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In fact, it is a 5-star fund now. If you dig a bit deeper and go to Ratings, you find that it has 3 stars for the 3 year performance, but 5 stars for 5, 10 years and 5 stars overall. And it has M* Gold rating.
Interestingly, its 3 year pre-tax retu…
I absolutely agree that information is power, for those who knows how to use it. My only warning is that the way to use this information which is offered by its provider can be very risky. Those who knows how to deal with these risks can win in this…
Ron Rowland is a source of very interesting information. Potentially, it could be very useful. If so, the best person to use it would be Ron Rowland.
He proposed several strategies. I subscribed to his newsletter many years ago. The only strategy …
You may take a look at Sextant International, SSIFX, it is very tax efficient and it was doing well in the past (though not recently). This is not a recommendation, just an information. To learn about the manager, you may also compare SSIFX with oth…
Thanks a lot for this comparison. I guess taxes will only grow in the future, and M* does not account for state taxes, which are very high where I live. It would be great to get ~10% after tax, investing in such a steady fund as MACSX, but perhaps k…
If I understand Andrew correctly, unless the fund is going to double in size each year, its tax efficiency (or inefficiency) should eventually reach the same level as in MAPIX. Long term, it will be good but not great for taxable accounts from the t…
Last time, a year after Wasatch launched their successful emerging markets small cap fund WAEMX, they launched MSMLX. At first, these two funds were marching in a lockstep, but then MSMLX slowed down, perhaps because of its China concentration. In t…
Reply to @David_Snowball:
Dear David,
Thanks a lot again for the wonderful experience which you arranged; we are learning a lot! As for EM, since I am brave/stupid enough to invest in WAFMX, which is growing fast but scares many people, I do agre…
I know, different people have different perspective - and I have lots of EM and even frontier markets in my own portfolio. The question that we asked was about RELATIVE valuations of EM, and he essentially replied that those who say that EM are over…
Fantastic! Thanks a lot, David, for making this possible.
It is interesting that the points of view of various managers on EM can vary so much. One of the best international value funds, OAKIX (Herro), has only 0.24% in EM. OAKEX has 0% in EM. Ano…
Dear Skeeter,
Thanks, a great ten years figure! But to be fair, the graph of SPECX since inception in 1969 shows a less optimistic picture.
Until 2001, it was managed by David Alger and then by several other managers. During the first 5 years sinc…
There is one attractive feature of MFLDX which is not often mentioned: This fund is very tax-efficient. According to M*, the tax cost ratio for the last 5 years is just 0.05, which is amazingly good. I do not know how they are doing it, but it is a …
Reply to @Mark: Well, to be honest, here we have a problem. From time to time I consider investing in FCNTX or its clone FNIAX. But during the last 3 years FCNTX does not beat VFINX, and in fact during the last year VFINX beats FCNTX. Thus one may …
Dear MJG,
Since this a recurrent topic, I return to my question which remained unanswered last time we discussed it. I would be happy to get an answer since this issue is of very practical importance for me now, and I am sure it is equally importan…
It is closed to new investors, so if you did not invest in it before, you cannot invest in it now:
http://www.investments.prudential.com/view/upload?docURL=/WDocs/28A430841FBD8C4285257914004CD60D/$File/MF188D5_MFHealthSc_CL_FactSheet.pdf
I linked it earlier in a discussion of http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discussions-3/#/discussion/5474/a-twisted-debate-active-vs-passive-is-largely-a-smokescreen
New GMO 7-Year Asset Class Return Forecasts as of January 31, 2013:
US small cap stocks expected yearly real return - 1.7%, much worse than bonds, with much greater risk. Other equities: US high quality + 4.2%, International large + 3.1%, Internati…
If a part of yield is due to bonds, then the yield is taxed at a much higher rate than the long-term capital gains when you liquidate some shares. So liquidating seems to be much better that just collecting yield.
A more detailed discussion can be found here:
http://www.morningstar.com/advisor/t/70867036/yes-there-are-good-active-funds.htm
Interestingly, none of them take taxes into consideration. I guess this could be very unpleasant for the proponents of …
Dear Kaspa,
There is one additional consideration which may be important. Each month GMO publishes its projections of the future real returns of different asset classes for the next 7 years. Not surprisingly, the latest issue is negative on bonds, …
I wonder how he would compare SIGIX and MAPIX in terms of tax efficiency? For example, MAPIX is a wonderful fund, but it is not very tax efficient, so I prefer to invest in it in my IRA. Is SIGIX better suited for IRA or 401k (by construction as a g…
Well, they admit that they may be wrong, but their main point is to argue that the commonly accepted optimistic predictions have a much greater chance to be wrong. According to them, this should be taken into account by financial planners:
"As long…
See a detailed exposition at http://www.investmenteurope.net/digital_assets/6305/2013_yearbook_final_web.pdf
"To start with, the report examines the post-crisis investment landscape, highlighting historically low yields on sovereign bonds, with rea…
I believe that Fidelity allows you to sell shares as many times as you want, provided that you invested in RPHYX more than 2 months ago. So if you just keep 5% or 10% of your money in RPHYX at all times, as some people may do, you can use these mone…
On the website of Scottrade they say that they charge $17 when you buy a transaction fee fund, AND they also charge you $17 when you sell it, see http://www.scottrade.com/online-brokerage/trading-fees-commissions.html#tab3 I just called them, and …
Dear MJG,
Thanks a lot for your kind response and recommendations. I already made my own decision in this respect. This matter is interesting for me now mostly from a theoretical point of view:
If one accepts passive strategy fully, one should app…
Dear MJG,
Thanks a lot for taking your time to explain your perspective. Your arguments are indeed very convincing, and the latest argument, "do not do it at home", is an extra push which will, eventually, help me to come to peace with the inevitab…
I wonder whether this fund is going to be as tax efficient as Wasatch Long/Short Investor FMLSX or MFLDX. Also, during the same time FMLSX did even better, rising by almost 7%, i.e. 2% more than ARLSX. Time will tell...
Reply to @Charles:
Thanks a lot for your reply. Fantastic work with Mutual Funds That Beat The Market:)
I have the main part of my holdings in active but a significant fraction in passive. It is easier to be emotionally detached from passive. Pro…
Dear Flack,
I believe that statistical analysis is extremely helpful. The problem is that one may get different results by averaging differently. That is why there are many indexes for the same stock market: capital weighted, equal weighted, fundam…
I believe that OAKBX uses short term treasuries as cash replacement. In this sense, it does not differ much from some other prominent funds which presently have lots of money in cash, waiting for bargains. For example, FPACX has 35% in cash, ARIVX h…
Dear MJG and other participants of this discussion,
I do understand your general arguments, I followed previous versions of this discussion, which were extremely informative and, in general, very convincing. Nevertheless, I feel that my main questi…