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.
What about PIMIX or PDI or the other funds run by Daniel Ivascyn? I've had my retired mother in PIMIX for a few years (she needs income but has no need for capital) and have often flirted with buying PDI on a dip, but I've never quite resolved to do…
I own a little in my Roth IRA. It's basically a bond fund plus a derivative to give you value-tilted stock market exposure, if I understand it right. If you think Bill Gross's bond fund can earn enough return to overcome the management fee, and if y…
He dees not run a mutual fund, but perhaps the best low turnover manager out there is Warren Buffett. I believe there are studies that show that investors who simply follow in his footsteps and buy what he does do well in the long term.
I put his h…
Charles,
Do your charts about the stock market drawdown during the Great Depression take into account dividends (which were pretty high back then) and deflation (which reduced the impact of the drawdown in real terms)? I believe that taking those t…
I'd suggest RSIVX. David's got a great write-up on it on this site. It's designed to kick off 6-8% a year in yield and made specifically with folks seeking an annuity-type yeild. I'm gradually shifting some of my retired mother's equity holdings int…
BB is not betting on the government's good will toward investors, but on the courts' interpreting the law in investors' favor. I'd need to be a lawyer to bet on that one, but I am, for better or worse, betting that BB got some top lawyers' opinions …
Junkster,
If you want to spend more time in the great outdoors, that's a great reason to spend less time on the net, but the rest of us the board will be poorer (often literally) for it. Try for once a week! There's a useful add-on call leechblock w…
Maybe M* has a grudge because they named BB manager of the decade right before he had a bad year. I'm guessing too that a lot of investors (myself included) bought Fairholme because of M*'s publicity and then (unlike me) got angry at brief underperf…
We all know that most active funds underperform the index, but I wonder, if you exclude all the sales load, high-expense funds sold by brokers, and if you avoid funds with above-average expenses, and if you avoid all the sector funds created to foll…
Wise words, MJG. I've found some of my best active-fund decisions have come when I've bought a fund with a great 10 year record but a lousy 3 year one which is causing it to lose assets, despite unchanged management. That way I am not betting agains…
Charles, many thanks for these graphs. It reinforces my conclusion that I don't need HUSIX with the other two. I am just waiting for April so I can take LT cap gains instead of ST. I just hope the market doesn't crash before then.
I don't know if I…
Thanks David, I've decided to keep those two and sell HUSIX. The similarity between CIPSX and GABSX is pretty amazing, with CIPSX a little better in bear markets.
Many thanks, all, for your thoughts and suggestions. Dryflower -- you were right, except I did not even wait till the next day to check back! My tentative plan is to wait a few weeks until I can make the cap gains long term, then sell HUSIX, hold th…
Reply to @mrdarcey: A very logical argument, Mr. Darcey. Thanks for sharing. FWIW, I have ARTKX for large cap international exposure and GPIOX for small cap international.
Reply to @MarkM: ICMYX lost 12.5% in 2008. It made it back and more the next year, and maybe David is right and 2008 was a once in a lifetime event (let us hope!) but I personally want my cash substitutes to be near bulletproof, or they belong in a …
I am with STB65 on this. Though this seems the best of the long/short bunch, I just don't see the appeal of long/short funds for anyone who has a long-term horizon. And for those with a short-term horizon, the whole point is to hold up well in disas…
Looking at M*, SUBFX doesn't seem to have much of a short position, though admittedly the portfolio there is from September 30. The fund looks like it's mostly short-term high yield and cash. Mike, how do you know that it's heavily short treasuries?…
I live in Brazil, and my two cents' worth is that equities here are cheap but blood is not yet running in the streets. It's not a bad time to buy from a long-term perspective but my bet is it will get cheaper.
But of course if I knew these things f…
M* mentions THDAX today, an EM fund which seems pretty comparable to SFGIX but has outformed since SFGIX's inception and has a 3 year track record that earns it 5 stars. Any thoughts? Obviously SFGIX at not quite two years old is too young to judge …
Appleseed's had over a sixth of their portfolio in gold this past year. Everyone makes mistakes of course, but I think it is real hard to get this kind of political/macro call right. I prefer funds that do bottom-up stockpicking.
Anyone, this is ju…
According to M*, it is beating its category (EM diversified) by 5.84% over the past year. A year isn't much, but that's pretty damned successful in my book. Now, emerging markets have had a bad year, and they might have a few more bad years, but thi…
Reply to @ron: Good point. You made me go back over my fund list to look for overlaps and likely funds to sell if the market keeps rising. I guess the question for me is that although it clearly does not make sense to hold, say, two small value fund…
What an interesting thread. Thanks Mike for starting it. Because of this site I've bought over the last 2 years SUBFX, RPHYX, RSIVX, RNCOX, GPIOX, HUSIX, MAINX, ARIVX and SFGIX -- half my fund portfolio. (My other, older positions, mostly due to M*,…
Reply to @David_Snowball: Investing in ARIVX is a bet that Cinnamond has "exquisite timing ability and the nerve to rush back into what will appear to be a hail of falling knives." As Kevindow notes below, he didn't in Q3 2011. He did, it is true, d…
I'd prefer PIMIX (better 3 year returns, lower volatility and far lower expenses) though my money is in SUBFX (whose returns are pretty remarkable if you consider it's nearly 50% cash) and RSIVX.
What made me sell ARIVX in April was reading his management reports. He seemed to be making a macro call -- that the economic recovery was a debt-fueled mirage -- that struck me as very wrong. Had he just said he could not find inexpensive stocks I …
Its 2008 performance was dismal but everyone's was. It was 6 p.p. worse than the index in 2008 then 28 p.p. better the year after. So the performance still looks very good to me if you're investing for at least five years. In fact it looks like it d…
Reply to @Old_Skeet: Yes, Skeet, please tell us more about the moose. I just glanced at the site and it looked surprisingly interesting. Have you been following their signals for a while?
Interesting the fund manager who switched from ARTKX to ARTGX. I considered that briefly -- a smaller asset base and more flexibility seem like good ideas -- but I'd have to take a big tax it, and I don't like the higher expense ratio. I wonder why …
