Welcome to the April Mutual Fund Observer!
My mom used to say, “March sometimes comes in like a lion.” She never added, “and then it eats you.”
March, named for the God of War, strikes me for two reasons. First, it is the month that has encompassed a whole series of catastrophes in the financial markets and Continue reading →
AI has a presence in almost every aspect of modern life, from summarizing buyer responses on Amazon to working with radiologists to discover incipient tumors on scans. Few industries have been as anxiously vigilant on the subject as investment management. Increasingly, managers are relying on AI to do part of their work and, increasingly, they wonder if it could eventually replace them entirely. (Spoiler: quite possibly.)
Artificial intelligence (AI) has Continue reading →
“Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry!”
Advice attributed to Oliver Cromwell, in the poem “Oliver’s Advice” (1834)
Here are three simple truths Continue reading →
On March 26, 2025, the GlacierShares Nasdaq Iceland ETF was launched. The ETF tracks the MarketVector Iceland Global Index. The Index tracks both Icelandic companies (54.5% of the index) and companies in other Nordic nations that have a substantial footprint in Iceland (13% Luxembourg, 11% Norway, 7% Switzerland … followed by the US and the Faroe Islands, about equally weighted). Iceland’s economy is heavily dependent on just a handful of industries: energy production, tourism, fishing, and smelting aluminum. (Smelt and smelting?)
The market cap of Iceland’s two stock exchanges, the main exchange and the small/midcap exchange, comes to Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Welcome to the March issue of Mutual Fund Observer.
I am surprised, sometimes, at how much I now appreciate some of the stuff that I found most mindless and annoying in high school. (I’m still not there with Moby Dick; the whole idea of a monomaniacally obsessed old guy leading his Continue reading →
“We believe the pre-end period will be filled with unprecedented opportunities for profit.” — New Yorker cartoon
When we published “Not Built for This: The Argument for Infrastructure Investing in an Unstable Climate” in January 2025, our thesis was straightforward: climate destabilization would drive urgent, massive infrastructure spending as aging systems fail under environmental pressures they were never designed to withstand. Just two months later, this argument has been dramatically reinforced—not despite, but because of aggressive federal climate policy rollbacks. The New York Times offered this assessment on Continue reading →
Investors are increasingly skittish. They are warned frequently that the top of the US equity market is feverishly overpriced and might bring the rest down when it falls. And, too, chaos in the national government is making them worried if not yet ready to abandon their lovelies. Interest is growing in finding ways to book gains independent of the stock market. One manifestation of that is the insane growth in economically inefficient buffered funds, and another is the rising interest in securing access to private equity. “Private equity” describes the wide world of corporations whose shares are Continue reading →
In the investment world, there’s an old saying: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Yet the latest crop of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offering both daily liquidity and exposure to illiquid assets might seem to promise just that—a financial equivalent of eating decadent cheesecake without gaining an ounce. Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Planting trees is a venture into the future, it is a hand held out to other generations.
Mirabel Osler
As I sit down to write this month’s letter, I’ve been wandering around my garden thinking what an unsalvageable mess it is: an unlovely and unidentifiable tangle of dead stems, fall leaves, stubble, trash mysteriously blown in, and the occasional corpse. (Typically avian.) It’s hard not to despair of it. And, hard not to imagine parallels to Continue reading →
A tradition dating back to the days of FundAlarm was to annually share our portfolios, and reflections on them, with you. My portfolio, indolent in design and execution, makes for fearfully dull reading. That is its primary charm.
This is not a “here’s what you should own” exercise, much less an “envy me!” one. Instead, it’s a “here’s how I think. Perhaps it will help you do likewise?” exercise. Continue reading →
Every day, Americans rely on 2.2 million miles of aging water pipes, some laid before the Civil War, to deliver life’s most essential resource. This vast network is crumbling beneath our feet, requiring over $2 trillion in repairs and upgrades by 2043. Yet this infrastructure crisis isn’t just about fixing what’s broken – it’s about building for a future where three-quarters of Earth’s land masses are becoming permanently drier and extreme weather events are the new normal.
For investors, this convergence of urgent infrastructure needs and climate adaptation creates Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Welcome to the January issue of Mutual Fund Observer.
January was named after Janus, the tutelary deity of the year’s first month. As tutelary, he was guardian, patron, and protector. Absent from the Greek pantheon, Janus was the Roman god of beginnings, transitions, and endings. It was the “transitions” part that led Romans to place the two-faced god near entries and passageways, where he oversaw their comings and Continue reading →
There’s a famous New Yorker cartoon that we don’t have permission to reproduce. It shows a cheerful executive speaking from a lectern in a conference room.
And so, while the end-of-the-world scenario will be rife with unimaginable horrors, we believe that the pre-end period will be filled with unprecedented opportunities for profit!
Welcome to the case for infrastructure investing in Continue reading →
On October 14, 2024, Virtus Investment Partners launched Virtus KAR Mid-Cap ETF (KMID). It targets “U.S. mid-cap companies with durable competitive advantages, excellent management, lower financial risk, and strong growth trajectories” selling at “attractive” valuations. The fund is managed by Jon Christensen and Craig Stone who also manage the five-star, $2.9 billion Virtus KAR Mid-Cap Core Fund. The ETF, like its sibling, will hold 25-35 stocks with a Continue reading →
The ETF end of the investment industry continues to be shaped by the mutual fund end. Jeff Benjamin at ETF.com reports “The mutual fund industry is setting new records for ETF conversions in 2024. According to Morningstar, there have been 55 ETF conversions this year through Dec. 17, which compares to 35 last year and 20 in 2022. The majority of the conversions this year have been in the fixed income space…” (“Mutual Funds Convert to ETFs at Record Levels,” ETF.com, 12/19/2024). The hottest trend has been the conversion of actively Continue reading →
Dear friends,
Winter is coming.
I’m so thankful.
And welcome to the modestly delayed December issue of the Mutual Fund Observer.
Traditionally, year’s end has been a slower time. The growing season has ended, and both the farm fields and the sports fields lie mostly empty in this part of the country. Going out at night is just a touch less attractive when “night” settles Continue reading →
In everyday language, we use “chaos” to mean complete disorder or randomness – like a toddler’s playroom after a long afternoon or a desk buried under scattered papers. This kind of chaos implies there’s no underlying order or pattern at all. It suggests a temporary state of disarray that can be resolved or brought back to order.
There is, however, a second use of the term. In chaos theory, “chaos” has a precise and quite different Continue reading →
FundAlarm (1996-2011), for which I penned a monthly column, was the site that gave rise to MFO. I was drawn to Fund Alarm long ago by the voice of its founder, Roy Weitz. During the lunatic optimism and opportunism of the 1990s (who now remembers Alberto Vilar, the NetNet and Nothing-but-Net funds, or mutual funds that clocked 200-300% annual returns?), Mr. Weitz and Morningstar’s John Rekenthaler spent a lot of time kicking over piles of trash – often piles that had Continue reading →
It’s November!
Had you noticed?
That means so many things, so many changes. It’s the onset of The Golden Quarter, aka Fourth Quarter Holiday Retail Season when an inexplicable sense of panic and social obligation separates consumers from Continue reading →
On November 1, 2024, the former AlphaCentric Strategic Income Fund was rebranded as AlphaCentric Real Income Fund with a new sub-advisor, broader strategy, and new expense ratio to accompany its new name.
CrossingBridge Advisors will manage the investment strategy by employing a team approach. Portfolio managers are T. Kirk Whitney, CFA, who joined the firm as an analyst in 2013, Spencer Rolfe, who first joined in 2017, and David Sherman, CIO. CrossingBridge, with over $3.2 billion in assets as of 8/31/24 was Continue reading →
