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.
I didn't really understand the fund when I bought it and although my loss in IOFAX pales in comparison to other parts of my portfolio, the blow-up of this fund feels like a firecracker going off in my hand. Why did I buy something inherently explosi…
Très cool, @Mark. One of my adult daughters is an au pair in Paris hunkered down with two working parents and two boys, 7 and 4. I have a picture of one of the self-signed forms each citoyen has to fill out before venturing outdoors. Incredibly Fren…
Probably not a conventional consumer staples stock, but Amazon should benefit and it was reported yesterday in the WSJ that they are hiring 100K workers. If people have money to spend, AMZN will get a chunk of it. Nota bene: “if”
Our daughter's rent. She was moved out of her university-owned apartment and had to move into the place she had reserved for June when her first full-time job begins. Since the job is in health care, maybe the job will not be there. Her university i…
@hank: I thought Columbo had a Peugeot. For a few years in the 70's, Peugeot and Renault tried to sell cars in the US, with universally hilarious results. The gray one the detective had went along with his image of a guy of no competence at all. Whe…
I have never understood the extent to which M* has championed Oakmark funds over the past three decades. They are Chicago homies, so maybe there's some reason there for the back-scratching. I long ago exited positions is Herro's and Nygren's funds a…
I was with @MikeM and voted absentee in MI prior to the latest withdrawals. Reminds me of my vote for Jerry Brown in 1992. Today we learned that voters have until Mar 7 to rescind their early votes by asking the local clerk for another ballot to rep…
@davidmoran: I did read Hofstadter's book for that paper. It was long ago when history departments had real classes, such as a two-course sequence in American intellectual history. As a kid growing up, I recall Adlai Stevenson being criticized as to…
I wrote a paper in an undergraduate American history class on anti-intellectualism in the US. Such a phenomenon would not be found in France, whose history I know quite well. I dare say our "American exceptionalism" includes some character traits t…
If this fund does as well as the Driehaus Micro and Small Cap funds under the same three managers, it will be a winner. I have owned DVSMX almost since it opened while DMCRX has been closed for some time. Thanks for the news, @TheShadow.
SWISX, Schwab’s developped markets index fund, is good. You get a lot of Japan and no EM, so there is a bias built in. I prefer to use global funds for large cap international and hit the EM and S/Mid in separate funds. Maybe international will out …
M* points to manager change and modifications to the portfolio in its latest write up. Maybe the new PM will let shareholders know what he’s done recently and why he wants to play with more than $5B.
Thanks, @openice. You'd previously said was complicated, yet you've done well to enlighten me. It would be instructive to see how the Leland funds weather an ugly downdraft that sends high-flying growth stocks tumbling. The fund looks to have a 73% …
I may be slow, so help me out. LDVAX aims to replicate an index by taking positions in companies not in the index. I get CAPE and MOAT, which I own, because they invest in stocks that are part of their relative indices. CAPE does it indirectly throu…
It's true that MGGPX and MIOPX are US-based, but the management team works in Hong Kong. Kristian Heugh also runs an Asia growth fund for MS, MSAUX. The latter still seems to have a load where I shop whereas the first two are NL/NTF.
For my part, if the market were to go on a "rampage," it would not be to the upside. My previous comment meant to bring out the writer's infelicitous choice of wording.
The original post on LDVAX went into The Bullpen, where it may have gone unseen. I'm glad the topic has been brought back because I'd like to know what the three brainy managers have cooked up to produce such fine returns. A glance at their portfoli…
DVSMX, managed by the same guys who have been very successful with Driehaus Micro Cap. DVSMX has been my best performing fund since I got in shortly after it opened.
Currently on vacation in Chile where we took an A320 NEO on a domestic LATAM flight. It was spanking new and a pleasure to ride in. I can see why Boeing felt the heat to get the MAX in service. We got stuck in the main cabin of a Boeing 767-400 ER f…
I happened to meet an Amazon driver at the head of our driveway and offered to take the package and save him the trip. He said he was required to take the photo of the package at the house.
In answer to @Kaspa: I think there is no substitute for an attorney for will, medical directive, and trust planning. We paid a bundle to have our wills done, but our attorney still answers simple questions without charging more. If you are like us, …
My thought is that the Boeing fiasco is emblematic of what happens to a previously respected and functioning federal agency when control of the agency is handed over to those whom it should be regulating. I cite two Michaels: Moore and Lewis. Michae…
I agree with @hank that a lack of narrative is disappointing. I have thought well of Brown Capital and own two of their funds. However, they are among those funds who offer nothing but stats in the semi-annual report. In the case of BCSVX, I wanted …
I'm adding Paul Volcker's cigar to my list of things I hated about the 70's. Some of us batted that nutty subject around a while back. It's sad to see a symbol of an age die, even though I have no regret for that age.
Thanks for the tip, @MikeM. I've had a CapialOne Visa account for some time so it was easy to transfer some dough to their savings account. The $200 bonus is in effect for the rest of the month. It's a better rate than Schwab's prime money market fu…
Good points @LewisBraham. Recently the NYT covered the dearth of local news coverage by pointing out that in Ann Arbor the only paper covering local affairs such as city council meetings is the U-M's Michigan Daily, represented by a 20-year-old stud…
I do not read news as @hank does on Kindle, but I do read online, often before I bring in the physical papers. The ads are awful. On a related note re: Amazon. I had to replace our main TV hours before the UM-OSU game. I watched it on an Insignia du…
Have had multiple accounts at both TDA and Schwab and I've found little difference between them. Some MFs have been NTF on one platform and not on the other, but not many. Taxable brokerage, Roths and traditional IRAs, and UGTM are the types of acco…
