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Never understood this yearly feature in Barron's. A fund family ranking has never influenced me nor, I dare say, has it had much effect on buys/sells of the active investors on MFO. I realize that people have accounts at Vanguard, Price, American Century, etc., and that they like those firms for various reasons. I wonder if the Barron's thing isn't similar to Consumer Reports ratings in that a positive rating merely confirms my previous choice and makes me feel better. I buy Hondas because they're great cars and it's nice that a reputable magazine thinks as I do.
Couple excerpts (Page S4, Barron's print edition, February 13, 2017):
--- "This year's top-ranked fund family, Natixis Global Asset Management, rebounded from second-to-last in 2015."
--- "Unlike most investment stories in Barron's, the emphasis of this ranking is on one-year returns."
The article attributes Oakmark's OAKIX, Natixis' largest fund, having beaten 97% of its Lipper peers in 2016 with much of Natixis' success for the year. And Natixis' second largest fund, Oakmark's OAKMX, beat 99% of its peers.
(Harris Assiciates, based in Chicago, operates the Oakmark Funds. Harris is part of the much larger French based Natixis financial group.) Couple months ago I suggested in a thread that I considered Oakmark one of the most "underappreciated" fund families. That said, these rankings don't amount to a rat's rear end as another board member opines.
The article suggests that the year's results reflect, in part, increasing success of active managers compared with passive investments after their having lagged for many years. The article also provides 5 and 10 year rankings, with Pimco scoring at the top for both longer periods. T. Rowe Price is near the top in the 5 and 10 year rankings, but falls to #30 in 2016. A skeptic might interpret that to mean the equity markets are currently seriously overvalued.
Speaking of fake. The word might apply to these rankings.
(From same article cited above): "All told, just 61 asset managers out of a total of 883 in Lipper's database had the diversified menu of equity and fixed-income funds to meet the criteria for this ranking."
Janus and Dodge and Cox were excluded from consideration because of failure to offer either a municipal or a tax-exempt bond fund.
American Funds received a very positive write up. Their ranking: 2016: #4 5-year: #6 10-year: #21
Comments
--- "This year's top-ranked fund family, Natixis Global Asset Management, rebounded from second-to-last in 2015."
--- "Unlike most investment stories in Barron's, the emphasis of this ranking is on one-year returns."
The article attributes Oakmark's OAKIX, Natixis' largest fund, having beaten 97% of its Lipper peers in 2016 with much of Natixis' success for the year. And Natixis' second largest fund, Oakmark's OAKMX, beat 99% of its peers.
(Harris Assiciates, based in Chicago, operates the Oakmark Funds. Harris is part of the much larger French based Natixis financial group.) Couple months ago I suggested in a thread that I considered Oakmark one of the most "underappreciated" fund families. That said, these rankings don't amount to a rat's rear end as another board member opines.
The article suggests that the year's results reflect, in part, increasing success of active managers compared with passive investments after their having lagged for many years. The article also provides 5 and 10 year rankings, with Pimco scoring at the top for both longer periods. T. Rowe Price is near the top in the 5 and 10 year rankings, but falls to #30 in 2016. A skeptic might interpret that to mean the equity markets are currently seriously overvalued.
(From same article cited above): "All told, just 61 asset managers out of a total of 883 in Lipper's database had the diversified menu of equity and fixed-income funds to meet the criteria for this ranking."
Janus and Dodge and Cox were excluded from consideration because of failure to offer either a municipal or a tax-exempt bond fund.
American Funds received a very positive write up. Their ranking:
2016: #4
5-year: #6
10-year: #21