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.
Reply to @MikeM: Hi, Mike. I hope it turns out to be a good addition, given your needs and style. It's certainly reassuring to see Eric putting up top percentile numbers for the month, quarter and YTD. As I noted elsewhere, he's also outperformin…
Reply to @00BY: It's a good question. I poked at it a bit during the interview. The best answer I got was "Wasatch was very accommodating to Robert, but it was always his dream to have his own firm and his own fund." While that could be an evasio…
Hi, bee!
You might want to look at Aston River Road Independent Value (ARIVX), run by Eric Cinnamond. Cinnamond ran ICMAX for years and did a splendid job. Since starting the Independent Value fund, in the style of ICMAX, he has maintained a very…
Reply to @CathyG: Hmmm . . . just to be sure I understand. You'd like to find a site that tells you, for example, which funds have the most invested in Apple?
If so, Morningstar offers a wealth of information (free) on stock ownership. Type a sto…
Reply to @bee: Thanks for the heads up, bee. I deleted the period.
Fidelity also runs a series of secret funds, open only to Fidelity funds. I'm often more struck by those options (TRP Short Term Income is more intriguing than TRP Short Term Bond…
Hi, bee!
Sometimes I try to answer such questions (e.g., "where should a 50-year-old be invested?") by looking at the portfolio choices made by professionals. So I'd check the range of asset allocations in target date 2030 funds to see what I migh…
Reply to @CathyG: Yes and no. The operating expense of the fund at open was expected to be nearly 4% but the advisor (Aston) agreed to waive any expenses above 0.95% for a year. All such expense waivers are for a year or less (at least in my exper…
Bought some Wasatch Microcap Value (WAMVX) in my Roth. Would have bought Aston River Road Independent Value (ARIVX) instead, but was a bit short of the $2500 minimum in the cash account. Wasatch has more cautious than most funds in its space, and …
I'd look at Vanguard Balanced Index (VBINX). It trails the moderate target risk benchmark, but seems to move pretty much in sync with it. Vanguard STAR (VGSTX) tracks it a bit more closely and is an excellent balanced fund-of-Vanguard funds.
I c…
Hi, Lisa.
Two easy options. First, use the search box on the upper right of the discussion pages, the one with "go" beside it. Type in a screen name and every occurrence of the name will appear.
Second, a slightly more-refined option, click on t…
Not yet sure whether I agree on the "not far enough, not soon enough" conclusion. The downgrade is a rhetorical gesture, rather more than a practical one. Rhetoric is designed to affect change, to address problems. The question that becomes wheth…
Reply to @Investor: The key has been finding time to update the older profiles before making them visible. I'll move WSCVX up and try to get it posted this week. I'm also set to talk with John about his new Select Value fund.
If there are other p…
Reply to @Kenster1_GlobalValue: Confused about the confusion. WAGOX adds $13,500 to your original $10,000 versus peers would have added $7,000 to your original $10,000. Right: you net $6500 more with WAGOX. So WAGOX returns the $7000 typical of i…
Hi, Kenster!
WAGOX added $13,500 to the value of your original investment.
The average global fund added $7,000 to the value of your original investment.
By my (admitted shaky) counting, $13,500 is 92% more than $7000, so I described the differen…
Hi, yugo.
They'll be the subject of one of the August 1 update stories. The split has been in the works since 2007 but was derailed by the meltdown. They've got two funds in registration, which strongly resemble their former Wasatch charges.
Mor…
Reply to @Kaspa: The Alpine funds tend to follow a "dividend capture" discipline, so expect high yield, high turnover. It's run by the firm's founder and CEO, Sam Lieber. The Price fund is likely to be lower turnover, large value. The manager, Su…
Catch, if you can figure out anything in that portfolio, you should start on your "financial explainer" website. Apparently part of the cash equivalents (which, by some reckonings, are 60%) are "over-the-counter put swaptions" (which are different…
Hi, Kaspa.
You might consider Alpine Global Infrastructure (AIFRX) or T. Rowe Price Global Infrastructure (TRGFX). It's a fascinating investment theme: build long-lasting objects and then collect rent from them forever. Pipelines, dams, roads, wa…
Reply to @catch22: Howdy! I actually spent the hours just after posting this sitting under a maple tree, reading a really interesting book, savoring the shade and breeze, and watching other members of my family fish. Serious heat hits tomorrow an…
It's an invented number. To get there, you need to count each share class as a separate funds. That's stupid. Many of the share classes are available only to a particular audience ("other Fidelity funds" or "state-sponsored retirement plans"), s…
Hi, VintageFreak.
Sorry about the delayed response. Busy month. No, I never bought shares of Nakoma (NARFX). While I thought it was an intriguing fund, I'm fairly disciplined about adding funds to my portfolio. The slot that NARFX might have oc…
Reply to @VintageFreak: oddly, the LCORX and GLBLX portfolios are substantially different both in sector and country weightings. I have a note into Leuthold asking if they'd refresh my understanding of the relationship between the asset allocations…
Hi, guys.
In pursuit of answers to your questions, I spoke again by the RiverPark folks. Morty Schaja, the president, made several worthwhile points which mostly accorded with my own understanding:
1. Cohanzick had no stand-alone accounts using t…
Hi, Cathy.
I'll forward your question to Chip for her consideration. Brad, who handled most of the programming, needed about 2.5 hours to convince the system to include the name of the first and last poster. I'm not sure whether it's possible to …
Hi ducrow.
What observation drives your concern? FPACX has outperformed its peer group YTD and it also outperformed them during the six weeks of turbulence from May 1 - mid June. It's been less volatile that its peer group for about every trailin…
Hi, Hank.
The manager got on me for a similar line of questions: "aren't they other short-term, high yield funds? How are you different?" The brief answer is: we don't buy any of what they're interested in. They buy securities that were, at iss…
Howdy!
Just a quick statistical scan on my way out the door to a neighborhood party. I checked for TRP funds with health care weights about their category averages, then trashed the few that were just a fraction of a percent above. Here's the res…
Hi, guys.
You might want to read my write-up of the fund, which sort of explains the short term vs high yield tension. The short story is that the fund invests, primarily, in called high yield bonds; that is, high yield bonds that will be redeemed…
Hi, MJG.
Well, there were 21 U.S. recessions in the 20th century (22 if you count the one ending in 1900). I guess one test of the case would be to look at political stability or instability in the midst of, or wake of, those. While you could a…
For what interest it holds, I'm entirely comfortable with Maurice's question and the resulting thread. I'd be more concerned if it were an anonymous poster or someone I'd never seen before. That's just my scam/spam reaction. It seems to me that i…
Howdy.
Folks certainly do find questions that I've never pondered before. Languages? Uhhh . . . if it looks (a) like a fund discussion and (b) is productive rather than disruptive, I guess I'd be predisposed to shake my monolingual head in wonde…
Dear friends,
I've written to the folks at Saturna, who in turn read our discussion and the article. Their general tendency is to ignore conspiracy theorists (Mr. Mitchell qualifies) but they take the FA/MFO board seriously and are talking about h…
Hi, guys.
Sorry to have missed the bulk of the discussion. I've got a query out to the folks at Saturna, asking them to look through the discussion and help us understand the facts. I'll follow-up more extensively once I'm back from England and h…
Hi, Cathy!
It should be a fascinating trip. Oxford, on surface, strikes me as a bit intimidating but I'm generally in my element when I'm working in archives. Will has grand (and exhausting) plans for hiking about London and riding tubes and trai…
Hi, Max.
Then again, emerging market bonds were the highest returning asset class of the past decade. So comparing a largely-domestic hybrid to a pure play on a hot asset class has, perhaps, an "apples to water pumps" kind of feel.
David
