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Here is an excellent example of lying with charts. This Latin America fund looks amazingly steady and yet the recent losses have been worse than at any time since 2008 - all thanks to a bizarre construction of the y-axis.
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Since May of 2015 through the last down draft (8/15), the fund experienced a 25% loss similar to EEM (Emerging Market Index).
Brazil and Mexico seem to occupy many of the top 25 holdings of this fund and the fund doesn't spread itself around too much with only 46 holdings and with the top 25 holdings making up about 82% of the fund's holdings according to M*.
Where did the author of "Daily Shots" obtain his chart???
http://www3.troweprice.com/fb2/fbkweb/snapshot.do?ticker=PRLAX&van=lam
http://individual.troweprice.com/gcFiles/pdf/srlam.pdf
I've added this link to the original post.
They used increments that were uniform and regular. Somebody - at least internally - should receive a spanking here, IMHO.
[*] For example - TRP New Era's vertical axis has [10K, 20K, 30K, 40K, 50K, 60K] values on its vertical axis.
baronfunds.com/BaronFunds/media/Quarterly-Reports/Quarterly-Report-063015.pdf
When I looked at the table, I said to myself, "Huh?" There are column headers for 10-year, 5-year, and 3-year returns along with average excess returns. I had to study the table and footnotes for 30 minutes to see what they did. At first (and second) glance, one would get the impression that BSCFX has been performing wonderfully. By using the entire history of the fund, they have whitewashed over its "recent" performance. BSCFX uses the Russell 2000 Growth Index as its primary prospectus benchmark. I looked at returns of BSCFX compared to the ETF IWO (iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF). If you were a new investor, or added to your account in the past 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, or 13 years, you would have trailed the ETF/benchmark, and with a higher tax cost ratio.
Number of Years Cumulative Return BSCFX
Begin Date End Date BSCFX IWO Annualized Underperformance
6/30/2002 6/30/2015 13 226.34% 252.77% -0.66%
6/30/2003 6/30/2015 12 223.88% 250.71% -0.73%
6/30/2004 6/30/2015 11 156.60% 167.07% -0.40%
6/30/2005 6/30/2015 10 120.37% 156.46% -1.65%
6/30/2006 6/30/2015 9 104.96% 124.22% -1.09%
6/30/2007 6/30/2015 8 71.40% 92.24% -1.54%
6/30/2008 6/30/2015 7 99.71% 115.67% -1.22%
6/30/2009 6/30/2015 6 154.73% 186.54% -2.31%
6/30/2010 6/30/2015 5 113.90% 142.93% -3.00%
6/30/2011 6/30/2015 4 51.67% 69.41% -3.11%
6/30/2012 6/30/2015 3 57.98% 73.93% -3.80%
6/30/2013 6/30/2015 2 27.52% 40.43% -5.58%
6/30/2014 6/30/2015 1 4.05% 12.54% -8.49%
I found Baron's report egregiously deceptive. When this fund was new and nimble, it sidestepped the dot.com debacle. Since then, its quacks like an index fund with a grossly high 1.30% ER. Even as assets continue to overwhelm this fund, it continues to charge a 0.25% 12b-1 fee to attract even more assets.
Thanks for note. I think [can you confirm] that you are talking about the table that appears on the bottom of "Page 9", which I agree is a complex mess.
HOWEVER, the linked document ALSO contains a table that appears on the left side of "Page 28". [*]
That table includes performance for 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, and [wait for it] "since inception".
If you look at that table - which compares the Baron Small Cap Fund to the R2000 Growth & the S&P500 indices, it is clear that the fund has under-performed both, *consistently* for the last 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years.
Another way to see this is to look at the M* [Performance] tab for this fund:
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/performance-return.action?t=BSCFX
for these periods. If you do - as of 09-02-2015 - you will see that the fund has been resting fairly consistently among the bottom (worst) third or so of its peers for the last 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years.
To almost coin a phrase, there is no need to feed this dog. This dog won't hunt. Thanks to the folks at Baron for providing (diligent at least) investors with the table (on Page 28) that shows the weakness of the fund.
[*] Note: If someone knows how to link images and has the time, that would be a great help! Thanks [!] in advance [?].
You can use this tool to select various time periods, and (once the buttons are working, which they were as of Sep 3) you can easily see the extent to which the fund has under-performed it's R2000 Growth Benchmark.
Thank you, Crash, for confirming.
Thanks again, meconti!