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What do you think of the Fairholme Fund? (FAIRX) Any good concentrated alternatives?
What do you think of the Fairholme Fund? I am curious who had owned it and either still own it or have replaced it? Know any good alternatives with a decent long term track record? They should be a focused fund either focusing on the USA or international.
As a former long-time owner this used to be one heckuva good fund. Somewhere the managers reasoning/managing ability train veered way off the tracks and hasn't been seen since. I personally would not invest in this fund today even if you let me use your money. I really prefer focused funds, just not this one.
@Mgconsits - you asked "Which focused funds do you like?" I can't help you there. I own very few funds these days having switched to a dividend growth investing portfolio for the income provided. Hopefully others more in tune with the current mutual fund world will chime in. Sorry.
AKREX/AKRIX: my all time favorite. Chuck Akre is a getting up there in years but he hasn't disappointed. His fund typically is called 'Growth' but he's a Value Manager.
@BrianW: Agree with you that AKREX is top of class. But I respectfully disagree with calling them a value shop. Their primary concern is a company's ability to compound its growth over time. They aren't overly concerned with price, they don't hold cash, they don't look for dividend payers, etc. They are pure growth. Don't mean to be picky, but shareholders should know that in a major correction, AKREX will behave like any other growth fund.
@ Maurice makes an excellent call here. It is also my recollection that FAIRX early on was very heavy in BRK. So basically, Berkowitz's success was to ride the coat tails of maybe the greatest investor of all time. You could call FAIRX a focused fund back in the day but early on, was that really the case? BRK is a diversified conglomerate. That was a huge part of FAIRX. FAIRX lost it's success when it moved away from BRK and it truly did become a "focused" fund with very few holding.
I would suggest Bruce's only investing intelligence was to invest with Warren Buffet. When his ego got the best of him and he thought he could do better without Buffet, he failed.
Interesting call on BRK.B Maurice. It may not be a mutual fund but it is concentrated and it's hard to argue with it's success. I'm not sure that I'd buy it here but I'd look hard at it during a market correction. One negative if you can call it that would be manager succession once Mr's Buffett and Munger decide to step away.
If you can forgive them for their Valeant sins SEQUX, the Sequioa Fund, might also be worth looking at. They only have 25-30 holdings generally and BRK A&B are a large part of them.
Another vote for AKREX, which I own. My theory for investing in this was a 'Good/Great manager and new fund', I was aboard as soon as they opened the fund. Akre had a great record at FBR focussed fund (Hennessy Focussed now) before he left from there and started his own (this) fund.
You may be right with the current composition of the fund, but that was not always the case in the funds Akre managed. I vaguely remember that his FBR focuss fund (managed with the same philosophy) had large amounts of cash (it was close to 30% or so) before 2000-02 Tech & Telecom crash and that fund did not crash even though it was growth oriented. Of course, that market was skewed with only tech & telecom in bubble (not other sectors of growth index, where he typically invests). If a correction occurs now with elevated prices across all asset classes (including market cap classifications), I believe it would suffer as you suggested.
Comments
Edited to add: Here is a somewhat recent article from Kiplinger's on the subject:
https://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T041-C016-S002-6-great-funds-that-benefit-from-small-portfolios.html
but Google search on "concentrated mutual funds" for more.
"Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?"
Says it all...
I would suggest Bruce's only investing intelligence was to invest with Warren Buffet. When his ego got the best of him and he thought he could do better without Buffet, he failed.
If you can forgive them for their Valeant sins SEQUX, the Sequioa Fund, might also be worth looking at. They only have 25-30 holdings generally and BRK A&B are a large part of them.
You may be right with the current composition of the fund, but that was not always the case in the funds Akre managed. I vaguely remember that his FBR focuss fund (managed with the same philosophy) had large amounts of cash (it was close to 30% or so) before 2000-02 Tech & Telecom crash and that fund did not crash even though it was growth oriented. Of course, that market was skewed with only tech & telecom in bubble (not other sectors of growth index, where he typically invests). If a correction occurs now with elevated prices across all asset classes (including market cap classifications), I believe it would suffer as you suggested.