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Largest Mutual Fund Holders of JCP, GRPN

edited February 2013 in Fund Discussions
JCP:
Dodge & Cox Stock Fund 11,100,000 5.06 269,619,000 Sep 30, 2012
Fidelity Growth Company Fund 10,415,000 4.75 186,845,100 Nov 30, 2012
Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund 2,934,500 1.34 52,644,930 Nov 30, 2012
Fidelity Series Large Cap Value Fund 2,808,263 1.28 50,380,238 Nov 30, 2012
Dodge & Cox Balanced Fund 2,750,000 1.25 66,797,500 Sep 30, 2012

GRPN:
Morgan Stanley Inst Fund Tr-Mid Cap Growth Port 15,020,860 2.30 71,649,502 Sep 30, 2012
Davis New York Venture Fund 7,960,000 1.22 32,795,200 Oct 31, 2012
Price (T.Rowe) Science & Technology Fund 6,858,536 1.05 32,715,216 Sep 30, 2012
Legg Mason Capital Management Opportunity Trust Fd 5,500,000 0.84 26,235,000 Sep 30, 2012
Price (T.Rowe) Mid Cap Growth Fund 5,500,000 0.84 26,235,000 Sep 30, 2012

Comments

  • Reply to @scott: The M* data better than Yahoo !
    Regards,
    Ted
  • msf
    edited February 2013
    I'm reminded of a current commercial: If you read it on the internet, it must be true. Where'd you hear that? On the internet.

    More important than what funds own the largest amount is which funds have the largest percentage of their portfolios in JC Penney and Groupon. Unless you think funds actually vote their shares to improve companies as opposed to giving the company management free reign (fat chance).

    Penny's most concentrated holders: http://investors.morningstar.com/ownership/shareholders-concentrated.html?t=JCP&region=USA&culture=en-us

    Lots of obscure funds. Ones that seem more significant (to me, FWIW) are Hotchkis and Wiley (multiple funds), Victory Diversified. Fidelity, D&C don't make the list. They're big holders because they're big funds; JCP is just a small portion of their portfilios.

    Groupon: http://investors.morningstar.com/ownership/shareholders-concentrated.html?t=GRPN&region=USA&culture=en-us

    Here, in contrast, you do have repeats. Funds hit particularly hard include Morgan Stanley, and notably Legg Mason Opportunity (nearly 3% of portfolio). But not TRP, nor Vanguard (another very large holder in terms of shares but not concentration).
  • edited February 2013
    i exited MPEGX in the fall after over 4 year of successful investing -- for the single reason of them buying and holding GRPN all the way down. it seems that their growth team has lots of clout with the investment bank and gets on all hot IPOs. I am no longer sure they have actually researched what they are buying. After an 80% fall, GRPN is no longer reported among their top holdings (either top 10 or top 25), but it looks like they hold for the dear life. the fund was rated 5 and 4 stars until GRPN killed it in the past year. they did get lucky with LNKD, but now i am certain that this is luck and not research.
  • edited February 2013
    Thanks Scott. But good grief. Starting to think that D&C has some of the worst stock pickers in the business. Extracted from their Dec 12 annual report:

    ▪ Hewlett-Packard down 43%.
    ▪ Nokia down 13%.
    ▪ Xerox down 12%.
    ▪ Occidental Petroleum down 16%.
    ▪ Baker Hughes down 15%.
    ▪ Sony down 37%.
    ▪ J.C. Penney down 42% (from date of purchase). And today...

    image

    And this string is after the debacle of awful holdings in 2008, like Wachovia and Fannie Mae, and poor execution.

    Hurts, cause like many other MFO readers, I am a long-time D&C fan:

    A Look Back at Dodge & Cox Stock Fund

    Dodge & Cox Balanced Fund Regains Its Stride, Finally?
  • edited March 2013
    HP, Nokia, Xerox and Sony are all examples of thinking that these companies were values without looking at the possibility that they were becoming dinosaurs and/or irrelevant. (and had problems beyond that). Technology is moving so quickly; these companies have not. Sony's problems are highlighted a little bit in the Steve Jobs bio by Walter Issacson.

    Some people have mentioned Nokia leaving MSFT, I dunno. Speaking of, there's one company who keeps getting called a value even after their many screw-ups. MSFT and Nokia has not exactly lead to amazing results, and people aren't talking much about MSFT's investment in the Nook (Barnes and Noble).

    Steve Jobs said it well in an interview once: "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste and I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way. They don't think of original ideas and they don't bring much culture into their product. They really just make third-rate products." It would not surprise me if MSFT eventually started to go the route Hewitt Packard has. CEO Ballmer is like having Jim Cramer as CEO. MSFT needs less booyah and some actual innovation and original ideas.

    As for the oil companies, they haven't done well as a group in the last couple of years, although OXY has apparently had management issues. I actually have been considering adding an oil name, as some of them are - I think - reasonably valued and provide a nice dividend.

    As for JCP, I think people got all excited about Ron Johnson being brought in (I didn't really follow it, but was JCP broken in the first place?) I think when you have same store comp sales down something like 31.5% in the quarter that was announced yesterday, is there really any fixing that? I don't know, but if there is, there's not much time.

    I think Best Buy is either going to have to evolve or that will go away (the founder's attempts to buy out the company were announced as unsuccessful this morning - he apparently could not get enough interest to back him in the attempt) and I think Sears is going to either have to evolve into something different or it turns into a retail liquidation play. JCP will have to evolve real quick or probably will eventually turn into a liquidation play.

    I have nothing against video games (I've played an awful lot of "Halo" over the last decade) but I really, really think Gamestop is eventually irrelevant. The video game industry hasn't done well as is for the last couple of years, the new Nintendo console has not had that much interest and when games are delivered as downloads at some point in the future, that will be a real problem for Gamestop. The dividend yield is really the only thing that I think is keeping that appealing to people, but I just don't know how long that lasts. It could take a lot longer than I think, but I see no scenario where Gamestop eventually doesn't become irrelevant.

    The other, smaller one that I don't get is HH Gregg. I walked into one the other month and it seemed like a sparse Best Buy (electronics, appliances.) That's already down from a high of 30 a couple of years ago to 9. It's technically cheap at this point, but I guess after visiting a store I don't get what advantage the chain had or offered.

    As for Sears, I don't know what the heck happened yesterday. A quarter that initially appeared to be thought of as okay saw the company head up, then all the sudden head lower and end lower by about 5.5%.

    I see a consolidation of retail and it's unfortunate. Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon (the "one-stops") pick up market share and the others that are left are probably better off and stronger. Retail is overbuilt and overdone in this country and again, it's unfortunate, but I would not be surprised if we get a time period in retail in this country where, like what's happened in tech, names that were once thought of as solid, fortress-like retail brands are either broken up or just go away.

    So, potentially, if things continue to look like they are with some of these retail companies (lets say, worst case scenario), you have Sears trying to sell real estate, you have JCP trying to sell real estate and you have Best Buy and potentially others (Barnes and Noble) trying to sell real estate. If things go that way, I don't know if the demand (or perceived value) is going to be as expected.

    Highly amusing retail analyst Howard Davidowitz (a plus that he sounds like Gary Marshall) explains in detail what went wrong with JC Penney last year (and which has only gotten worse since the interview)



  • edited March 2013
    Reply to @scott: Thanks man. I will be interested in the oil company you pick. Don't forget to add RSH to your list of change-or-liquidate retailers. Panasonic too should be on your dinosaur-watch list.

    Break, break. I see that both DAL and LUV are up pretty heavy these past few months. In fact airline exchange traded fund FAA has 13-week return of 23% and 26-wk return of 40%. So, Mr. Redleaf was correct on this one. I recall the ARLSX folks were looking to short DAL, but it has not yet showed up in their holdings...they are shorting Gamestop, however.
  • edited March 2013
    Thanks.:)

    I think I'm particularly comfortable with the pipelines; I like the tollway aspect of the pipeline companies and I like the idea that no one could come in tomorrow and replicate what many of them have done. The 6% yield on some of them is - as I've said in other threads - really nice; if I can like a business and have a good long-term outlook on it and I paid a significant (optimally, more than 3%) yield, that to me is really what I'm looking for. I like infrastructure (pipelines, etc) as a long-term holding.

    What I want real, real bad is for Archer Daniels Midland to walk away from their attempt to buy out Graincorp (GRCLF) which I owned until ADM made the offer. The deal has gone nowhere and if ADM (finally) walks away, I'd buy that again without question. Great assets, great dividend policy. I still think ADM gets bought by Buffett, especially with Howard Buffett's involvement and knowledge of the company.

    I was thinking about oil companies (OXY, COP, a few others, even PTT in Thailand and I almost pondered Russia's Gazprom after how far that's down), but I think I'm going to wait and see how things play out over the next couple of weeks rather than getting into more volatile investments.

    Radio Shack is an interesting case and I'm curious if they can essentially "start over" overseas. I still don't think that's going to be any kind of home run, but it will allow them to muddle along and maybe some foreign company will eventually buy the parts and pieces of what's left of them.

    I think Airlines are a good trade for people at times and people have been really successful playing airline swings, but I think at least for me they are too difficult to have as a long-term investment. I feel the same way about hotels - I like hotel companies, but they are so uber-sensitive to economic conditions that they make difficult long-term holds (and don't pay enough of a dividend for the risk - many of the hotel REITs dropped the dividends in 2008.)

    There's a Swiss company that I looked at the other day but decided against called Dufry. It's economically sensitive to travel, but they run airport shops (duty free, newsstand) - it's too sensitive and too thinly traded in the US, but I liked the concept of people stuck at the airport, people needing something before the flight and owning these stores that charge higher prices because at the airport, they're pretty much the only game in town. In some other countries, you can invest in the airports (Sydney Airport is available on the pink sheet) and get a nice yield, although not sure how much growth.

    As I said in the other thread today, I think there's a large part of society that unfortunately is still not doing well, and I think it's good to have plays on the basics (consumer staples, Walgreens, J&J, PG, Wal-Mart-type of things) with some part of one's portfolio. I don't think people should go full "Dollar Tree", but I don't think now is the time to invest in luxury goods, for example. Things or services that provide a value - even something like Costco would qualify. Apartment REITs and Healthcare REITs are going to perform differently based on their specifics and REITs are volatile, but generally, I'd say both are basic needs and are at least *somewhat* more defensive (still volatile) than some other REIT categories (and both pay a nice yield.)

    Panasonic is a dinosaur, but that makes me sad because I think Panasonic has always made really good products (at least in my experience.) The difference with Panasonic is Japan, who might take unexpected measures to prop up these companies if it comes to that.

  • edited March 2013
    Just a casual observer here. Occurs to me JC & some of the big brick & motar retailers might be good counter-plays on Amazon. Until now Amazon's been operating at thin margins while building market share. I've noticed over the past year substantial price increases on most everything (excluding media where they're still very low). Many identical items can now be found at KMart, BBB, or Walmart for less. In addition they're gradually imposing minimum-order restrictions on items that previously shipped free with Prime. Add to this the push to get them to collect state sales taxes - which I believe will be successful, and they may well be at their zenith. (Too late for RS & Borders - maybe even B&N.)
  • edited March 2013
    Reply to @hank: I believe there was an internet sales tax bill introduced the other day.

    http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865574219/Internet-sales-tax-bill-advances-in-Senate.html

    I agree with you that if the sales tax thing goes through it will even the odds with B & M and help some retailers, but I still think there are going to be a few (Sears, Gamestop, maybe Best Buy can muddle along if the tax things goes through, JCP does not appear to be able to fix itself) that just are eventually just not going to evolve to the degree they need to.

    Amazon's margins are Kate Moss-thin and they continue to spend a fortune on building out their infrastructure. There's always the discussions that Amazon will open some B & M stores, but until then it will be interesting to see how they withstand the sales tax bill if that is passed.

    I will say this: if the sales tax bill is passed, some smaller online retailers are probably in trouble (Overstock, there are probably others.) Amazon may be in trouble, but I think it may cause bigger problems with an Overstock.

    I've also noticed that Amazon is nowhere as reasonable as it used to be on a variety of things.

  • edited March 2013
    Reply to @scott: Yes - Agree. Never underestimate Jeff Bezos. He's continually taken them in new directions. A real innovator. Wish he'd run for office. (Wouldn't you love getting one of those "Tell us how we're doing?" surveys from your Congressman:-)
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