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.
@David_Snowball Although still opaque (no surprise there), it is becoming more likely that your earlier hunch about changes afoot at Artisan re. EM was spot-on. The picture being painted behind the canvas cover may become more elaborate. Good luck a…
Given what has happened, it appears more and more that the deep analytical benchwork that Franklin Templeton provides to its PMs does make a significant difference to performance by its better managers over time. Time and again, when they go off on …
@FundStudent You, too? OMG, Leslie Gore--- noooooooooo!!
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-lesley-gore-dies-20150216-story.html
It's getting strange, as if Gerry Goffin's final demise created a tear in the time-space thing …
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d31fe990-b2a4-11e4-b234-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl
EM debt picture (albeit, the hard currency kind) is not speaking favorably to the notion that now is a good time for hopping big into a Latin American theme. …
Hmmm. Once Salient assumes oversight of the Forward Funds, I wonder if investors remaining in these funds will receive, at some point, an offer to consider transferring their monies to one of the Forward liquid alt alternatives? [not exactly wild sp…
Awesome! Are we hitting escape velocity yet, on the stairway to Heaven?
OOOOOOH, you're too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off of you
You'd be like Heaven to touch
I want to hold you so much
And every day I survive
I just thank God you're alive…
From 50 (1982) to 6 (2012) --- what did you expect would happen?
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6#ixzz3Rag7weAt
And your local papers, no matter how tiny their circulation, are probably …
@JohnChisum My goodness, John, you started the day reading a board post containing "Christine Lagarde" and "prostitute" in the same sentence, leading to breakfast dyspepsia; and now your day closes with Old_Joe calling you an old fogey. You've had a…
Oh, I guess I did check out his new charge, at inception, and I now I remember why I didn't follow it: e.r=1.5% (not a deal-breaker), but FEL=5.75% (anathema to me). The early returns you are seeing now are @NAV, not @MOP.
Several years ago, when BoA moved their derivatives book into the regular depository accounts division (and the FDIC remained silent), William Black predicted something like this would happen, that it was inevitable.
The criminal banking syndicate-…
Thanks for raising the question. I'd completely forgotten that this is where Strabo was headed when he left AC; his fund there had some very good moments, while it was small. What's the ticker on the Rainier charge?
How they devalue their currencies matters a great deal. Will they do it by printing more money? Perhaps they have done nothing more here than to agree that what many of them have been doing for the past two years is A-O.K., and .... carry on?
After…
Don't think so. January is the worst month of the year for accuracy. And a 0.2% increase in labor participation rate is hardly a "surge," and wouldn't be too hard to achieve with holiday part-timers, given that circa 92M American adults are not work…
Yes, truly a vanishing breed, those First Principles kinda guys. I sometimes wonder if it would be a good idea to open a Living Investor Museum, so that young people could benefit from observing them in their natural habitat, and marvel at their res…
@David_Snowball The past several years have been so challenging/treacherous for EM managers. I don't expect their predicament to improve any time soon. It makes it difficult to assess the relative performance of any of the new offerings in this spac…
@Maurice @Old_Joe
I have been such a good little boy, all winter long, but yesterday at the store I had to admit the truth of it--- in several aisles, my resolve was weakening. Thank goodness I didn't read what you guys just wrote before my errand r…
well, unlike so many countless teensy biotech companies (about which there cannot be enough for-cryin'-out-loud done about their stock prices, post-IPO), at least the new burger and fries crowd has some revenue and some net profit to demonstrate... …
@David_Snowball Yes, curious....to the point of odd. After finishing the read yesterday, that was the first question to pop into my consciousness, before my mind even started to process the note's information. Sometimes, Artisan's choices for procee…
"Whereas the differential--or spread--dropped below 3.5 percentage points back in mid-2014, it was nearly two percentage points higher as of early February. That's because much of the issuance in the high-yield bond sector comes from energy firms, m…
about that currency exchange rate thing .......... depends on who's exchanging what for what (and maybe that can't be determined either?). It's black market bingo time.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/02/black-market-in-ukrainian-cur…
@TSP_Transfer : Ah, yes, the Dreyfus/Standish Global Fixed Income Fund. Sometimes it pays to be less than fastidious in cleaning up the old Ideas folder (and what a shameful mess mine is). I found a 2010 prospectus. Rhao, it is not (though he is an …
@TSP_Transfer This is off the top of my head. I'm pretty sure the manager who delivered that 2008-09 performance is gone and is no longer with Dreyfus. I can't recall his name (Rhao?); he was youngish yet seasoned, had a good deal of experience in g…
@Junkster "I don't know about you, but in the long run I am dead.
Hmmm, I know you are a by-the-numbers sorta guy, and the current data certainly lean in your favor; but if I were a gambling sorta guy, I'd give some serious thought to taking the oth…
@Tampabay Well, conceptually, one has to "twirk the definitions" a bit; but when you step back and take a look at the real returns of the 60/40 over a longer chunk of time, your wife isn't much off the mark re. her "lifetime annuity" perspective.
"Personally, I look at this ... and I don't know what is going on between the government and Facebook, and Google, and Twitter," said Mehdi Daoudi, CEO of Catchpoint Systems. "Why is that there?"
Indeed. Why?
In the interest of a better consumer experience .............. and, just like that, you'll have all sorts of new Friends--- "now, how cool is that?"
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/31490a20926d4ed3b98ff2d0ed8fc81d/new-privacy-concerns-over-governmen…
Hmmm, looking at the past decade's real returns, commodities appear to have been "somewhat of an outlier." :) (h/t to Joshua Brown for posting this figure, cranked out by Research Affiliates’ Chris Brightman, on The Reformed Broker blog site yest…
@hank I think everyone should find another horizon and dispense with the wishful thinking. Hope is not an investment strategy.
This lifted today from a WaPo story and posted to Barry Ritholtz's blogsite by commenter RW:
This is mind-blowing: You h…
Hmmm, this seems to be happening with increasing frequency @ TRP, or is it my imagination? TRP is a ship without loose lips, so we'll probably never know why, really.
@Ted Thanks. The half that I thought I had right I had entirely wrong. But at least my instincts are working, which tell me I should not invest in prfds until I'm confident I have advanced a bit beyond functional idiocy. Obviously, still have a ways…
