Welcome, dear friends.
Welcome to autumn. The apples are in, the trees are changing, flurries threaten – four of my students have never seen snow except at the movies – and, at long last, summer’s wardrobe has been laid to its rest. The clocks “fell back” as I was writing this essay, offering me a bonus hour in my day. Hesitant, as ever, to be wasteful, I resolved to spend my gifted hour thinking Interesting Thoughts.
Warren Buffett has more Continue reading →
In the buttoned-down world of institutional asset management, T Rowe Price has long been the firm that makes boring look brilliant. While competitors chased hot trends and flashy returns, the Baltimore-based firm built its reputation as the quintessential “singles hitter,” compounding modest, steady gains into industry-leading long-term performance through disciplined, research-driven processes.
Which makes the 87-year-old firm’s October 2025 filing Continue reading →
In this topsy-turvy world, characterized by unprecedented tariffs, rapidly changing policies, spending cuts, geopolitical risk, high deficits, and elevated valuations, I tend to be more conservative. I have added toggles to my “Rate and Rank” spreadsheet, allowing me to evaluate funds through the lenses of “Risk Off” and “Yield” for a conservative, tax-advantaged account. Table #1 shows how I rank sector Lipper Categories from highest-ranked category to lowest, along with the highest-ranked five funds. Some sectors are in Continue reading →
Using historical data on funds to make assumptions about future performance involves correctly interpreting the trends. Over the past six years, the U.S. has experienced an extraordinarily unusual period:
On October 13, 2025, GMO launched its newest ETF, GMO Dynamic Allocation ETF (GMOD). The ETF is managed by Co-Heads of Asset Allocation Ben Inker and John Thorndike, and draws on GMO’s proprietary 7-Year Asset Class Forecasts. It will typically range between 40% and 80% equity exposure and can invest broadly across stocks and bonds, not limited by sector, market cap, credit quality, or geography.
This would be an interesting but distinctly contrarian operation. The key is that GMO has a strong and well-founded belief that Continue reading →
Welcome to the casino! GraniteShares 3x Short AMD Daily ETP, a product marketed for European investors, recently pulled off the rare feat of going to zero. The fund, purely a speculator’s trading vehicle, was designed to rise by 3% for every 1% that AMD stock fell. Perfect opp for experienced sharks to dart in, tear off a chunk of carcass, and get out before anything bad can happen. Think of a holding time that might be measured in seconds, and you’re there.
The fund imploded when Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Welcome to the October issue of the Mutual Fund Observer. We’re glad you’re here.
And welcome to the Dog Days of Autumn! The natural world is scrambling to keep up with the changes we’ve triggered, and continue to intensify, upon it. As I walked one of the many bike/hike trails in the Quad Cities on Sunday, I confronted two worlds. One was defined by 90-degree temperatures, hot sunshine, and cracked earth. The other by the rhythm of birds called southward and plants quietening for the season to Continue reading →
On September 10, 2025, Tweedy, Browne Company LLC, launched the International Insider + Value ETF (ICPY). The ETF is both actively managed and fully transparent, which might engender some risk (for example, front-running by high-speed traders) but also simplifies the structure and reduces complexity.
The managers have the freedom to create an all-cap, all-world portfolio that can invest in developed and developing markets and, to a limited extent, in the US. The plan is simple Continue reading →
I am well on my way to implementing my version of the all-weather portfolio, where some funds will perform well in any environment. This conservative retirement portfolio is a subset of my overall portfolio and fits into tax-advantaged accounts within the intermediate bucket, along with several traditional bond funds and bond ladders. The goal for this “basket” of funds is to have income that meets most withdrawal needs with some Continue reading →
On September 12, 2025, Research Affiliates launched the RACWI US ETF, which will track its proprietary RACWI US Index. This is just RA’s second directly managed fund, following Research Affiliates Deletions ETF (NIXT), which launched in September 2024 and targets the stocks dropped from traditional large- to mid-cap indexes.
Research Affiliates, founded in 2002 by Rob Arnott, is a Newport Beach–based investment firm recognized for Continue reading →
Gold is considered one of the best hedges against inflation and uncertainty. Gold fell from about $385 in 1995 to a low of around $250 by 2001, to a high of $1,750 in 2011 before falling to $1060 in 2015. It is now over $3,750. For the past ten years, iShares Gold Trust (IAU) has had a total return of 195% compared to 289% for Vanguard 500 Index ETF (VOO). In this article, I compare funds with lower volatility than stocks and gold to protect from inflation. Preparing for inflation should be part of an overall strategy and not just timing the market when inflation rises.
Most of my career was in the precious metals industry Continue reading →
In January 2025, the Militia Long Short Equity ETF (ticker: ORR) launched. We’re profiling it because Sam Lee strongly recommended we look at it, and we trust Sam Lee. Founder of Austin-based SVRN Asset Management, former Morningstar strategist and editor of ETFInvestor newsletter and MFO contributor, Sam is very smart, has assessed a lot of managers, and has never invested in a hedge fund before. He describes Continue reading →
The conversion of Akre Focus Fund into an ETF was authorized by its investors in September and is proceeding apace. Thanks to all who took the time to vote their shares!
On October 17, abrdn International Small Cap fund and the $36m abrdn Intermediate Municipal Income fund will become the abrdn International Small Cap Active ETF and the abrdn Ultra Short Municipal Income Active ETF, respectively. Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Welcome to the September oh-so-totally back-to-school issue of the Mutual Fund Observer! We’re glad you’re here.
I’ve got the privilege of teaching an Honors section of Introduction to the Liberal Arts for the first time in a quarter century. It’s a delight and a terror. Many of my students, like many of you, start with a mistaken idea of what “the liberal arts” are. They are not “the fusty old white guy stuff that they made me sit through until I could get into my major classes.” (sigh) At their simplest, the liberal arts are Continue reading →
What a month it has been. The jobs numbers for May and June were revised lower, and the July numbers were below expectations as a wakeup call to a slowing economy. Two weeks later, wholesale prices rose 3.3% compared to a year earlier, and the producer price index rose 0.9% compared to the month before as tariffs began to raise the cost of inputs. National debt hit $37 trillion in August. Underlying growth for the economy year-to-date is a weak 1.4%, but it is distorted by imports. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell gave his speech following the Jackson Hole Symposium, in which he expressed rising risks to employment, persistent inflation pressures, and an openness to interest rate cuts. The markets reacted Continue reading →
Traditionally, the job description for a core bond manager was numbing: (1) show up for work, (2) buy a bunch of Treasury bonds and some investment grade intermediate corporates, (3) celebrate the trading coup that allowed you to buy the same bond as everyone else but for a quarter basis point less – woohoo!, (4) go home and enjoy a fiber-rich dinner and small glass of red wine.
In reality, managers added negligible value. Over 10 Continue reading →
On August 28, 2025, Franklin Templeton launched the Franklin Multisector Income ETF (MULT), an actively managed fund designed to pursue diversified income and long-term capital appreciation. The fund targets dynamic exposure across global fixed income markets while maintaining what the company calls “a disciplined risk management framework.”
The fund invests opportunistically across Continue reading →
Reducing my risk profile for accounts that Fidelity manages allows more flexibility in what I manage. In other words, the intermediate investment bucket aggressive sub portfolio that Fidelity manages became more conservative, while I added a little risk to the conservative sub portfolio that I manage.
I would like to design a low-risk sub-portfolio that has a low correlation to stocks and bonds, returns about 5%, and has some inflation protection. The objective is to always have at least one fund that is up while still having decent returns. I began with the MFO Premium fund screener and Lipper global dataset, limited by correlations to the S&P 500 and bonds, low losses for the minimum rolling three-year period, and an MFO Risk rating of average or lower. I trimmed Continue reading →
We wrote last month about the plan to convert Akre Focus Fund into an ETF (“Enduring Principles, Evolving Markets,” 8/2025), a move that would benefit shareholders by increasing interest in the portfolio, reducing expenses, and controlling taxes. That plan encountered a stumbling block: fund shareholders have not bestirred themselves to cast their vote (up or down) on the change proposal. According to the adviser’s rep, only 23% of shares have been voted, which requires an expensive second round of solicitations in hopes of reaching the 50.1% threshold. Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Welcome to the August issue of the Mutual Fund Observer! We just completed one of the five rainiest Julys in the city’s history, with three torrential downpours (the garden celebrates) and roll expectantly into August.
For those of us who teach for a living, August is the season of watchful waiting, a phrase lifted from the Christian celebration of Advent. The faithful are waiting for … you know, Continue reading →
