New feature request (same as the old feature)

indianrediff

I was wondering if it would be possible for us to resurrect the alarms that FundAlarm had popularised so much. It made analysis a no-brainer, and the list was very handy to use to determine whether any new (impulse) investment was going to be a drain or an x-bagger.

So my questions are:
1) Is the concept of 1-alarm, 2-alarm and 3-alarm trademarked by FundAlarm?
2) Are the terms x-Alarm copyrighted/trademarked?
3) Can we come up with something similar (MFO's comes to mind) that could be used?
eg., 1-MFOed, 3-MFOed and 5-MFOed and 10-MFOed - or something similar that is similar yet distinct from the 1,2,3 alams?

Is there any interest in taking this thought further?

Indian Rediff

Greg

I second this suggestion. I really miss the old data tables. IMHO, it was the very best feature of the old FundAlarm site

[Deleted User]

I agree. The old FundAlarm alarms were objective and very useful.

Archaic

Investor

Old 3-alarms were completely based on past data. Yes, it was objective but there is no secret to it and it had questionable predictability of future performance. It was based on 1, 3, 5 year returns as far as I know vs a chosen benchmark for the fund. The benchmarks were not always accurate either.

AndyJ

There was also a risk score from +2 to -2, I think it was. As a snapshot for a fund you weren't familiar with, the alarm pages were really useful.

The benchmark miss I remember most was that global funds were compared to a foreign-only index. Also, I think small caps were benchmarked against large-cap or all-cap indexes. Once I realized that, I could take it into account.

It might be a tall order to resurrect that for a wide universe of funds. I don't know how 'automated' the process was; think I remember Roy telling us it was pretty time-consuming to come up with the scores each month. I suppose it might be easier nowadays to set it up so it's more automatic, but it'd probably be a really big job to do the setup -- Investor prob'ly has an idea how much work that would take.

AJ

Investor

Reply to @AndyJ: It is fair amount of work but can be automated. The bigger issue is getting the data (Roy was buying M* data monthly as far as remember). We can pull data from finance.yahoo.com but one thing is to do it as an individual, other is to do it from another web site. If you chose to buy the data, you have to raise it somehow. Since this web site does not offer ads, that would simply increase the costs for David for running this site.

Roy's database was also missing a lot of funds that was hard to categorize because he could not pair with an easy index (alternatives, mix-assets etc). I think the forum and commentary was the greatest assets of FA and we have those here.

Greg

Any chance that the data charts could be added to the site as a "premium option" that would charge those of us who would be willing to pay for it???

David_Snowball

I'm willing to think about it. There are four considerations that kept me from tracking "alarming funds" from the get-go.

1. I'd need to secure the technical expertise to create it -- I'm pretty much clueless on what would actually have to happen.

2. I'd need to find or hire a programmer to do the monthly updates -- in truth, I'm running flat-out as it is (the site, parenthood, three classes, 32 advisees, administrative responsibilities to the college and a desultory research program) -- and I'm not willing to dump more work on Chip and Accipiter.

3. as Investor notes, it'll cost - though I know not what.

And, most importantly,

4. it's clear how much predictive validity the model has. At base, I'm not sure whether 2010's "alarming" funds actually underperformed the market in 2011, for instance, or whether the "honor roll" outperformed it. It might be that the "most alarming" funds remain consistently alarming, but the research on the predictive value of winners' performance is pretty discouraging.

So, in any case, that's the sort of stuff I've been pondering. I want to the site to be as useful and accessible as possible, but I also want to be sure that we're able to sustain whichever initiatives we start.

Back to grading!

David

Accipiter

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[Deleted User]

For me those 'alarm' tables held little value. Many funds were benchmarked to inappropriate indexes. I was a 'regular' at fundalarm for a long time and just about never paid any attention to the tables. If a poster asked what was up with the '3 alarm' rating for a certain fund I might check and it was almost always compared to the wrong index.

catch22

I agree with Ed. I "found" FundAlarm via a link to the funds data; but I did not find much value that could not be readily determined for one's own judgements and investigation from other sources. The real jewel discovered at FA is when I finally clicked the discussion link.

Regards,
Catch

Accipiter

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