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.
@Old_Joe: "I was under the impression that Brazil was trying to develop deep-sea oil reserves for potential export as well as internal use, but I don't believe that project is going so well either." Spot on!
@Old_Joe You seem quite well informed! The one thing that's off, and I wonder if there's an article in there for me somewhere because it's a very common mistake that I see, is Brazil is not and has never been an oil exporter. It barely reached self-…
Looking at their charts M*, they had a great 2 year spurt of outperformance coming out of the 2008 crisis and have underperformed ever since.
The fund looks to me like a classic case of mean reversion plus steep fees.
Put in a buy order to add to my current, small-ish stake in SFGIX. I've told myself I was waiting for a dip to add, and here it is... I'm putting in half of the cash I raised last week (great timing through sheer luck) by selling my stake in MPACX.
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"Many of the prices today at/near the lows were illusions and because of bid/ask spreads etc were only available if you were investing in a make believe account. "
I had limit orders in at Schwab since last week for prices slightly above the day's …
It's definitely worse than in 2001-2002, when everyone was afraid Lula would be another Chavez. That was clearly nonsense and so a good time to buy.
I can see a scenario in which the country turns things around in about a year: an electoral court d…
I think what @VintageFreak is saying is that based on these charts, momentum investing looks like a better idea than value investing in equities as well as in bonds, where @junkster has a more refined and very successful momentum model.
But temper…
Thanks @davfor, very interesting. There's a Ned Davis piece too (I accessed it through my Schwab account) on how the average commodities bear market lasts 20 years. This current one is 4.5 years old, ND says. On the other hand, they say the average …
I found his shareholder's letters convincing: http://www.riverparkfunds.com/Funds/ShortTermHighYield/Commentary.aspx and http://www.riverparkfunds.com/Funds/StrategicIncome/Commentary.aspx.
They're both performing as advertised: RPHYX has been qui…
Yesterday sold MPACX from my account and MAPIX from my mother's. Great funds, but I want to raise a little cash and I don't think either of us need an Asia focused fund when we already have broad based foreign ones.
Today I'm feeling smart that I …
@varmint: That would be my strategy. Remember these things can turn around in a hurry, usually when no one expects it. Of course, if you hold in a taxable account, you could take the tax loss and swap into a similar fund...
Last few weeks I started dipping my toe in, buying some commodities & energy stocks (BBL, TDW, ESV) that I think can survive and make acquisitions during a downturn, then prosper whenever the cycle turns. I've also bought a little ORIG with play…
@MJG This hit home for me: "Choose a fund manager who has a storied personal success history who also has a focused fund holding approach. Not all managers are equal, and time will isolate skill from luck. All investment ideas are not equally promi…
@little5bee: "That is an interesting idea, but how can you easily find them?"
This site, and in particular David's profile of new funds, has been my main source of ideas.
All these factors are great, I'll add one more, which may be controversial, I'd love to hear opinions:
A new fund from a management team with a great track record, especially if it's in the space where that team made its mark. Recent successful, ex…
If you look back at David's profile, RSIVX aims for a 5 year investing period, during which it will aim to provide high income and at the end of the period at least break even on principle. So it accepts somewhat higher volatility. RPHYX is meant t…
I swapped DVN (a relatively long-term holding, I had a small profit) into TDW. This worked well for me in 2008-9 with the housing and financial sectors, I swapped from lower into higher beta names to increase my potential upside when the rebound cam…
OJ: As MJG wrote, "The Monte Carlo simulations do not say it can not be done; in fact, they say it can be done. But the odds are long". Looks like you're doing it, so congrats!
I think the Cinnamond ARIVX story offers two lessons: one is that a lot of seemingly great actively managed funds, especially if led by a star manager, can mean revert in a hurry; another is that it is really, really hard to time both the overall ma…
I got this email response, when I asked if I needed to transfer from current holdings from my broker to be counted as a current investor:
"Thank you for contacting the Grandeur Peak Funds. You do not need to transfer your funds. You can open an acc…
I'll send an email to ask if I need to transfer my current holdings to them for them to know I'm a current shareholder. Will report back if I get a response.
They're only going to offer Global Micro Cap to existing investors and only for direct purchases. I wonder how they will know, since I have GPIOX in my brokerage account, that I am an existing investor? Maybe David Snowball could shoot them an email…
And getting back to the thread, I'm thinking of adding to BBL and buying TDW.
I think BBL and TDW will both survive until the next uptick in iron ore and petroleum, and I also think their generous dividends are safe, so I'll get paid to wait.
But …
@Bee, @Scott. Berkowitz certainly has skin in the game, all his gigantic net worth is in the funds, so I don't think it's Berkowitz's conflict of interests that's the problem here. (Lampert is another story, but is it possible that he could make gia…
My bond fund is SUBFX, up 0.89% for the year, but since it fell 4.07% last year, and it was positioned for rising rates (negative effective duration), I really expected better.
I'm holding for now, since I think they're just early (they started buy…
I'm a big fan of Krugman, and like him I'm disappointed that Tsipras was bluffing and did not in fact plan at all for a Grexit, which probably would have been for the best for all the parties concerned.
But I actually read through the Eurogroup lis…
Hi Bee,
I agree with you and am thinking of adding to BBL, but I just want to point out an error in that report you quoted: Brazil is actually a small oil importer. Petrobras is a mess and could use higher oil prices, and they would help the ethanol…
Any one have thoughts on Veolia, VEOEF, in the water space? @Scott?
I'll bet there are some good Israeli companies too:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/world/middleeast/water-revolution-in-israel-overcomes-any-threat-of-drought.html
If Israel, w…
They've both got so many shares I wouldn't put too much weight into a few hundred thousand. Maybe Bruce was selling to meet redemptions in his funds, since a lot of fundholders are selling, and then he bought back a bit more when prices dropped agai…
What I'm trying to figure out is, if everyone and his brother can see that Sears is close to worthless, and if Lampert and Berkowitz are by any account smart guys with a history of investment success, why don't they see it? Or maybe they do see the …
@Charles I thought of pinging you on this, I know that you too are a long suffering FAAFX shareholder.
@Scott, thanks for explaining what happened to the share price today, that made sense. So presumably in very soon FAAFX and FAIRX should tick up …
My main bond fund, SUBFX, is down about 0.5%. I'm very disappointed, because I had thought this fund (based on management letters) was short treasuries and positioned to rise in this scenario.
Maybe they closed that bet at precisely the wrong time…
