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February 2012 update is posted

Dear friends,

My February essay is posted, along with three new fund profiles. The funds are Bretton, Matthews Strategic Income and Grandeur Peak Global Opportunities. I had occasion to chat with a WSJ reporter over the past couple months, and he'd solicited a list of the three best new fund launches since July and the 8 or 10 best tiny funds. Since I mentioned Matthews and Grandeur Peak, I thought I should share some of the reasoning behind the recs.

Other highlights:

a celebration of a couple milestones - our 2000th discussion thread and 50,000th reader

discussion of three site upgrades - Chip has constructed a compact, updated alphabetical list of all of our fund profiles, Accipiter launched the endlessly-cool Summary program and Junior Yearwood is going to lead a "best sites on the web" project for us. More on that soon.

a small rant about the quality of data available on the web (another fund with a massive portfolio goof, another programming screw-up by the SEC)

a couple stories on the theme "look past the numbers," focusing on Matthews Asian Growth & Income and Oceanstone Fund.

As well as miscellaneous other delights.

For what interest it holds,

David

Comments

  • Thanks David : )
  • love the call-out on the prospectus and annual report
  • "Sort of the Gingrich of Lizards." BWAH-HA-HA-HA!!!! David, you're a gifted writer. Great word picture. This one deserved a coffee spray warning. Rick
  • Thank you, David.

    The statistics are very fascinating....number of visitors, country locations, etc.

    Regards,
    Catch
  • Reply to @catch22: Google Analytics. Only Chip actually knows what half of this stuff means but I do enjoy knowing that while we don't have many visitors from Bern, Switzerland, the one we do have reads a lot of pages and spends quality time with us.

    The real-time tracking - watching folks come and go late at night - is almost hypnotic.

    Cheers, David
  • David,

    Sorry to tag this with another post; but I forgot to place it with the original write.

    From the Feb. commentary:
    "Junior brings what we wanted: the perspectives of a writer and reader who was financially literate but not obsessed with the market’s twitches or Fidelity’s travails."

    Might you expand on the: Fidelity’s travails. The reference to Fidelity in the same sentence with "twitches" leaves me not understanding the intention.

    Thank you,
    Catch
  • Reply to @catch22: Hi, Catch. The reference to Fidelity was to say that he's not obsessed by what are called "inside the Beltway politics," that is, such interesting only to a small class of folks who leave and breathe politics.

    My reference to Fidelity comes up as I watch them try to figure out how to manage Magellan. The new manager was originally slated to manage four other funds along with Magellan, there was some discussion of a "new model" by which a manager would handle related portfolios, then criticism that they weren't taking Magellan seriously and finally a retreat on their part, which removes him from his other funds but triggers another set of shuffles. All of which is intensely boring to 99.96% of the world and fascinating to folks who know of Fido's struggles.

    That's about all I was waving at.

    Hope that helps,

    David
  • David, you manage to say so much in so little space. And you make it entertaining, though meaty. Thank you, thank you.
  • Re: MAINX, when you have your discussion with Ms. Kong, I would really like her to tell us what her fund will bring to the table that other diversified bond managers cannot. I've seen a number of reports that Bill Gross, Dan Fuss, etc. are all increasingly looking to foreign and EM markets for their bond funds. If I have a diversified fund that already allocates (say) 5% in Asia, will I really benefit from additional exposure to MAINX? In particular MAINX's expense ratio seems very high compared to other diversified and international bond funds.
  • edited February 2012
    Didn't the free enterprise action fund merge with the Congressional Effect Fund, managed by Eric Singer.

    From their website: Mr. Singer first published about the Congressional Effect in 1992 in Barron’s. He has over 25 years experience in finance, at such firms as Smith Barney, Paine Webber, and H.C. Wainwright, and ten years as head of Corporate Finance at Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co., Inc. He graduated from Cornell Law School, where he was on Law Review, and SUNY Stony Brook, where he was Phi Beta Kappa.?
  • How long term are the "long Term" price trends for HNPKX?
  • Reply to @00BY: The manager was a little reluctant to say exactly, but allowed that the 250-day moving average was pretty close.
  • edited February 2012
    Reply to @claimui: Personally, with the still fairly limited size of the EM bond market, I'd like to have managers that are flexible and diversified. I'm sure it will be a fine fund from Matthews and I like Asia lots, but I just don't see the case for Asia-specific fixed income funds - yet. For the time being, I'll continue to recommend diversified exposure to EM bonds.
  • Reply to @00BY: Interesting, since it's been my experience that nothing is ever free when congress gets invloved.
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