Consolidating Mutual Fund help

mcmarasco

I am trying to reduce the number of MFs I own and would like some thoughts and suggestions on one, maybe two I could/should eliminate in the "Mod. Alloc." category.

I own:

OAKBX (Oakmark Bal.), I know M* categorizes this as "Aggressive", but I consider it Mod.

FPACX (FPA Cresent)

WHGIX (Westwood Income), I know this WAS a Conservative Alloc fund, but the last couple of years it has landed in the Mod. arena

FYI, I also own HBLIX (Hartford Bal.) on the Conserv. Alloc side.

Maybe I'm answering my own question, but when I compare the 3, 5 year metrixs OAKBX comes in a distant last. But I often see many "experts" and other MF board members talk very highly of it. Even the 1, 3 and 5-year annualized returns are no better.

Any thoughts or suggestions??



Thank you,

Matt

Mark

About OAKBX - I had owned this fund for over 15 years but recently sold it for a couple of reasons. One, as you mentioned it had started to lag it's peer's on a consistent basis and two, I built my own equity income/dividend income fund to do the same job I had been paying the Oakmark managers to do saving myself those management fees. NO, I do not think that I am smarter or more clever than they are but I could choose equally or less riskier stocks then this fund holds and get paid a higher yield to do so. That increased yield was really what I was after. YMMV

hank

OAKBX may do better when energy recovers. They seem to attempt balancing opposing market elements to a greater degree than many conservative allocation funds do. Energy is one part of that equation and it certainly hasn't paid off recently.

Peer group leader PRWCX (which I also own) has an edge on ER and has outperformed for the past several years. But the two investment approaches are quite different (despite the funds often being lumped together by observors).

OAKBX is a hard fund to categorize in part because of the balancing act they attempt. (When the parts are working well, volatility appears low). Also, the managers vary market exposure according to their read on market valuation. I hold it in my conservative/hybrid sleeve - but there have been periods when it appeared more aggressive,

* Nice chart by Charles. He is correct in the moderate allocation label for OAKBX and that label agrees with both Lipper and M*. Personally (I realize that counts little) I consider OAKBX and PRWCX both to be at the upper (aggressive) end of the conservative allocation spectrum.

(I've owned OAKBX for 8-10 years and PRWCX for about 20)

Charles

mcmarasco

Thank you all for your thoughts and opinions; they are of help!!!

Edit: Charles is there anyway I can produce the Risk/Reward charts????

Thanks, Matt