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.
As Art noted above, PIMCO Total REturn has had a near lock on 401k plans for more than a decade. My guess is that is where they have seen most of this loss. Stable value makes a lot more sense right now than a bond fund like PIMCO, especially for …
Well, gee...all the lemmings that rushed into Mr. Poobah's fund over the last two years because it was getting 8-9% 'with no risk' are suddenly realizing that...DUH!...a bond fund can actually loose a bit of value.These are the same folks who had mo…
There is no RIGHT answer. A lot of factors can come into play. Need for tax deduction, age, etc. Most 401k plans offer Roth options. If there are decent investment choices, that might be a good start for someone who does is considering an after-…
Folks, read David's EM commentary again, and again. This is so important. Herd mentality is screaming run, run from EM. But the numbers are screaming buy, buy. Is now the 'right' time to buy more (or any) EM? Only time will tell. But the chart…
There are so many really good international fund managers. This one is not only a dog (100th percentile for last 5 years), but you may recall the fund company itself was caught in the mutual fund scandal (fund managers trading on the side) of a few…
I used tho think PIMCO was bad when it cam to creating 'poobah' managers who know all and see all in Bill Gross and Mohammed El-Erian. But Gundlach makes these guys look like little tykes. No matter what is happening or might happen, he has THE an…
When even consider something like this, unless you have a lot of money to tie up for a long period of time. Other than that, these illiquid, opaque, expensive things are great.
Marketfield has also said that we might be nearing the bottom of the EM trough. While I would not rely on them to make 'the call', they have jumped into some very battered sectors at very early times. They moved aggressively into housing long befo…
Hi, Bitzer. I was not aware this discussion was a fund vs etf thread. I thought it was about ducrow's ditching PAUDX. My comments were simply meant to stress the importance of due diligence when picking mutual funds. In this case, owners of PAUD…
The target 5% drawdon maximum is one of the two or three most important points. Think about this now...they want to lose a maximum of 5% in any calendar year (I suppose it could also be in any rolling 12-month period). Given where bonds are positi…
Certainly PIMCO would never project El-Erian and Gross as stars, to get press coverage, would they? How funny is that! The company has made a very big point of 'establishing' these two as gurus. They are smart, that is for sure. But they are not…
So are these people going to need any dollars from their investments? Their pension income will cover the cash flow needs for now, but for how long? Regularly, once in a while? What is the percentage of withdrawal needed on a regular basis in the …
I know I have been accused by some colleagues as too quick to pull the trigger on a manager, but some of this discussion is mind numbing. The way we look at it, alternative/flexible mandate/go anywhere funds will sometimes differ greatly from what …
Whether I personally agree with MFLDX managers' outlook, I think having this fund in your mix is likely a very smart option. Tremendous risk/reward profile. As an alternative strategy fund, I am very glad to own something that often takes position…
I have always been heavy in EM stocks in my own portfolio, and given this year's bashing of that asset class, I plan to add some more probably next week. For sure will add to WAFMX. Have been running due diligence on EIEMX, which has one of the be…
I am not saying anyone should buy Indonesian stocks now, but at some point some brave souls will step in, load up, and reap some big-time rewards. It takes a lot of guts to buy stock in a true EM country when all heck appears to be going on.
I am familiar with fundmojo. Unfortunately, the comparisons are more than occasionally incorrect. For example, they put OSTFX in a midcap blend category. Anyone who has read any of the fund's literature, listened to any of the fund's manager call…
I agree with David on this. Swapping WAEMX for GPROX is really apples to kiwi, not much similarity at all. Frankly, if you want REAL em exposure, you might look at WAFMX. Laura Geritz' newish fund owns the real small cap em companies. Yes, more …
I for one have never heard of Mr. Ritholtz, but then I don't get out much, either. If invetors are truly into re-balancing, it is logical they would be buying emerging market stocks and bonds now. Darned hard to do, I know. Buy low, sell high. C…
There are a lot of great active managers who have soundly beaten the EAFE and EM indexes. If you want good opportunities to out-perform indexes, foreign stocks and bonds are good places to start. This has been our experience. Like any actively-ma…
Sorry it took me so long to respond. Maybe some day when I retire I can be more timely.
I am really glad this topic has become a discussion item. While I do think index funds have their place, I also firmly believe there are more than a few reall…
I fail to understand why Janus has ANY investors, given their past misdeeds and attempts to obfuscate them, not to mention the history of managers coming and leaving. As the old quote goes..."There is no there, there."
Reply to @lord_nelson: For me, global allocation means a lot of slack for the managers to decide whether to use stocks or bonds, domestic or foreign, cash, gold, etc. MFS and American from the list are certainly NOT that kind of operation. On the …
Most of us have seen a lot of days like this, and no doubt we will see more of them. To me, not a big deal and really long overdue. In the grand sceme of things, this will not even register on a 10-year chart of the market's history. Yes, we coul…
Usually the unloved sectors are the ones that benefit from days like yesterday, and there was no exception this time. Gold miners, commodities, bullion were the big gainers. Bonds in general gained or were flat or down a teeny bit, with the except…
There are a number of good managers/teams in this group of funds.
These funds are true global allocation, in that they allow management a lot of flexibility in what and how they invest:
TIBIX
IVAEX
PAUIX
MALOX
FPACX
These funds are less flexible,…
This was only hinted at and not really mentioned at all, and it's something we tell our clients all the time: "We are NOT buying FUNDS. We are HIRING MANAGERS!" I think most fund investors really know very little about who is running their funds. …
OAKIX should have been on the list. It's been sort of a contrarian fund for a very long time. And the very concentrated portfolio of only about 65 stocks adds to the attraction. Another one is QFVIX.
As I have said before, what most of us consider EM countries are really mostly in transition from emerging to developed. China is clearly past the emerging economic stage and is now much more internal/consumer driven, much less dependent on cheap w…
Alternative funds can include a whole range of things. We use equity long-short, bond long-short, precious metals, absolute return, and dynamic allocation. We could also include commodities, managed futures, and arbitrage. MFLDX, LAYSX, CEF, EIGM…
The way I see it, there is NO magic number. As several people have pointed out, there are so many variables to consider (ages, company retirement accounts, size of accounts, knowledge, time to spend reviewing, etc) that pontificating on this is not…
FWIW, I also got the survey request. I went through the entire questionnaire, but it became obvious that the questions were targeted to advisors like me. It revealed to me that M* is attempting to find out if ADVISORS actually use Morningstar.com,…
The last 4 years have been dubbed 'the most unloved bull market in history'. There is still a lot of run left in this old bull, partly because so many people have sat on the sidelines the last four years, either permanently scared of another 2007-0…
A cautionary word about discounts on CEFs in the current interest rate environment. These discounts can disappear pretty quickly, since they are reflective of bond prices. These are probably not buy-and-hold investments given what could be a perio…
Reply to @3yards: We actually thought they would do pretty much what they have done. Our due diligence indicated there was potential risk in an interest-rate event like what happened in May. Too much dependency on fixed-income and not enough downs…
PRHSX is our mutual fund of choice, and ISTIX is also worth a look (although it has a hefty chunk of tech stocks, too). We would also suggest looking at IBB and IYH.
Actually the government numbers are pretty accurate, as far as they go. Years ago, they decided to remove the more volatile food and energy prices from the official CPI calculation. As Maurice and Old Joe both say, REAL inflation numbers are clea…
It's hard for a new, independent fund to raise assets. Kudos to Bretton for not going the NTF route, which adds at least 35 bps in annual expenses. Osterweis started out much the same way, and they have done very well by providing shareholders dec…
Thanks for making this data available. Any quibbles I might have I will send to you directly, David. These data feeds LOOK visually stunning, and this helps as I sort/screen/parse the information. I know a lot of time goes into this.
We decided to pass on this a long time back because it was essentially betting heavily on bonds. It has not been terrible by any means. It has, however, pretty much done what we thought it would. How it performs after its 'adjustment' is another …
