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Announcing Morningstar’s 2015 Fund Managers Of The Year
Like most years, M* blew a number of these. Brown Capital has been closed for a couple of years, but they neglected to mention this. ANWPX is not an international fund. Even M* calls it a Global Stock fund, with holdings almost evenly divided between U.S. and foreign stocks. They clearly overlooked true international fund such as WAIOX (9.4% gain), DRIOX (12.6% gain), TGVIX (6.7% gain), and SGOVX (2.3% gain), all of which were remarkable in a year when EAFE was negative. And then there is MAPIX (4% gain when China killed EMs and much of Asia. Then PTSHX as the best bond fund? At least with NEARX you would have gotten a better return and not been taxed, if M* was looking for a good short-term bond. Heck, I could have been in CDs the last 2 years and been ahead of PTSHX. What were they thinking? And no AQR for alternative. I think VMNFX is an ok option, but it is not a true market neutral fund. I will stop throwing stones. In the end, these so-called awards a really nothing more than publicity events for M* and for the funds named.
Below are some 2015 risk/return metrics for the M* winners.
The loaded American fund ANWPX is probably my only real disappointment, but I feel that way about all loaded funds ... especially American's since they have highest number of share classes of any fund house.
VWINX and BCSIX hold dual MFO Great Owl and Honor Roll designations.
Absolutely not to pick nits, especially with Bob C., but what's the main difference between a "global" and an "international" fund? Says my dictionary:
global adjective 1) the global economy: worldwide, international, world, intercontinental.
Perhaps with respect to funds there is a different set of meanings?
Yeah, seems in the fund world, contrary to the usual definition, international = foreign (i.e., ex-U.S.).
Re: Bob C's mention of WAIOX, Wasatch seems to be holding up well post-Grandeur Peak defections. WAIOX's chart looks better than the ~ GP equivalent GPIOX, and the Wasatch India fund looks good, probably even better than the Matthews fund.
Some of the criticism is unnecessary. Folks should read what M* is saying before coming to the conclusions. They have already explained why Global funds are categorized under International. I will attach the explanation later when I have time, but they said that they have to add Global funds to one of the existing category as they don't want to create yet another award category. What is best category to include Global than International, as most Global funds hold foreign stocks anywhere from 50 to 70%.
I saw lot of criticism for not giving the award to PRWCX in allocation fund category. They gave the award to that fund mgr just 3 years ago, They can't start giving the award to the same manager again and again, esp. in such short intervals.
As far as why AQR funds not in Alternative category, M* does not look just one year performance while giving this award, though last year is utmost important. They also look at consistent long term performance of the fund and its manager(s). AQR funds/shop is relatively new and that could be reason why they were not considered.
mrc70, you make a point, but if M* insists on including global funds in their international category for these meaningless awards, they should identify the award as such. All they would have to do is call the category Global/International, and that would at least make it honest. As for asset bloat, many of the funds are already huge in size, and some are already closed when they receive the award. Perhaps it was a bigger deal years ago, but it can sometimes be the kiss of death. Anyone remember Julis Baer International? Their asset base grew so big, the fund essentially imploded. My observation, once again, is that these "awards" have much less impact than they used to, especially since the market-share gain of index funds and ETFs. But we know the fund companies will market them as long as they can.
Comments
The loaded American fund ANWPX is probably my only real disappointment, but I feel that way about all loaded funds ... especially American's since they have highest number of share classes of any fund house.
VWINX and BCSIX hold dual MFO Great Owl and Honor Roll designations.
PTSHX is an Honor Roll fund.
global
adjective
1) the global economy: worldwide, international, world, intercontinental.
Perhaps with respect to funds there is a different set of meanings?
Re: Bob C's mention of WAIOX, Wasatch seems to be holding up well post-Grandeur Peak defections. WAIOX's chart looks better than the ~ GP equivalent GPIOX, and the Wasatch India fund looks good, probably even better than the Matthews fund.
I saw lot of criticism for not giving the award to PRWCX in allocation fund category. They gave the award to that fund mgr just 3 years ago, They can't start giving the award to the same manager again and again, esp. in such short intervals.
As far as why AQR funds not in Alternative category, M* does not look just one year performance while giving this award, though last year is utmost important. They also look at consistent long term performance of the fund and its manager(s). AQR funds/shop is relatively new and that could be reason why they were not considered.
Thanks; RTFM is almost always good advice.
Agree with what you said.
BTW, appreciate all your contribution to this forum