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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.
  • Fund Manager Focus: Rahul Narang, Manager, Columbia Global Technology Growth Fund
    Ted, I hold the institutional shares CMTFX in my regular ira, I hold, PRGTX in my Roth. It is less volatile than PRGTX and holds 106 positions instead of T Rowe's 45. I have done some changes to my portfolio since I moved everything to Fidelity, paring down my number of funds and trying not to duplicate, but I don't mind having two tech funds as they are somewhat different from each other in the stocks they hold.
  • Vanguard Rides Robo-Advice Wave To $65B In Assets
    FYI: While much of the financial services industry has been fretting for the past few years over how to compete in the age of digital-advice platforms, The Vanguard Group Inc. appears to have cracked the code in a steady climb to more than $65 billion under management on its two-year-old robo.
    Regards,
    Ted
    http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20170620/FREE/170629993/vanguard-rides-robo-advice-wave-to-65b-in-assets
  • Jim Rogers Bracing For Crash
    HI Guys,
    If anyone does listen and then trade based on a Jim Roger's prediction, they do so with great risk to their wealth. I agree with MFO members who are skeptical of any forecaster's projections.
    Simply put, forecasters can't forecast. Much empirical evidence supports that observation; the record is clear on this matter.
    For years, CXO Advisory did yeomen work at scorekeeping the cumulative record of a host of famous market gurus. I hated to see the end of that worthy project. Here is a Link that discusses their methodology and their scoring outcomes:
    https://www.cxoadvisory.com/gurus/
    The summary demonstrate the futility of making market predictions. With about 7000 forecasts from 70 or so gurus, these experts managed an overall accuracy of just under 50%. A fair coin toss would have done slightly better.
    This outcome must be humbling to those who claim superior insights. Those special insights simply do not exist. So buyers of these failed analyses must be doubly suspicious of any such forecast. It just might be profitable to do the opposite of what was recommended!
    Best Wishes
  • Jason Zweig: Escaping The Magnetic Pull Of A Bubble
    Here is an easy way to participate for someone who plays the lottery regularly. Let's say you normally buy $10 a week in Powerball tickets, or $500 a year. Make a pledge that for one year, you will not buy any Powerball tickets and instead take the $500 savings and invest it in Ethereum. Also make a pledge you will sell the Ethereum in exactly one year no matter what.
    My guess is that someone who did this would probably have a much higher expected value playing the Ethereum bubble than playing Powerball.
  • Oil - Seems To Be In A Freefall Today
    Rode it for about 2 years from around $65 (summer 2014) down to $26 (early 2016) and than back up again to $50-55 where I got out. Bought the dips and sold a few rallies along the way. Used PRNEX as a proxy. Did OK in the end, but I'll tell you it was no fun. No appetite to play it again - Sam
    This time the slide might be a warning of a coming recession. Bond yields also seem to suggest that. Hope I'm wrong. But recessions happen. @Maurice - Love your new picture. Looks more like a normal person than the last one did.
  • Jim Rogers Bracing For Crash
    He is also famous for moving to Singapore (with his third wife) saying America is through.
    If he hadn't run Quantum with Soros (from 1970 to 1980
    1) he would still be poor 2) he wouldn't be able to afford three wives or move to Singapore 4) he would have had to stay home and work for a living and not gallivant all over the world in a Mercedes and (best of all)
    5) No one would listen to him or care what he thinks.
  • DSEEX DSENX PIMIX PONDX ; the stars do align, periodically, yes? "Magical Mystery Tour"
    The Beatles have already established the phrase of "Magical Mystery Tour", but the words appropriately describe some personal investing styles and active managed funds, IMHO.
    Be it musical groups, sports teams, corporations, small private companies or your other choices; the stars do align from cosmic forces, a function of cyclical mathematics or some other energy that one may choose to attempt to define; or perhaps, just by chance; circumstances find certain people and events to discover one another and bind into a positive and overwhelming presence of intellect that is difficult for 99.99% of the world population to comprehend.
    I suspect most folks here have and can define, to a point; a recollection of a sports team or musical group that "just had that superior edge", at least for a given time frame. Although I'm not a big time sports fan and don't fly U of Michigan or Michigan State flags at the house, I do pay attention. Superior head coaches and the selected staffs help build a successful program which results in attracting superior athletes to the sports team. These periods may run for many years and then get "clunked" for any number of reasons. The duration of success for many collegiate teams today is highly impacted by the money draw into professional sports, that finds superior college team players exiting after two years. These magic combinations of managers, staff and players may also be found in professional team sports. One must also consider the other side of the coin into the world of "can't get it right" for long time frames. The Detroit Lions football team comes to my mind for such a circumstance, and especially relative to the New England Patriots, eh?.
    Well, anyway; you get the gist of my thinking, yes?; as related to active managed mutual funds.
    Are these the circumstances behind the superior performance of DSEEX DSENX PIMIX PONDX (both classes noted for the purpose of one's purchase limits)?
    Will this superior performance continue for 1, 2, 3, 5 or 10 more years? Your guess is as good as mine, I imagine.
    Is the risk involved with the magic sauce formula of these funds over and above some threshold of personal investment risk tolerance? Only the individual investor can answer this question, yes? But, one can not argue against the skill of the use of the "magic sauce" by management, at this time, correct?, based upon performance.
    We're investors and have exposure to many forms of investment risk beyond our control and vision. Tis the old adage of "get out of the kitchen, if you can't stand the heat".
    Six month, after inception, slide report DSEEX / DSENX . You may find this document of interest, although the subject matter has been discussed here previously.
    http://www.valuewalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/5-20-2014-CAPE-webcast-slides-Valuation-Its-All-Relative-mailing.pdf
    Alright, the end of the early morning jabber from this house; and moving on to another cup of coffee before starting chores for this day.
    Take care,
    Catch
  • No. 1 Mutual Fund, Which Made A Killing Off Amazon And Tesla, Is Now Focused On These Stocks: PRGTX
    In previous 401k account, I held PRGTX, PRNEX, and PRLAX for an year or two during 2015-16. All 3 of them made money anywhere between 20 to 30% though insignificant portion of the overall portfolio. I had to sell all 3 of them, when moving to a new 401k account as part of acquisition of our employer by another company.
    I planned to buy all 3 of them in other IRA accounts that I held at TDA, but procrastinated, and in no time they were up anywhere from 10-30% this year except for PRNEX. Now, I feel it is too late to buy them, especially PRGTX. (:-
  • PRWCX
    Buffett's rules .1Don't lose MOney 2 Don't forget rule 1 have been followed by all managers of this fund when they started managing and wrote that more or less in their first quarterly reportga

    Don't lose money? Yes, agree. But than continue to generate these kinds of average annualized returns?
    PRWCX:
    Average annualized returns: 1-year 11.73%, 5-years 11.59%, Since Inception (21-years) 11.34% https://www3.troweprice.com/usis/personal-investing/mutual-funds/historical-performance.html
    Talk about consistency!
    BTW: The fund wasn't always so universally loved here. Here's a former poster named "Max" in November 2013 testing the waters. He was new to PRWCX and appeared in need of assurances from some of those familiar with the fund. I'm glad we were able to help at the time. http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/9085/changes/p1
    Aw, shucks..... ;)
  • PRWCX
    Buffett's rules .1Don't lose MOney 2 Don't forget rule 1 have been followed by all managers of this fund when they started managing and wrote that more or less in their first quarterly reportga
    Don't lose money? Yes, agree. But than continue to generate these kinds of average annualized returns?
    PRWCX: Average annualized returns: 1-year 11.73%, 5-years 11.59%, Since Inception (21-years) 11.34% https://www3.troweprice.com/usis/personal-investing/mutual-funds/historical-performance.html
    Talk about consistency!
    BTW: The fund wasn't always so universally loved here. Here's a former poster named "Max" in November 2013 testing the waters. He was new to PRWCX and appeared in need of assurances from some of those familiar with the fund. I'm glad we were able to help at the time. http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/9085/changes/p1
  • RiverPark Floating Rate CMBS Fund - (RCRIX)
    Interval funds are nothing new - they've been around for decades, but they seem to have reached more widespread awareness (including the relatively new term "interval funds") in the past few years.
    Here's a page from CEFadvisors.com, with no date, but google says that the page comes from Sept. 25, 2004: "Some closed-end funds are excessively concerned with the discount. Many CEFs have successfully reduced their discount and enhanced performance by a combination of share repurchases and/or periodic tender offers at or near NAV."
    My impression is that this accurately states where the idea of periodic redemptions came from - CEF trading at too high a discount. Periodic redemptions, as contasted with no redemptions (just market trading) would tend to keep them closer to NAV, somewhat like ETFs.
    A couple of decades ago, fund sponsors took a stab at offering stable value funds outside of the 401k arena. These funds came to the interval fund structure from the other end of the spectrum - trying to mimic open end funds (daily redemptions) while clamping down on trading, since stable value funds need long term money to work. Sponsors gradually converted these to open end funds (my guess is because people didn't "get" interval funds); that and tighter SEC scrutiny killed off the stable value funds.
    The point is that there can be different reasons why a fund chooses to offer periodic redemptions. The boomlet in these funds now strikes me as marketing. Instead of simply starting these funds as CEFs and watching how their market discounts moved, they're being sold from the start as pseudo-open-end funds to garner a wider audience.
  • OSTIX, PONDX, PTIAX or ?
    Yeah, that -25% drop in 2008 for PFIDX vs. -5.8% for PONDX would give me pause, even if Ivascyn recently started co-managing PFIDX.
  • PRWCX
    Surprised to learn of international stake. Don't monitor that closely. Hold it for inlaws along with RPGAX - which I expected to provide international exposure. I guess it is still okay to hold both.Curious that M* says "non us stock" is 3.25%. something wrong somewhere
    From TRP's website (end of May): Domestic stock 59.1%, Domestic bond 20.4% Foreign stock 3.6%, Foreign bond 2.4%, Remainder in cash, convertibles and preferred.
    Lipper, however, lists 26% in foreign holdings. I'm not sure if the 26% applies to all holdings or just to the equities. Agree with VF the numbers are confusing.
    I've never known the fund to invest much in foreign stocks. Agree with the accolades. Owning it nearly since inception, I'm somewhat in disbelief. Suspect even the folks at Price are scratching their heads over this one's continued success under different managers and in different market environments.
  • PRWCX
    Surprised to learn of international stake. Don't monitor that closely. Hold it for inlaws along with RPGAX - which I expected to provide international exposure. I guess it is still okay to hold both.
    Curious that M* says "non us stock" is 3.25%. something wrong somewhere
  • PRWCX
    A truly admirable fund. Smartly, they closed it to new investors a long time ago. It is not a balanced fund by any means. It is much more of a risk-aware global allocation fund. Current allocation of57% U.S. stock, 22% international stock, 22% bonds (mostly short-term HY, and about 15% in cash. Definitely NOT a balanced fund. But this do-your-own-thing approach has worked for the fund for three decades.
  • Emerging Markets Bonds
    We use TGBAX as a core hold in many accounts, with GSDIX for some larger accounts. Although TGBAX is not EM per se, Hasenstab uses a lot of EM currencies and has not been afraid of owning EM bonds (currently about 60%). It is clearly the "chicken" way to own some EM bonds. We have used FNMIX some in the past, and really like the manager. Should we be in a prolonged dollar slide, a local-currency fund like GIMDX could be advantageous (and it has done well YTD), and we have used it in the past under those circumstances. Unfortunately, M* lumps dollar and local funds together, skewing the dollar-based funds much higher because of the dollar's recent strength. I do not see much attraction for DELNX. The very low yield does not compensate me for the EM risk.

    What do you think of a fund like PFSIX? I have been considering an EM bond fund also, but am hoping for a fund that is a combination of both dollar hedged and local currency (hopefully the holdings would be strategic based on how the managers see the currencies moving in the different countries it is invested in). PFSIX is currently divided between the underlying 3 individual funds (50% local currency bond, 26.5% dollar hedged bond, and 22% corporate bond, which I believe can be both dollar hedged and local currency depending on the managers views). Rather than having to choose one or the other, do you or anybody know of any other EM bond funds that invest in both dollar hedged and local currency?
    My quick observation is that the three strategies may end up cancelling each other out. Then, as I look at the fund's three-year number of -0.45%, perhaps that is exactly what has happened? Perhaps not, but in the face of a strong dollar, this three-pronged strategy faces a lot of headwinds.
  • OSTIX, PONDX, PTIAX or ?
    Yes, I am a fan of OSTIX, a big fan of Carl Kaufman and his team. OSTIX does have a transaction fee because Osterweis funds refuses to pay Fidelity, TD, Schwab, or anyone else the extra fees. It helps to keep the asset base down, which is a good thing. We use OSTIX as a core hold in most accounts for its ability to go where and when it wants, with very little volatility and risk. Duration around 1.3, current yield around 5%. Please don't look at OSTIX as another high-yield fund. It isn't. We don't worry about this fund in terms of tightening corporate spreads since its average maturity and extremely short duration have proven its ability to withstand prevailing winds.
    PONDX is also a good fund. We would use it in our more aggressive fixed-income allocations.
    PTIAX is not something we would use now because of its rather long maturity. We are focusing on short maturity with shorter durations.
  • Help on Large Cap Growth Fund Selection
    Why is POGRX easier to add to at Fidelity? I don't see it being NTF.

    It's $50 when first purchasing, but then the fee is reduced to $5 on each additional purchase. Hopefully that has not changed...
    To do a single additional investment to an existing TF-fund position at Fidelity, the drill is to set up (online) an auto-invest plan for the amount you want to add, let the first investment go thru, and then cancel; each auto-invest buy is $5. Take this route: Accounts & Trade // Account Features // Payments & Transfers // Automatic Investments. It still works.
  • Help on Large Cap Growth Fund Selection
    Why is POGRX easier to add to at Fidelity? I don't see it being NTF.
    It's $50 when first purchasing, but then the fee is reduced to $5 on each additional purchase. Hopefully that has not changed...
  • Emerging Markets Bonds
    We use TGBAX as a core hold in many accounts, with GSDIX for some larger accounts. Although TGBAX is not EM per se, Hasenstab uses a lot of EM currencies and has not been afraid of owning EM bonds (currently about 60%). It is clearly the "chicken" way to own some EM bonds. We have used FNMIX some in the past, and really like the manager. Should we be in a prolonged dollar slide, a local-currency fund like GIMDX could be advantageous (and it has done well YTD), and we have used it in the past under those circumstances. Unfortunately, M* lumps dollar and local funds together, skewing the dollar-based funds much higher because of the dollar's recent strength. I do not see much attraction for DELNX. The very low yield does not compensate me for the EM risk.
    What do you think of a fund like PFSIX? I have been considering an EM bond fund also, but am hoping for a fund that is a combination of both dollar hedged and local currency (hopefully the holdings would be strategic based on how the managers see the currencies moving in the different countries it is invested in). PFSIX is currently divided between the underlying 3 individual funds (50% local currency bond, 26.5% dollar hedged bond, and 22% corporate bond, which I believe can be both dollar hedged and local currency depending on the managers views). Rather than having to choose one or the other, do you or anybody know of any other EM bond funds that invest in both dollar hedged and local currency?