longevity (at least five years), and so on - are objective. Are there particular criteria you feel are intentionally biased or have other problems?
For example, comparing a manager's performance with a benchmark sounds good, until one realizes that there are some periods when most funds in a given category beat their benchmark. Wouldn't it make more sense to require a fund to best both its benchmark and its category average performance?
That would knock out one of the few funds on the list from a smaller firm: MERDX. Meade and Schaub had a great record with Triton, but since they took over Meridian Growth in Sept 2013 (almost exactly 10 years ago), the have not set the world on fire. Sure, their 10 year record (as of Sept 30, 2023) of 7.43% annualized beat the M* benchmark of 6.88%, but it underperformed its category (returning 7.78%) and also underperformed the S&P 600 by about 0.05% cumulative over a decade, let alone the S&P 600 growth by about 1%/year on an annualized basis.
Kinnel has fudged the list in the past, e.g. removing PRFDX because the manager (Brian Rogers) was about to retire. So in the future the fund would no longer have a manager meeting the five year requirement.
Certainly he could have fudged his list here to remove MERDX because the fund beat a benchmark but not its category average and not a different category benchmark.
Which funds would you knock off the list of thrilling 30 and why? Or which funds would you add by relaxing which criteria? Independent of advertising dollars.
BTW, M* has greatly expanded its Analysts coverage by folding the old conputerized Q-Ratings into regular ratings. One can still guess from the gobbledygook in the report texts which are really the old Q-Reports.
Comments
On my EM investments, I'd simple. I have a plan, I stick with it. My average holding time for funds is some combination of "15 years or since inception." I sold my MACSX position mostly because the stock/bond and domestic/international balance was so badly off. That was the same reason that I moved my monthly SIGIX contribution down to quarterly.
As long as Seafarer and Grandeur Peak honor their part of the bargain, I'll honor mine. I'd certainly make more money if I sold at the right time, but I've never shown that skill before and don't suppose it's snuck up on me now.
David
I do think that requiring an analyst rating is a bit hokey. Especially since this builds in an unnecessary bias toward larger firms (the ones M* covers). And it's prospective which makes it less than objective.
M* is nevertheless rational in covering primarily larger firms: that's where the investor money is. 98% of money invested goes into the 150 largest firms.
Aside from a few analyst rating criteria, the other screens used - like ER, manager longevity (at least five years), and so on - are objective. Are there particular criteria you feel are intentionally biased or have other problems?
For example, comparing a manager's performance with a benchmark sounds good, until one realizes that there are some periods when most funds in a given category beat their benchmark. Wouldn't it make more sense to require a fund to best both its benchmark and its category average performance?
That would knock out one of the few funds on the list from a smaller firm: MERDX. Meade and Schaub had a great record with Triton, but since they took over Meridian Growth in Sept 2013 (almost exactly 10 years ago), the have not set the world on fire. Sure, their 10 year record (as of Sept 30, 2023) of 7.43% annualized beat the M* benchmark of 6.88%, but it underperformed its category (returning 7.78%) and also underperformed the S&P 600 by about 0.05% cumulative over a decade, let alone the S&P 600 growth by about 1%/year on an annualized basis.
Kinnel has fudged the list in the past, e.g. removing PRFDX because the manager (Brian Rogers) was about to retire. So in the future the fund would no longer have a manager meeting the five year requirement.
Certainly he could have fudged his list here to remove MERDX because the fund beat a benchmark but not its category average and not a different category benchmark.
Which funds would you knock off the list of thrilling 30 and why? Or which funds would you add by relaxing which criteria? Independent of advertising dollars.