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FYI: Click On Article Title At Top oF Google Search) More than 100 funds claim to be bearish, but only five have managers who short individual stocks. As market falters, consider these funds. Regards, Ted https://www.google.com/#q=The+Best+Bear+Funds++Barron's
( The Linkster says, Next to death and taxes another sure thing you will lose money if you invest invest in a Bear Market Fund over time !)
Prefer to use cash and patience instead. Having tracking a number of alternate strategies for the last several years, only sure thing is that the fund managers are paid very nicely.
I don't use any bear or stable value funds, but my largest fund holding is VDIGX which does perform fairly well in down markets compared to S + P or other blend funds. In a true down market, there are very few places to hide other than cash, but almost all of my equity funds are in IRAS, which I don't need to tap until 2021, so I tend to ride it out. My only recent exception is I dumped my MLP funds, figuring trying to achieve a 100% comeback to get me back to even is unlikely in the near future.
I think bear funds can be used in conjunction with long only funds as a far cheaper synthetic substitute for long-short mutual funds. While I respect investors who object to any sort of shorting on principle, it seems hypocritical to me for any investor to embrace long short mutual funds and not consider the cheaper alternative of building their own. Not only are the fees far less for buying a low cost long-only fund like VASFX or DODGX and combining it with a short fund like GRZZX than the average l-s mutual, but there is also a far greater level of flexibility. You the investor control the amount of hedging you want to do. If you are also investing in a taxable account, you can harvest tax losses far more efficiently than a l-s fund. If the market is up and your bear fund is down, you can sell some of your shares to realize capital losses for a write off. If the market is down and you have losses on your long only fund, you can sell those shares for a tax loss instead. A l-s fund lacks that kind of flexibility and you are essentially paying 1.85% on average for a lightly hedged long portfolio.
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