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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.
  • "the dash for trash"
    https://www.reuters.com/markets/default-wave-imminent-will-peak-2024-deutsche-bank-2023-05-31/
    From the end of May a very ominous forecast for the default rate on both junk bonds and loans in late 2024. If the default rates of 9% and 11.3% comes anywhere close to reality it would be one bad bear market for junk and bank loans. One positive is I have a treasure trove of such predictions over the past decade of the eventual demise of these markets based on default rates, debt maturity walls etc. that haven’t come close to reality.
  • "the dash for trash"
    James Mackintosh today warns of investors' "dash for trash."
    ...the riskiest part of the bond market has performed the best. The CCC-rated borrowers closest to default have returned 10% this year. The worst-performing are safe investment grade borrowers ... Just as junk-bond investors like the trashiest investments, big stocks with the weakest balance sheets ... are beating those with stronger balance sheets ...
    Why? No recession which kept the marginal firms afloat and forced continuing high interest rates which plagued investment-grade borrowers. Even without a recession, refi is going to knife many of those companies which will ripple out. Mr. Mackintosh identifies three tiers of likely victims, starting with "the obvious disasters: super-speculative also-rans that financed themselves in the final stages of the post pandemic boom, mostly using SPACs, plus some debt-financed zombies that should have gone bust but were saved by zero interest rates."
    A companion article, by Jon Sindreu, walks through the size and timing of the debt threat. Two special notes. First, ratings firms have not kept up with re-rating issuers in light of interest rate changes (some "marginal" firms might, in light of higher rates, below in the "dumpster fire" box). Second, the poop will hit the propeller in 2025 with the peak of the refinancing wave. ("Higher-for-Longer Rates are Debt Threat")
    Debt investing makes my head spin but these struck me as useful yellow- or red-flags for prudent long-term investors.
    On a marginally related note, Mr. Sherman's CrossingBridge Pre-Merger SPAC ETF (SPC) is a top 25% performer YTD in Morningstar's calculation, which considers it a financial sector equity fund with a return of 3.55%. Last year it was a top 1% performer when Morningstar called it as small-growth fund, with a 2% gain against its average competitor's 14% loss.
  • Changes involving Stuart Rigby and Grandeur Peak Global Advisors
    @MikeM and @InformalEconomist: Wasatch does have WAGOX, a global SCG fund, but it's really volatile and holds 57% US stocks. I also left GP, so obviously no suggestions for that firm. As for a more measured approach to global SC, I prefer either Pear Tree Polaris or Artisan. QUSOX, a foreign SCV, with 4% in US, mostly developed countries, <1% in China. My preference is for the new, thus untested over a complete market cycle, ARDBX, Artisan International Explorer. It has 8% in the US, quite a bit in Canada and Mexico, as well as large allocations to developed markets. It's slotted as a foreign SMID blend. Artisan is a really solid firm with a strong commitment to global investing. To say that they do not hire analysts right out of the nearby colleges and universities would be a polite way stating that they don't have the same culture as Grandeur Peak. Take a look at how long Artisan spent hiring the seasoned managers for ARDBX and getting the team acclimated before launching the new fund. There is ample documentation available on their professional website. From my experience, Artisan Partners do not regularly find themselves explaining why a disaster beset one or more of their funds.
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    Excerpted from M* Q2 2023 fixed income retrospective.
    "It was a mixed second quarter for bond fund investors. Funds sensitive to interest rates, like long government and intermediate core bonds, were once again beaten down. These funds, which invest sizable stakes in U.S. Treasuries, saw bond prices slip while U.S. Treasury yields rose during the period."

    "Credit-sensitive funds also felt some pain, mostly in May. Still, lower-quality fixed-income assets, such as leveraged loans and high-yield corporate bonds, eked out gains for the full quarter amid interest-rate volatility thanks to their shorter-duration profiles. As such, the average bank loan and high-yield bond funds posted solid returns of 2.7% and 1.5%, respectively."
    Link
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    I’ve had my eyes on ICEM - a new multi-asset ETF from Franklin Templeton with an ER of .38%. That helps explain why I jumped (unfairly perhaps) on @Crash’s post.
    The fund is new (June 6) and there’s very little about how it actually invests either in the prospectus or other F/T literature. (Kind of a “trust us” portrait). By prospectus it can own up to 25% high yield. Yet, M* seems to show it with more than that if you include the around 25% “unrated.” Anyway, it’s heavily weighted towards junk and unrated paper. So that has given me pause. And it held up well yesterday but is off close to 1% today. Looks like it buys an equity based option index as part of its strategy to harvest gains in the S&P and still protect principal on the downside. That also gives me pause and might help explain why it’s falling today.
    This link might pull it up. https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/arcx/incm/portfolio
    @Junkster knows so much about junk. Wish he’d weigh in sometime on spreads and relative valuation vs equities or high grade bonds. Probably hiking the Blue Ridge.
    PS / All you “Giroux-Heads” - What can say? PRWCX held up exceptionally well yesterday, falling only .15% compared to 3X that much for VWINX. Keep this up and somebody will nominate him for Prez.
  • Memoriam: Robert Bruce (Bruce Fund)
    Few star managers can make the transition to a team much less assume it will be your kid.
    Michael Price is another example of a one man show that became problematic after he left.
    Another example is Albert Nicholas who ran the Nicholas Fund.
    According to Bloomberg Markets in 2015, "The Nicholas Fund, which he has run since 1969, has topped the Standard & Poor's 500 Index by an average of 2 percentage points a year for the past 40 years and [beat] it every year since 2008 [through 2014]."
    His son David was in and out of the family company and finally back in, but a quick look shows that he hasn't done nearly as well as Pops.
  • Larry Summers and the Crisis of Economic Orthodoxy
    The cost of a new car should matter less than this, but we have a Congress unwilling to let it continue, and people obviously measure economic success in different ways: https://npr.org/2022/01/27/1075299510/the-expanded-child-tax-credit-briefly-slashed-child-poverty-heres-what-else-it-d
  • Larry Summers and the Crisis of Economic Orthodoxy
    Hi @Mark Thanks for the info links. I was looking at Chamber of Commerce data last night.
    As to C.O.C. : Positions taken. Politically, the US Chamber of Commerce is considered to be on the political right, but is known to take positions that many Republicans, particularly populists, do not support. The US Chamber is often associated with the establishment wing of the Republican Party. I can't imagine they fiddle with data too much and are in line with B.L.S. data.
    With the U.S. population at about 335 million, @Baseball_Fan presents a 100 million unemployed number that is well, hard to believe. I'm sure we'll receive a valid data point link from him regarding this 100 million number.
    I know of about 45,000 at Michigan State University who are of employment age and not working, as most of them are busy otherwise. :)
    Remain curious,
    Catch
  • AAII Sentiment Survey, 7/5/23
    AAII Sentiment Survey, 7/5/23
    Bullish remained the top sentiment (48.4%; high) & bearish remained the bottom sentiment (24.5%; below average); neutral remained the middle sentiment (29.1%; below average); Bull-Bear Spread was +23.9% (above average). Investor concerns: Inflation (moderating but high); economy; the Fed; dollar; crypto regulations; market volatility (VIX, VXN, MOVE); Russia-Ukraine war (71+ weeks, 2/24/22- ); geopolitical. For the Survey week (Th-Wed), stocks were up, bonds down, oil up, gold up, dollar up. #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
    https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1100/thread
  • Changes involving Stuart Rigby and Grandeur Peak Global Advisors
    Ok, here's a question. I've owned GPGOX since inception, close to 12 years. The last few years are not stellar, but over all I've always thought of it as a buy-and-hold fund and no need to be concerned. The M* ratings don't really agree with my view. The fund is 5* for 10 years, 4* for 5 and 3* over the past 3 years, indicating maybe the best years are behind it.
    So, my question, is there a better global small-mid cap management house or specific S/M global fund than Gradeur Peak? Wasatch maybe? I've been loyal to this team from the start, but I don't want to be married through thick and thin. The last few years have been rocky.
  • CD Renewals
    I'm uncertain as to how to read WABAC's post. Stillers, if I interpret him correctly, seems to have understood it as WABAC having sold, or tried to sell, short term CDs before maturity.
    I read WABAC as saying that he has tried holding short-term CDs, but didn't like that. No indication that he tried to sell them prior to maturity.
    Left undefined in all of this is what exactly is the definition of "short term CD" as being used here.
    While I agree with Stillers regarding the correct way to use CDs, I really don't appreciate his condescending style- apparently he's attempting to emulate a certain FD person.
    "Stillers, if I interpret him correctly, seems to have understood it as WABAC having sold, or tried to sell, short term CDs before maturity."
    Did I say that? No, I did not. I made general comments about holding CDs to maturity that YOU misinterpreted. Go back and re-read my post and show me EXACTLY where I said what you THINK I said.
    --------------------------------------
    "While I agree with Stillers regarding the correct way to use CDs, I really don't appreciate his condescending style- apparently he's attempting to emulate a certain FD person."
    C'mom man! Are you serious?
    TRY to take my post to FD at face value. His self-aggrandizing post about trading bond OEFs has NOTHING to do with this topic, and any poster worth his salt tries to STOP the BS that he daily spews. Well, not daily on BB as FD's been banned there for about two more months.
    I (as do many poster who have borne witness to FD for 10-15 years) know that FD can't be stopped. I simply do my part to TRY to control him.
    ----------------------------------------
    On the latter, FWIW, AFTER I made my post to FD I received a PM from a very reputable poster who appreciated my on-going containment efforts. So please STOP with BS accusations. Saying that I am "attempting to to emulate...FD" sounds a wee bit, well, nuts.
  • Larry Summers and the Crisis of Economic Orthodoxy
    Electric cars are increasingly popular in the only U.S. State which is located in Polynesia. Before the pandemic, gas was $3.25. For a period of time, it was over $5, and is by now down a bit to about $4.69---- which is still totally nuts.
    We shop at Costco, which saves some money------ per unit. But it's always an adventure to find room in the fridge and the cupboards just to PUT stuff away. It does not hurt much to give to our church's food drive for the starving students at the university. They can't get federal money for their food bank because they serve a particular population.
    Despite dreadful inflation, we count ourselves very lucky. Wife works way too many hours, but she wants it that way. And that's why we're sitting pretty. We do not yet need the dividends and capital gains which our portfolio produces.
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    @FD. I agree that folks with pensions and those who don’t are facing entirely different retirements. But I disagree with your second statement. If I had a pension ( and I don’t) I would have less reason to have “ a higher % in stocks.” Given a substantial pension and low expenses I would be very happy to ignore the markets as I did when i was a young man with nothing to invest. The markets don’t bring me great joy but have often given me indigestion.
    Someone with a bigger pension CAN(not MUST) have a higher % in stocks. It's a personal choice.
    I hate losing more than 3-5% and why I'm a bond trader. We don't have any pension but I would still invest this way because I did very well. BTW, I'm invested for several weeks at 99+% in just 2 bond funds.
    Age is also a factor, if you retired at an earlier age, losses are a lot more important than losing at age 80 because of obvious reasons.
  • Memoriam: Robert Bruce (Bruce Fund)
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/47071/000158064223003441/bruce_497.htm
    497 1 bruce_497.htm 497
    Bruce Fund, Inc.
    Supplement dated July 5, 2023
    To the Prospectus and
    Statement of Additional Information (the “SAI”)
    each dated October 30, 2022
    On June 23, 2023, Mr. Robert B. Bruce, one of the Portfolio Managers of the Bruce Fund, passed away.
    Accordingly, all references to Mr. Robert B. Bruce in the Fund’s Prospectus and SAI are removed effective as of said date. R. Jeffrey Bruce will continue as Portfolio Manager.
    You should read this Supplement in conjunction with the Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information, which provide information that you should know before investing in the Fund and should be retained for future reference. These documents are available upon request and without charge by calling Shareholder Services at (800) 872-7823.
    My condolences to his family and friends.
    https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/robert-bruce-obituary?id=52381905
    2011 article on the Bruce Fund:
    https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0627/money-guide-11-funds-bruce-fund-heebner-cgm-invest.html?sh=240f0c1432a7
  • quick reminder: please don't be a troll
    Hi, guys!
    July 3rd is reported to be the hottest day ever, worldwide. Please be careful outside. It might be an opportune moment to drop a note to an elected official asking the simple question, "what are you doing to help?" Even at the local level a simple building code change to encourage "green" roofs can make a lot of difference in reducing the urban heat island and supporting wildlife.
    One of the local big box churches, the folks who convert abandoned 40,000 square foot retail spaces into worship spaces (which is a fine example of upcycling), systematically encouraged members to evangelize by joining other churches, participating actively in public while in private explaining to their new friends that there's actually a much better church just across town. In consequence, the size of the religious community did not grow but a series of traditional churches were weakened by the scavengers.
    That's the "trolling" of the title. It's disrespectful, devious and destructive. Please don't do that.
    David
  • July MFO Has Been Posted
    A couple notes from Mr. P. On inside ownership of the fund:
    The GoodHaven Fund disclosed in its annual and semi-annual reports insider ownership as follows - and please note the vast majority of these shares are related to Mr. Pitkowsky and entities connected to his immediate family - "As of November 30, 2022, the members, officers, and employees of GoodHaven Capital Management, LLC, the investment advisor to the GoodHaven Fund, owned approximately 124,075 shares of the Fund. It is management’s intention to disclose such holdings (in the aggregate) in this section of the Fund’s Annual and Semi-Annual reports on an ongoing basis."
    He's also thinking about the redemption fee question, and might yet share thoughts there.
    We also talked about two misrepresentations of the fund's portfolio, which Chip will correct from the wilds of the Catskills tonight. First, I reported Morningstar's cash stake of the fund and concluded it was fully invested. It's not because the fund uses T-Bills as cash equivalents. Cash-like is around 10%, still less than half of its pre-transition average. Seond, I suggested they had too much exposure to special situations. Mr. P's take is that they had too much exposure to not-quite-special-enough situations leading to a portfolio with a lot of exposure to "the messy middle." Those were stocks that weren't super high quality or super distressed, which are his targets. They've been mostly purged. Following the transition the fund's turnover ratio has dropped 80% from an average of 15% pre-transition to around 3% now.
    For what interest that holds,
    David
  • Active Management and Superstars
    A good but incomplete history of Fidelity and its famous star managers.
    Post Tsai, a young Ned Johnson III (of course related to Johnson II) ran a private/in-house Fido fund called Magellan from 1963-71 with quite spectacular performance. Ned would have been a star manager if he just stuck to being a fund portfolio manager, but he had other and bigger ideas. After a few years, Magellan (now a listed FMAGX) was handed over to Peter Lynch (1977-90) who became even a bigger star than Ned Johnson III, and in fact, among the most famous portfolio managers ever. But to the regrets of many, Lynch decided to retire at 48 and is still with Fidelity as consultant and mentor.
    Actually, Lynch wanted to retire even earlier, but the crash of 1987 intervened. Lynch didn't want to leave the "huge" fund ($20 billion, peanuts by today's standards) that was under heavy redemption to somebody else, so he stuck around for a while until 1990. He lamented later that the management of Magellan under redemption was very different from what he was used to during its explosive growth period.
    Magellan's assets did peak at $100 billion, but has languished under managers that followed Lynch; the AUM is only $27 billion now. An ETF FMAG hasn't yet reached $50 million in 2.5 years. That is another lesson - don't count on past history or successes for the ETFs.
  • Active Management and Superstars
    An excellent article by William Bernstein, who I suspect, travels through these discussion boards often:
    https://www.barrons.com/articles/investing-pillars-superstar-portfolio-managers-trap-fa7d7fe4?mod=hp_LEAD_5
  • Larry Summers and the Crisis of Economic Orthodoxy
    Not a wage-price spiral but a profit-price spiral or "greedflation" perhaps: https://cnbc.com/2023/04/21/why-economists-are-no-longer-so-worried-about-a-wage-price-spiral.html
    Profit-price spiral
    There has also been increased discussion about how those corporate profits are contributing to inflation.
    In a recent note, economists at ING looked at Germany, where inflation is increasingly a demand-side issue. While cautioning that so-called “greedflation” cannot be proven and there are variations by sector, they wrote that there are signs companies have been hiking prices ahead of the rise in their input costs, and that “from the second half of 2021 onward, a significant share of the increase in prices can be explained by higher corporate profits.” They call this a profit-price spiral.....
    Not the 1970s
    ....Richard Portes, professor of economics at London Business School, told CNBC there is “no serious risk” of a wage-price spiral in the U.K., U.S., or major European countries, however. He also cited reduced union power in the private sector as a notable change from the 1970s.
    “If you look at core inflation in the U.S., rentals, housing, have been driving that. That’s got nothing to do with wages — with rentals, it’s more sensitive to interest rate rises,” he added.
    There is evidence — including from the IMF — that wage-price spirals aren’t common. The IMF research found very few examples in advanced economies since the 1960s of “sustained acceleration” in wages and prices, with both instead stabilizing, keeping real wage growth “broadly unchanged.” As with so much in economics, the idea that wage-price spirals even exist has also been challenged.
    For Kamil Kovar, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, the scenario was always seen as a risk, not necessarily likely. But he, too, said that as time progresses it has become clear that it is not happening.
    Wages are likely to increase fairly rapidly for Europe, but there’s “so much scope for wages to catch up with prices, to get to a spiral situation we would need something totally different to happen,” he said. The ECB expects nominal wage growth, not adjusted for inflation, of around 5% this year.
    Real wages in Europe are so much lower than before the pandemic they could increase another 10% without going into a “danger zone,” Kovar said; while in the U.S. they are roughly equal but exiting the risky zone.
    When comparing the current situation to the 1970s, Kovar said there were some similarities such as an energy shock; back then it was in oil, whereas this time it is bigger and broader, impacting electricity and gas too. There has also been a more rapid drop in energy prices as this shock has subsided.
    And again, he noted the ongoing growth in corporate profits and the absence of powerful unions as yet more factors for why this time it’s different.
    “It’s an example of how we are slaves to our historical parallels,” he said. “We potentially overreact even if the underlying situation is different.”
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    I am risk adverse by nature, but without a pension ( except SS) I knew my wife and I would have to depend on our investments for living expenses, vacations weddings etc when we retired.
    Much of what I read pointed out that retiring into a multi year bear market would be a big problem, so we reduced equities after 60, and two years into retirement we are about 40%. If there is a significant pull back will increase it. After two or three years into retirement I am more comfortable knowing our basic living expenxes etc.
    @sma3 - While some esteemed posters appear to disagree with you, the expert from Schwab I linked earlier would appear to agree:
    As you put together your retirement portfolio, you also need to think about the role your savings will play in your overall income plan. For example, how much income do you expect from guaranteed sources like annuities, pensions, and Social Security? - "If these guaranteed income streams will generate enough income to cover the majority of your expenses, you might be able to maintain a more aggressive stance with your portfolio well into retirement … Conversely, if you'll rely on your portfolio for the majority of your income, you'll need to take a more balanced approach with your investments”
    https://www.schwab.com/retirement-portfolio
    Having both pension and SS, I view investments mainly as a growth asset - an enhancement to an already comfortable subsistence. If it were all I had to live on, I’d probably view them more as an income generator. Those aren’t mutually exclusive. But it does, I think, highlight two very different perspectives. The other side of the coin is that folks with pensions paid for that during their working years, whether by regular payroll deductions or by working for lower compensation than they might have received elsewhere where a pension did not exist. So it’s likely the “non-pensioners” retired with a much greater nest-egg to safeguard - provided skill-sets were similar.
    -
    PS - I’m actually somewhat more aggressive today than when I retired 25 years ago. Those 25 years didn’t go to waste. I read Fund Alarm and Mutual Fund Observer and learned immensely from those people. And, in retirement there’s time to read about and study the markets that you didn’t have while employed. I suppose to an extent the more advanced technology and “at demand” information flow has helped, although that one’s a 2-edged sword.