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.
The change was effective August 31. It might well take days to weeks for it to cycle through Schwab's system. A number of small companies have banged their heads repeatedly, waiting for outside systems to recognize things they've done (e.g., reduc…
Reply to @Art: Hi, again. The Boston Partners' fund is very fine but a bit out of our normal coverage universe (small and/or new - it's over a half billion and has been around 11 years). I'm not familiar with Commerce Value, though I admit that it…
Reply to @Art: Hi, Art.
In 2008, the fund was a limited private partnership (i.e., under 100 investors) run by a different partner at the firm. He was the founding manager (1993) and, I had the sense, one in the latter stages of his career. As T…
Reply to @claimui: I know it's an odd attraction, but the fact that Mr. Wyndra must convince four senior partners to buy a security for their own clients (uhhh ... rich people which whom they've had long relationships) before he can buy it is really…
Reply to @VintageFreak: Cool. Thanks! I'm always interested in learning more about how folks are thinking through the choices between good options. The September issue will be live this evening and in it I talk a little bit about my own (profoundl…
It likely depends on your time horizon. If you're thinking of this as something that you'll be holding or building over the next 10-15 years (à la David), it doesn't earthly matter whether you buy now or in three months, at this level or 7% up or d…
Reply to @equalizer: They do not appear to hedge. There's a section of the prospectus on currency risk and a discussion of the risk of not hedging. There's no explicit reference to a policy on the matter, so I assume it will be unhedged. There's …
Dundee is also divesting itself of four other funds. Of nearly 100 new launches this month, probably 10 were old funds that had to file as new legal entities as a result of being sold.
Hmmm ...
David
Reply to @hank: Uhhh ... no.
PRMSX made 85% in 2009 after losing 61% in 2008. The nature of asymmetrical returns is such that (down 61) plus (up 85) equals (down 27). That is, a $10,000 investment made at the start of 2008 and sold at the end of …
Hi, guys.
I did hear back from the folks at F P A. Their explanation pretty much affirmed my guess. They write, "We needed to align all of our materials and compliance insisted that if we kept using the phrase 'the fund seeks to generate equity-l…
Hi, guys.
Spoke with the Grandeur Peak folks. Two factors are driving the delay. First, the managers want to be able to invest directly in Indian equities which requires registration with that country's equity regulators. They couldn't begin the…
You're good!
They have a conference call upcoming to discuss the decision. I'll share the link in our September issue.
Because careful of glancing at the Morningstar returns for standard reporting periods. The fund has outperformed its peers in …
Reply to @MarkM: Hi, Mark.
Sorry that my earlier reply came across as rushed and dismissive. Let me try again.
There are two issues. First, the actual change in the fund's objective. I'll check in with Ryan @ F P A about it. Such changes have …
From: "FPA Crescent Fund (FPACX) seeks to provide a total return consistent with reasonable investment risk, through a combination of income and capital appreciation. "
To: "FPA Crescent Fund (FPACX) seeks to generate equity-like returns over the …
Reply to @msf: Not sure, but that might have been my point. If you're taking such poor care of your money that you're buying loaded funds without receiving good financial direction in return, there's evidence of a pretty serious problem in your thin…
Reply to @Old_Joe: If you knowingly pay for a service you have not received, you have chosen poorly. See Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Last Crusade for the consequences of choosing poorly. David
Reply to @Ted: Yes and no. Mutual funds are justified either on investment grounds or business grounds. "Investment grounds" define funds that have a reason to exist, they do something useful, they do it exceptionally well and the thing they do is…
Reply to @msf: A sales load is a form of payment for a service that you've received. The payment is not for investment management (that's covered by the fund's expense ratio); the payment is for financial planning advice. If the advice you've rece…
Here's the lede and quick highlights:
"Retail investors have led the summer stampede out of emerging-market stocks, bonds and currencies, pulling almost twice as much money as institutional investors such as insurance companies and pension funds. .…
Reply to @slick: The biggest problem in dissolving the Deadman funds was achieving a quorum. So many of the shareholders had died before the funds did, that they (reputedly) couldn't get enough votes together to liquidate the funds. Little fund po…
Reply to @TheShadow: I'm endlessly grateful for that impulse, by the way. I try to keep track for our monthly updates, but it's reassuring to know that someone else is checking and sharing. On a number of these, you found cool stuff way before me …
Reply to @John_Oberweis: Just as a quick bit of context: a couple of you folks, Investor included, had asked me to look a bit more closely at OBIOX. (Admittedly that was a few months ago, but I'm slow.)
John and I have been talking about the fund …
Reply to @VintageFreak: Hmmm ... Morningstar lists the potential cap gains exposure as 29.72, but doesn't say 29.72 what. The NAV is about $25, so I'm hoping that the potential tax bill doesn't actually exceed the value of the shares, but with a 2%…
It might be worth looking at the record, and portfolio, of GMO Benchmark-Free Allocation (GBMFX). That, and a Humane Society endowment that Mr. Grantham manages, are the purest plays on GMO's forecasts.
David
Hi, Art.
I'd read our August 2013 story on Grandeur Peak's plans and the Global Reach profile before buying. The short version is that G.P. intends to have one "master" fund (Global Reach) that contains all of stocks, globally, that they find attr…
Reply to @MJG: Oddly enough, there have been studies of the predictive validity of GMO's rankings. Wall Street Ranter just reproduced a nice graphic on his website, in which GMO reports the results of their projections. It's linked to his story "R…
Reply to @Old_Joe: Yuh, that has been part of my hesitancy. Getting a dedicated server is a bit costly, solves some but not all of the challenges we face, and adds a few of its own. Still, we'll keep at it. David
Reply to @AndyJ: Thanks for catching the goof on my report of the ticket symbol. Somewhat "exits" didn't work in my brain, so I transposed a couple letters. David
Morningstar is tracking larger international funds by their "active share," a measure of the degree to which their portfolios diverge from their benchmark's. In general, a greater active share reflects either (1) greater managerial independence or …
Reply to @Ted: True enough, though most of the difference is accounted for by a single day - the last paragraph above. If you made your investment on January 3rd, the difference between the two would be more modest (SEEDX 15.2%, VFINX 17.3%). For …
"As I mentioned earlier, by definition every stock must be held by someone. So when Mom and Pop buy stocks, they must buy them from someone else, and when they sell them, they must sell them to someone else. Let’s call those other parties “X.” The m…
Reply to @Charles: At base, they can count. One retail investor is worth $10,000 in AUM and one financial planner is worth $1,000,000 (or $10M or $30M). Are they trying to game the advisors by making them think they're getting the real inside poop…
Hi, Bitzer!
If by "defensive" you mean "weakly correlated to the stock market," you might benefit by thinking about how equity-oriented funds minimize their correlation.
Some choose to short individual stocks, which allows them to maintain an effe…
Reply to @equalizer: Over the past couple years, about a half dozen people have asked me to confirm that their orders ("I ordered a biography of Catherine de' Medici and wanted to know ...") were credited to MFO. While I cannot see individual order…
