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Can somebody give a convincing argument in favor of PRPFX? For the first 20 years of the existence of this fund it was doing quite poorly. But even a broken clock shows right time twice a day. This fund was doing great lately for the last 10 years or so, but only because of the simultaneous advance of bonds, golds and Swiss franc. Such coincidences are possible but they do not happen often. Now it is still 44% in bonds and cash, which probably will not propel it any further. If one believes in gold and Swiss franc, there are cheaper and more concentrated ways to invest there. This is also the point of view expressed in M*. But maybe I am totally wrong and there are reasons to expect that this fund will continue doing well even without support of bonds? Or we should just hope that the wind will blow in the same direction for the next few months, and invest in PRPFX until it stops doing well?
I have been a big fan of marketfield. Won't blow the socks off during a market rally but they really make good use of shorting. Best of all they lowered their min down to $2,500 from $25,000. I bought mine though fidelity.
Hi Andrei- I'm a little surprised at the lack of input re PRPFX- you raise very good questions and I'd like to hear a bit more myself. I get the feeling that many of the regular posters are somewhat scarce in the past few weeks- the general activity level seems unusually low for some reason. Maybe everybody's just bummed out by the general economic situation, and prefer not to think too much at this point. I could sure understand that!
Reply to @Old_Joe: I think there's definitely less activity on the board for a number of reasons, including the fact that the sort of macro (and sometimes political) discussions that became larger debates/discussions haven't happened as much here. That, and given the amount of selling of mutual funds that continues onward, maybe less frequent posters do not have as much interest in discussing funds.
Reply to @andrei: Earliest history of this fund was under a different management. It is sort of a derivative of Harry Bronwne's Permament Portfolio. It has components that do well in each market condition. Right now, 2 or 3 of its 4 cylinders are online. 4th one is not firing so its a drag. However, in a strong stock bull market this portfolio tends to lag. Are we due to such a market? It does not look like so but who knows.
Reply to @Old_Joe: Seems to me posting spikes in the good times and drops off during "ho hum" markets. Human nature I guess. Here's a few YTD returns: S&P -1.4%, gold funds -13.2%, PRPFX +4.21%. Yep, I for one feeling brain dead from all the crazy stuff. Nations dropping like dominos in Europe. Near paralysis and extreme partisanship at home. Corzine down in smoke. Earthquake, hurricane, blizzard out east.....Yikes!
Comments
Recent equity fund outflows (in millions)
10/12/2011 10/19/2011 10/26/2011 11/2/2011 11/9/2011
Total Equity -7,397 -3,288 -3,887 -3,280 -4,643
Does anyone know the reason for the big return in 2009? For other years, the
performance is satisfactory, but not spectacular.