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David Snowball's April Commentary Is Now Available
Charles got to spend some serious time with quant investors and shares his experiences at, and conclusions from, the Democratizing Quant Investing conference.
Ed reflects on the ripple effects from interest rate rises to the housing market to the surrounding communities. And, too, being a avid reader, offers a recommendation for a novel he's just finished.
I walk folks through my non-retirement portfolio, less because anyone (other than family) cares about my portfolio and more because it's an opportunity to talk about the process of thinking about such things and the tools available for testing your thoughts.
Our Morningstar Minute talks a bit about Morningstar's new quant rating system; the short version is that they've discovered that their machine has learned to be about as good as their analysts, and is learning more. They now have ratings for all funds.
Profile of Guinness Atkinson Global Innovators, following a meeting I had with the company president and one of the managers. As long as you don't mind volatility (sharper than average drops, faster than average recovery), it's both sensible and profitable.
Speaking of "innovators," Sam Stewart - founder of the Wasatch Funds - appears to be heading out the door, taking Wasatch Strategic Income and Wasatch World Innovators with him. At the same time, they're merging Long/Short into Value. It was easy to be supportive of the former as long as the original First Monogram management team was in place, less possible thereafter.
T. Rowe Price has launched a hedge-like fund, Multi-Asset Total Return. Six "sleeves," with several of their younger hot shots managing them. A logical landing spot might be in their five-star Global Allocation fund, which currently devotes 10% of assets to a Blackstone hedge fund.
And then there was other stuff!
Hope you enjoy it. Me, I'm just staring out the door and grumbling about the fact that it's in the teens here when it should be ... oh, 20 degrees warmer to start the day.
With regard to manager changes at Walthausen, Gerard Heffernan appears to have replaced DeForest Hinman who had been promoted last June to Portfolio Manager. The new prospectus says that only John Walthausen and Mr. Heffernan are managers of the two funds. It might matter because Mr. W is not young.
David has added a nice additional comment re TMSRX’s style premia since he originally published his April 1 Commentary. Thank you David. I continue to be intrigued by this new offering by T Rowe Price. However, I’d expect it to go over like a lead balloon among most here and most investors. I also fear it may be somewhat susceptible to “hot money” flows - finding itself in high demand during market downturns and suffering outflows during rising markets.
On the other hand, if anybody can run this type of “hedged” multi-asset fund successfully it’s probably T. Rowe, due to their proven expertise in allocating assets and deep research bench. Time will tell. Not a fund for young investors with long time horizons. May appeal to what @Ted euphemistically terms the “old f*** ” crowd.
(I’ve opened a small position and may add.) -
Edit: Some quick impressions based on following the fund for a week. It currently appears totally uncollolated with the major equity indexes - sometimes moving in an opposite direction. On one day when the Dow fell 400+ points, the fund actually gained a couple cents. I’ll assume it opened at $10, so it’s up slightly since opening in late February. I sold Oppenheimer’s Fundamental Alternatives A (QVOPX) to make room for this one. Comparing the two, QVOPX, run by Michelle Borre, is much more correlated with equities.
Been trying to get a Fund Report at T. Rowe - but the fund is so new they don’t yet have one to download.
We often make small rewrites in the week following publication of an issue. Charles, for example, went in and added links to one of the stories. Adding the explanation of style premia was a bit bigger than usual, but I was really flummoxed about the strategy at the time of publication and grateful for the clarity of a reader's explanation of it to me. I was glad to make the larger edit.
Comments
Quick highlights.
Charles got to spend some serious time with quant investors and shares his experiences at, and conclusions from, the Democratizing Quant Investing conference.
Ed reflects on the ripple effects from interest rate rises to the housing market to the surrounding communities. And, too, being a avid reader, offers a recommendation for a novel he's just finished.
I walk folks through my non-retirement portfolio, less because anyone (other than family) cares about my portfolio and more because it's an opportunity to talk about the process of thinking about such things and the tools available for testing your thoughts.
Our Morningstar Minute talks a bit about Morningstar's new quant rating system; the short version is that they've discovered that their machine has learned to be about as good as their analysts, and is learning more. They now have ratings for all funds.
Profile of Guinness Atkinson Global Innovators, following a meeting I had with the company president and one of the managers. As long as you don't mind volatility (sharper than average drops, faster than average recovery), it's both sensible and profitable.
Speaking of "innovators," Sam Stewart - founder of the Wasatch Funds - appears to be heading out the door, taking Wasatch Strategic Income and Wasatch World Innovators with him. At the same time, they're merging Long/Short into Value. It was easy to be supportive of the former as long as the original First Monogram management team was in place, less possible thereafter.
T. Rowe Price has launched a hedge-like fund, Multi-Asset Total Return. Six "sleeves," with several of their younger hot shots managing them. A logical landing spot might be in their five-star Global Allocation fund, which currently devotes 10% of assets to a Blackstone hedge fund.
And then there was other stuff!
Hope you enjoy it. Me, I'm just staring out the door and grumbling about the fact that it's in the teens here when it should be ... oh, 20 degrees warmer to start the day.
David
Yep - You read my mind on that one David. I hope they don’t do that. Kinda like the wider diversification the Blackstone fund provides.
-
Enjoyed the reading recommendation from Ed. However, the passage he quotes bears an erie resemblance to current affairs.
David has added a nice additional comment re TMSRX’s style premia since he originally published his April 1 Commentary. Thank you David. I continue to be intrigued by this new offering by T Rowe Price. However, I’d expect it to go over like a lead balloon among most here and most investors. I also fear it may be somewhat susceptible to “hot money” flows - finding itself in high demand during market downturns and suffering outflows during rising markets.
On the other hand, if anybody can run this type of “hedged” multi-asset fund successfully it’s probably T. Rowe, due to their proven expertise in allocating assets and deep research bench. Time will tell. Not a fund for young investors with long time horizons. May appeal to what @Ted euphemistically terms the “old f*** ” crowd.
(I’ve opened a small position and may add.)
-
Edit: Some quick impressions based on following the fund for a week. It currently appears totally uncollolated with the major equity indexes - sometimes moving in an opposite direction. On one day when the Dow fell 400+ points, the fund actually gained a couple cents. I’ll assume it opened at $10, so it’s up slightly since opening in late February. I sold Oppenheimer’s Fundamental Alternatives A (QVOPX) to make room for this one. Comparing the two, QVOPX, run by Michelle Borre, is much more correlated with equities.
Been trying to get a Fund Report at T. Rowe - but the fund is so new they don’t yet have one to download.
FWIW
Thanks for keeping an eye on it for us.
We often make small rewrites in the week following publication of an issue. Charles, for example, went in and added links to one of the stories. Adding the explanation of style premia was a bit bigger than usual, but I was really flummoxed about the strategy at the time of publication and grateful for the clarity of a reader's explanation of it to me. I was glad to make the larger edit.
Cheers,
David