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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.
  • MFAIX -- anyone kicked the tires?
    @slick: I also sold IWIRX when it seemed to have flamed out. Things have gotten worse, a surprise given the fund’s previous performance. I’m happy in MGGPX.
  • MFAIX -- anyone kicked the tires?
    @Mikew. I started the position beginning of January, and have been waiting for a dip, but haven't gotten one. Every time i decide to dca into a fund it goes up and keeps going lol. I also started a position in MGGPX, same thing. I sold IWIRX to fund it. One ira I fully funded it, the other ira I am dcaing. There was a recent article which stated you are better off taking a deep breath and funding it all at once, but i was always a fan of dcaing, but recently not as much. With so much volatility, you have to be patient when doing it, since like in ARTJX, it has gone up 8% since I opened it, and still waiting for a dip
  • Global Fund
    There are so many being mentioned, will be hard to choose just one. I have ARTGX and IWIRX which have been mentioned each for over 5 years, happy with both, but I also added GSIHX this year. New shop, with a manager that has an excellent reputation from Virtus, which I held for a long time. He left and formed the GQG Partners. Worth a look. If this is your only exposure to foreign , I would likely go with one of Vanguard's funds and later spread out to others as money and risk permit you.
  • Global Fund
    Most of what I follow has already been mentioned but I'd add:
    IWIRX- I'm not betting new money on this fund these days but it was profiled here I believe and performance has been great, especially if you compare it to the World Stock category rather than the domestic Large Blend category M* puts it in.
    VGWLX
    VGWIX
    The Global Wellington and Wellesley funds are pretty new and the performance hasn't been much to excite me so far but if you believe in Wellington Management and what they've done with the domestic versions of these funds for decades then the newer global versions might be interesting as well.
  • What are some good international funds?
    If you want a global fund IWIRX might work.
    It is hard to find a similar fund to DODFX as it is mostly a bottom up large cap value fund with a heavy dose of emerging markets. You might want to go with to funds to replicate it.
  • Have you lost confidence in FMIJX/FMIYX, S-T or L-T?
    I too own FMIJX but it is not my only intl fund. Technically it is global, since there is some domestic. I paired it with SIFIX and GHISX, all of which have both US and foreign. I also have IWIRX which by M* standards is large cap growth, but is global fund for me. I attribute FMIJX stalling to sticking to its guns on being a value shop and having become popular, so more cash to put to work when value is out of favor. Im giving it time. You might consider adding a more growth oriented fund in this space, to catch both the value and growth pendulum that seem to swing at different times.
  • The Dukester's Fund Corner II
    Hi everyone, I'm 49 for another month or so and I have 5 kids ranging in age from 2 to 17. They have 529 plans that will hopefully cover a decent portion of college costs and I keep contributing, although the youngest 2 could be worse off if the cost of education continues rising faster than inflation. I've basically been retired for almost 6 years because I took a nice package to walk away from my job in a downsizing and didn't find something new, but I'm still interested in going back to work for a decent opportunity.
    I have a couple of overriding principles for my portfolio that will help explain some of my allocations. First, I believe that emerging markets, especially in Asia, are the future. I want to be overweight. I'm also a believer in healthcare. Considering the world's demographics are getting older and the developed world's demographics even more so, I want to be overweight. In general I want to be equal weight the US and underweight developed international markets because the demographics are the worst there and they are pretty highly correlated with the US in the large cap space. If I want to make currency bets, which I've done before, I'd rather do it in the futures market. I want most of my exposure to developed international markets to be small cap. Finally, other than healthcare, I'm generally sector agnostic. I don't target any specific allocations but I do monitor them compared to the S&P 500 to make sure I know and am comfortable with the opinions my sector allocations are expressing.
    My portfolio currently has two parts and a third part is being reduced. The first is a collection of funds that I rebalance or adjust at irregular intervals but mostly doesn't change. The second is what I'd call a modified risk parity portfolio of my own making that trades monthly based mostly on momentum. The part being reduced is made up of individual stocks that I picked based on a newsletter I used to subscribe to or stocks that M* identified as undervalued. That didn't work very well for me. The stocks currently represent about 12.5%. I plan to keep 2 stocks, which are uranium stocks that I'm still comfortable/happy with. They make up 6% of my portfolio and will stay, so a little less than half of my total stocks.
    I normally don't count cash as part of my portfolio except in my IRA and the cash there represents 3% of what I consider my portfolio.
    Mutual funds
    I'll indicate the current allocation as well as my planned allocation once I eliminate the stocks I hold with a comment or two where relevant.
    GPIIX 9.65--->8.5 I would have preferred Global Opportunities to International Opportunities but the original intention was to pair International with their intended US fund, which hasn't come yet, and to manage the allocation myself. At the time I wasn't thinking about hard closes that make managing an allocation difficult so if I ever had the chance to switch this for GPGIX I would.
    POAGX 8.75--->8.5
    GPEIX 7.75--->8.5
    SBIO 3--->2
    HQL 2.9--->2
    OBIOX 2.75--->3.5
    MAPIX 2.5--->2
    PRHSX 2.25--->2
    IWIRX 2.15--->2
    MEASX 1.6--->2
    QUSOX 1.45--->2
    ARTGX 1.4--->0 I don't dislike the fund, just decided I'd prefer OAKWX
    MSCFX 1.4--->2
    OAKWX 1.35--->2
    PRNHX 1.35--->2
    TVRVX 1.3--->2
    DSEEX 1.3--->2
    PTSGX 1.3--->1
    SFGIX 1.3--->2
    FSCRX 1.25--->0 This fund was great for me but with Chuck Myers leaving I started switching to the Mairs & Power fund.
    KGGAX 1.2--->2
    GPMCX 0.8--->2 This won't happen by year-end because of the limited annual contributions they allow but I'll get there.
    Trading
    The holdings currently make up 25.7% of my portfolio and includes EWX, IJH, IJK and VBR. I expect it will be 34% at year-end. I started this approach 18 months ago because I was concerned about valuations and wanted something that would hopefully protect me when things eventually go south but hopefully participate in most of the upside as long as it continues.
    I track my overall portfolio as well as each "bucket" against 12 benchmarks on a monthly basis. Broadly speaking those benchmarks include a few all equity options (like the S&P 500 and a total world etf), a few balanced options that are all 60/40 but with different equity options, and a few risk parity portfolios like @hank's Permanent Portfolio, Faber's Ivy Portfolio and David Swenson's Yale portfolio.
    For the individual funds I mostly watch category rankings. I do see 1, 3, 5 and 10 year returns in my M* portfolio but I don't use them to make any decisions. I don't change funds very much but manager changes usually worry me and I occasionally change for something I believe will be better. For instance, I used to hold a number of Wasatch funds that I eliminated and bought Grandeur Peak funds and I'm replacing FSCRX with MSCFX because of a manager change.
    There are a few funds I'd be happy to own if they open again one day. They are VVPSX and TDVFX. I know I can buy the Towle Fund direct and I may do that at some point but I'd prefer to keep it in my brokerage account if possible. As mentioned I'll buy Grandeur Peak's US fund whenever it launches.
    A portfolio X-ray will show you that I'm around 80% small and mid cap stocks. I understand most people would be uncomfortable with that. One third of that is the risk parity trading I do and that will be into other asset classes when the momentum changes. Nonetheless, I've never been uncomfortable with volatility and I don't tend to make emotional decisions. The risk parity idea was specifically designed to make me comfortable with whatever volatility occurs in the mutual funds. X-ray will also show I'm a little more than 20% emerging markets and overweight healthcare but I'll be pretty close to equal weight healthcare at year-end. This is something I want to keep an eye on because I don't want to end up underweight healthcare. I'm actually underweight the US at about 43-44% but that's okay for now because I'm somewhat, less than many but still somewhat concerned about valuations in the US. And I'm significantly underweight developed international markets except for Asia. I think that's mostly because M* calls Taiwan and South Korea developed while MSCI doesn't.
    Oh, one last thing, how could I forget, I have no bonds and haven't for a few years. Friends have argued that I either should already regret that or I certainly will in the future. They may be right but I'm well aware of the bet I'm making and I'm more concerned now about getting hurt in bonds than hurt in equities. Time will tell.
    Thanks in advance for your feedback.
    Jim
  • The Dukesters Fund Corner II. More portfolios
    Whew. This started out as a simple exercise and will try and provide commentary on my portfolio in addition to allocations and percentages. I have three portfolios. First one , is a taxable account which has a majority of the bond allocation at 80%, which includes 2 munis I am holding til maturity, also have two stocks in that portfolio, one of which I am getting ready to sell for its gains. That portfolio is 27% of my total. The other two are a traditional ira and a roth, and the roth is the larger of the two. You will notice some duplications in fund characteristics, the result of my moving from Merrill Lynch last year to Fidelity. Some positions I could not add to since they are institutional funds, so had to add similar funds from another fund company. I take a barbell approach to the total, balancing aggressive funds with conservative ones. More people seem to use balanced funds, I chose this method. That said, I am 68% equities, 32% bonds and cash, and 66 and retired. SS provides me about 1/3 of my expenses, rest comes from taxable account, which will be the first to be depleted, but I do have to start taking from the ira in four years. I am trying to follow the basic set up that Pudd used, adding my own tweaks. This reflects iras only. I threw in etfs into the mix. Here goes:
    Large and multi cap:
    MSEGX 1.5%
    POGRX 2.6%
    RSP 1.0%
    SMGIX 6.4%
    TWEIX 2.5%
    VIG 3.0%
    VDIGX 6.5%
    VOO 5.6%
    VPCCX 2.9%
    VWINX 2.7%
    Sector funds
    CMTFX 3.1%
    PHSZX 1.4%
    FRUAX 1.5%
    FSPHX 1.3%
    IHI 2.0%
    JRBFX 1.3%
    PRGTX 6.2%
    RHS 3.7%
    SHSAX 1.4%
    VPU 2.0%
    FRIFX 2.9%
    Small-midcap
    CCASX 1%
    SMDV 1%
    UBVSX 1.3%
    Global non sector funds (with a minimum of 30% foreign)
    APDGX 3.0%
    IWIRX 2.6%
    Foreign
    FMIJX 4.5%
    SIGIX 4.9%
    GSIHX 1.8%
    OSMYX 2.8%
    MINDX 2.5%
    Stocks
    MMM 2.1%
    TRV 1.2%
    Bonds and cash are 9.6% of total iras, since taxable portfolio has the high bond allocation. I use PONDX, PYACX, CPXAX, GIBIX.
    According to Fidelity, in the iras, I am 76% large cap, 17% mid cap, 7% small. The above small cap funds I have do not reflect total small cap exposure since I have small cap stocks in a number of funds that are multi cap. I usually have more stocks, and use them more for trading than investment.
    Im sure I have many more funds and etfs than most, but this is cut down from earlier this year :) All comments welcome, good and bad.
  • Ways of Winning In A Bull Market: Fidelity OTC Portfolio-Wasatch Micro Cap Fund-Matthews Asia Innov
    Another way to play the "Innovators" Concept is with IWIRX , more than just Asia, it is global and beats MATFX in 1, 3, 5 10 and 15 years. It has not done as well as MATFX ytd, but worth looking at if you like the Innovators concept. I own it and plan on keeping it for the long haul, recently added to it. There is an interview with David Snowball a few years ago on MFO.
    http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2014/08/guinness-atkinson-global-innovators-iwirx-august-2014/
  • Looking for Unique Global Equity Fund
    Here three other funds I like:
    ARTRX, IWIRX, and MGGPX
    These funds are small, ARTRX is the biggest at 2.1B, a quality that matters a lot to me. MGGPX is NTF, load-waived at Schwab and TDA. These are global, not purely international. For the latter, as stated above, FMIJX is the best bet.
  • Jason Zweig: Hold Your Nose And Buy Europe
    I also hold ARTGX and have been pleased with it. I too like global funds, as I also hold IWIRX, although a current underperformed but will hold on to see whether it can go back to winning ways. At least my small cap intl seems bright, so not all of my foreign exposure is in the dog house. Intresting to note that my global funds are mostly domestic, I'm hoping as foreign picks up more allocation will switch to foreign. Not an easy market to be patient in.
  • Matthews Asia Renames Fund To Matthews Asia Innovators Fund
    IWIRX is surely doing a lot better than its stablemates, particularly Alternative Energy, Global Energy, and Asia Focus. G-A made its mark with the China-Hong Kong fund several years ago, but that one has faded also. I'm surprised the firm is able to retain talent given its overall weakness.
  • Matthews Asia Renames Fund To Matthews Asia Innovators Fund
    IWIRX does have a stellar record but seems to be just holding serve over the last 2 to 3 years. The managers' explanation of what "innovation" means to them is a head-scratcher for me. A look at fund holdings reveals a collection of mostly solid large cap tech US companies who certainly spend something on R&D, but not firms I think of as terribly innovative. I'd expect to see the likes of Tesla and something in health and medicine (although GILD is included). I do like the choice of Wisdom Tree as a holding. I've owned G-A funds in the past and I have reduced Matthews in favor of Seafarer and Grandeur Peak.
  • Matthews Asia Renames Fund To Matthews Asia Innovators Fund
    Not to be confused with IWIRX, Guinness Atkinson Global Innovators Fund. The latter has a nice-sounding story, but has acted like a story stock.
  • GLFOX - Lazard Global Listed Infrastructure Open, @Bee and others
    65% giant and large-cap, with 55% of assets in top 10 holdings. Certainly not SMID and the concentration may give some pause. It has worked as a global holding for me as for @puddnhead during a period when JOHAX, IWIRX and Grandeur Peak holdings in my accounts stank up the joint. I'm adding to GLFOX.
  • How Do You Decide What Funds to Buy?
    Hi @bee,
    Although there are times when I worry a little about David's idea that we're irresistibly drawn to bright shiny objects, which I tend to think of as performance chasing, I try to be cautious with both additions and subtractions from my list. I'm pretty sure the last time something was taken off my list was 2012 when I went through a fairly significant revision to my approach and most of those eliminated would have been higher asset funds with higher expense ratios that didn't impress me anymore or funds where my interest was driven in large part by a manager who was no longer there.
    In the last 12-18 months I've added a few funds I learned about here, like SFGIX, QUSOX, MEASX and VVPLX, and one I initially read about on M* and then subsequently read a bit more about when I searched for it here, which was KGGAX.
    Here are the 16 I currently own. Since I hate when M* writes about funds only to find out they're closed, I've put a star next to those.
    Large cap: PTSGX*, OAKWX, IWIRX, MAPIX, HEDJ, DXJ, PRHSX*
    Mid cap: POAGX*, PRNHX*, KGGAX, MEASX, WAFMX*
    Small cap: FSCRX*, OBIOX, GPIOX*, GPEOX*
    HEDJ and DXJ are really just currency/QE bets on Europe and Japan for me and weren't chosen from my list, but when I'm done with those bets the money will go back into funds I already own or something new from my list (more likely the former than the latter).
    I have one spot open currently because until recently I owned WAAEX and had decided I would replace it with Grandeur Peak's US small cap fund when/if it eventually launches but I decided I'd rather hold cash in the meantime.
  • IWIRX: Disappointment
    @MFO Members: Short term IWIRX has had it's troubles, but longer-term 3, 5, and 10 years, the fund has been in the 2, 2, and 1 percentile over those periods of time. I recommend holding this fund. U.S. News & World Report ranks it #3 in the (WS) Fund Category.
    Regards,
    Ted
    http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/world-stock/guinness-atkinson-global-innovators-fund/iwirx
  • IWIRX: Disappointment
    JoJo, I believe many of them were analysts and research staff. Wasatch was always very team focused, gathering some of the best ideas from the group; part of which left for Grandeur. The managers are now the founder and his son. I am sure WAGTX will continue to do well with such a large staff of analysts who are still there, but decided to go to IWIRX for its outstanding long term record, and research methodology.
  • IWIRX: Disappointment
    I hold it too, I am going to give it time, considering its record prior to this year. I was in WAGTX and it had become inconsistent, primarily on the fact that so many managing the fund had abandoned ship in 2012 to go over to Grandeur Park and I felt its best days were behind them. That is when I switched to IWIRX. One bad year does not make me run, especially since the year isn't over yet, as any fan of Yogi knows :)
    Not sure if the above was actually true? Obviously they would've researched some of the companies in the World Innovators portfolio, but none of the GP guys were actually PMs on the strategy... I don't think?