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.
Since Brazil is the big kahuna (and Mexico a smaller one) for Latin America, the only way to really separate a fund from the pack is to avoid holding Vale, PetroBras, and America Movil, or at least hold them in smaller percentages. And then hope yo…
The best information we have found on individual preferred stocks is at quantumonline.com. But I would be very careful about picking individual preferred stocks. Remember that, just a few years ago, a lot of folks owned shares of preferred stocks …
We use ODMAX (available at NAV in some places) as our main diversified EM fund. I am not willing to entrust dollars to an index, since most of them have very little in some of the fastest-growing and most important economies. And I do believe that…
Scott, I agree with much of what you say. Hussman will undoubtedly be right from time to time, but he seems to be almost a one-trick pony that is unable (or unwilling) to adapt to different situations. Anyone who has held his fund for ver long can…
While the costs are less (but not a lot less) than actively-managed funds, we will continue to use active managers like Hasenstab, Finkelstein, and Carlson, at least for now. Their experience negotiating the vast world of em bonds, and Hasenstab's…
Hi Investor, MFLDX has provided tremendous downside protection. It's 3-yr numbers show a beta of about 66, and an alpha of 5.01 vs. the S&P 500. It's STD is 25% lower than the S&P 500, and its Sortino ratio is also much better. Just out o…
The use of closed-end Central Fund of Canada, ticker CEF, that owns gold and silver bullion, is a way around this for taxable accounts. Capital gains get treated as capital gains, not income. Using GLD and other ETFs in retirement accounts avoids …
This is actually pretty funny, since investors have been pulling money out of stock funds for the last four years. But then these folks have to write something. John Hussman is probably smiling, since this is the first time in ages his HSGFX has l…
Marketfield MFLDX is a good option. The fact that it has been short emerging markets does not bother me at all. I have plenty of EM exposure in the rest of my portfolio, so their call is a good counter-weight. In a less choppy market, Forward Tac…
The article quotes Warren Koontz, one of their equity managers, who suggests that dividend-paying stocks are a better option than bonds. Neither Fuss nor Rolley have soured on bonds. That is, after all, their bread-and-butter. They both have size…
There was a very good op-ed in the WSJ Tuesday by Pascal Bruckner, titled "The Ideology of a Catastrophe". Whether it's debt, global warming, Euro politics, planet-wide destruction, you name it, our world has become attuned to the outliers who pred…
Hi Cathy, glad to hear you are back! Let me put in my two cents' worth. Raymond James is generally a highly-regarded company. No major scandals that I know of, and certainly nothing like the big wirehouses in terms of self-serving philosophies. …
I'm frankly surprised some company was interested, except for the large base on which to charge fees. (Oh, gee, that must be it.) So much for great shareholder services.
Reply to @WxByHart: Unless I am missing something in what you said, your agent is not only wrong about the annuity benefits, but he is giving you totally wrong advice about the Roth rollover. You CANNOT take money from your Roth 401k and move it to…
The assumed lapse rate is what insurance companies use to determine the details of their products. Trust me on this...they are seldom wrong in these assumptions. For life insurance and annuities their lapse assumptions are probably spot on. But w…
It is certainly herding time for lemmings. And some people don't think PIMCO and DoubleLine push their "stars" in front of cameras for marketing purposes? I have an idea...let's put Gross and Gundlach in a small, locked room, then guess whether Gr…
Unless the fund wants to disclose these trades on a more frequent basis, and very few do this, there is no good source. There have been a few web sites that purport to offer this information, but they have pretty much been repeating what the funds …
One of the reason so few annuity holders annuitize their contracts is that a lot of them cash in and take their money (or what the insurance company will give them). That's how the companies are able to offer such tantalizing "guarantees". They kn…
I agree with the "buckets, schmukets" thought. Why make things so complicated? We use a very simple approach. Any dollars you might need from your portfolio over the next 3-5 years should be in cash, CDs or short-term bonds. In good years, we ca…
David's comment "look carefully before you leap" should be applied to almost ALL funds. Every manager/management team has periods of under-performance, assuming they do not have authority in the fund prospectus to become chameleons. Investors need…
We have sold all of our TIP holdings, which is where almost all of our inflation bond dollars were. We have a few dollars at PIMCO and Vanguard in their funds and will sell them this week, too. With yields already at negative levels or close to ne…
I am of the camp that believes active management is a better option than indexing when it comes to the huge inefficiencies in frontier markets, just as domestic small cap tends to be much less efficient than large cap. Wasatch has a great pedigree …
TCW, Payden, MFS, Eaton Vance, Dreyfus, and Artio all have local currency bond funds. Dreyfus has the longest history with DDBIX. Artio AEFAX, Payden PYELX, and MFS EMLIX are less than a year old. TCW TGWIX and Eaton Vance EEIIX are less than thr…
Reply to @WxByHart: Almost all variable annuities carry deferred sales charge time periods. These help the insurance company to pay the initial commission payment and annual trail commissions to the salesperson. Trust me that your annuity is not a…
I would NEVER recommend rolling this to a deferred variable annuity. On the other hand, if you love your insurance agent a lot, understand that he will get a fat paycheck from your action. I have been in the advisory business since 1984, so I have…
My suggestion is that you hire a manager who has real experience in this area. We use Templeton TGBAX as a core holding in client accounts and compliment it with Goldman Sachs GIMDX or GSDIX. There may be someone who does a better overall job than…
American Funds family is struggling. Some of their funds are hemmoraging assets in the billions. While they may shrug this off publicly, you can bet they are very concerned. The fact is they built their shop around multiple-advisor run funds, whi…
I am unaware of any other (newer) information. As far as I know, things are status quo at Artio. We continue to use Total Return Bond JBGIX and U.S. Smallcap JSCIX in client portfolios and our research remains positive on the funds' management tea…
If any folks here own TIP, you should look at your recent monthly dividend, or lack thereof. The ETF has not paid a monthly dividend this year and, in fact, has a negative yield. This could very likely continue if recent yield and pricing trends r…
Vanguard is too little and too late to this party. About 20 years ago, they made a half-baked attempt to work with the RIA community, but they were unable or unwilling to accomodate the kinds of things fee-only advisors expect from custodians. The…
On the one hand you have Mauldin and Hussman, perrenial bears who suggest the world financial system is on the verge of collapse. On the other, you have some well-known pundits who are saying the sky is truly the limit for stocks in the months ahea…
For me, the fatal flaw, and I do mean FATAL, is the use of the S&P 500 as a comparison. That provides no meaningful insight to me, except for those few holdings that are pegged to that index. To charge $150 for this problematic issue is very e…
My suggestion to all those who are in a quandry is to do nothing. Yeppers, absolutely nothing right now. We've been anticipating a 5% dip for a while, after all...it cannot go up forever. But so what if it's 10%, folks? If you have been invested…
Truly a bizarre list. Appleseed APPLX the best international value fund? Last time I looked it owned about 50% in US and 20% in gold. And most of their selections are front-end loaded, unless you access them through someone like Schwab. Even mo…
Reply to @fundalarm: You may be right, but it has been interesting to see how weak the BarCap Agg index has been relative to all of the actively managed funds we use. Not sure if this will continue, but also interesting to note that the "non-tradit…
For me this was a big yawn. Nothing new if one has been reading his commentary the last few months. Quick translation - keep durations low, keep average maturities relatively low, avoid risk where it is obvious (i.e., if it sounds too good to be t…
Reply to @scott: I agree, Scott. Canada, Australia, Indonesia, and even Brazil have a number of companies that could see big benefits from China-related business. For most investors, individual companies may be less practical than a fund, but the …
