PRWCX flat 01 Nov. 2018

Crash

[Comment replaced - Snowball] "I am concerned about a single day's performance." PRWCX is my biggest holding. The rest of the Market zoomed up on Nov 1st. PRWCX was FLAT.

Um... WTF? I understand the fund is heavier into (defensive) utilities lately. I understand that a bit less than 25% of the portfolio is in bonds. I understand that the fund does write some shorts against its holdings. Fair Market Pricing? ORK? It simply sucks to see the fund lying FLAT on a day like today.

Mark

Long ago when I was interested in this sort of behavior I found it helped to look at the movement in the top 10-20 positions of the portfolio.

hank

Hi Crash, The fund has morphed over the years into pretty much a “go anywhere” fund. Pretty darn hard to “read” its daily behavior for that reason. I knew they played with derivatives. Wasn’t aware (as you claim) it shorts stocks - but it wouldn’t surprise me. One thought - Gold (and materials) had an uncharacteristically big day Thursday. So if the fund is shorting any of that stuff, it would have gotten dinged. Even if substantially “underweight” materials (but not shorting) it would have lagged some of the broader indexes. TRP has been bearish on the commodities / materials sectors for several years.

Compared to many other conservative equity / balanced funds, PRWCX is still having a respectable year. DODBX is positive but lags it. OAKBX and RPGAX are actually in the red.

PRWCX - Lipper Breakdown (From Reuters)
http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/US/funds/holdings.asp?YYY622_6sBkEkBoRVEDVUmnzYdySBuZTH3KwZb8EX/lL+8rQLfc70v/pOneMtJCmBtqvYsy

TOP 10 HOLDINGS % of Assets (Change vs 1Q Ago)

1 Keurig Dr Pepper Inc ORD
KDP
4.2%
(+11.0%)

2 T Rowe Price Government Money Fund
PRRXX.O
4.1%

3 Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc ORD
MMC
3.2%
(+2.1%)

4 Microsoft Corp ORD
MSFT.O
3.0%
(-1.5%)

5 Fiserv Inc ORD
FISV.O
2.9%
(-0.4%)

6 Becton Dickinson and Co ORD
BDX
2.9%
(-4.5%)

7 Danaher Corp ORD
DHR
2.7%
(-0.9%)

8 PerkinElmer Inc ORD
PKI
2.7%
(-5.5%)

9 Visa Inc ORD
V
2.5%
(+1.4%)

10 Fidelity National Information Services Inc ORD
FIS
2.4%
(+0.7%)

@Crash - Try drinking more Keurig Coffee & Dr Pepper. It might boost your return.

MikeM

If there is any solace for your 1 day disappointment with this fund, maybe this will help. From Oct. 1st to Oct. 29th, the S&P 500 dropped 9.9%. PRWCX dropped about 1/2 of that, 5.5%. No BS!!! Shouldn't that matter more?

hank

Mark said:

Long ago when I was interested in this sort of behavior,
I found it helped to look at the movement in the top 10-20 positions of the portfolio.

MikeM said:

If there is any solace for your 1 day disappointment with this fund, maybe this will help. From Oct. 1st to Oct. 29th, the S&P 500 dropped 9.9%. PRWCX dropped about 1/2 of that, 5.5%. No BS!!!
Shouldn't that matter more?

You are both infinitely wise.

Crash

MikeM said:

If there is any solace for your 1 day disappointment with this fund, maybe this will help. From Oct. 1st to Oct. 29th, the S&P 500 dropped 9.9%. PRWCX dropped about 1/2 of that, 5.5%. No BS!!! Shouldn't that matter more?

Um.... @MikeM: yes. It DOES matter more. Thanks for so rudely dismissing what I asked about.

davidrmoran

>> don't give me the standard bullshit line about how I should not be concerned about a single day's performance. PRWCX is my biggest holding. The rest of the Market zoomed up on Nov 1st. PRWCX was FLAT.
>> Um... WTF? I understand the fund is heavier into (defensive) utilities lately. I understand that a bit less than 25% of the portfolio is in bonds. I understand that the fund does write some shorts against its holdings. Fair Market Pricing? ORK? It simply sucks to see the fund lying FLAT on a day like today.

I don't imagine that anyone here can divine its inner workings much better than you, but a disinterested adviser, or even friend, might suggest that if a flat day with the market up bends you so sorely, maybe you should get into something else?

Ted

@MFO Members: "davidmoran said, "if a flat day with the market up bends you so sorely, maybe you should get into something else?" Now that's hitting the nail on the head. Anyone who is concerned about a funds one day's performance should not be allowed to invest.
Regards,
Ted

Crash

[comment removed - Snowball]

VintageFreak

@Crash. I solve your sort of problem by making sure my largest holding is one that will never cause me grief because I hold many mutual funds. Of course, this is supposed to be a no-no, but it works for me. How do you think I suffered my "largest holdings" like HSGFX, FAIRX, etc? They were the largest but never large enough.

FWIW. If you owned 20 funds and PRWCX was 10% of your portfolio maybe you wouldn't feel the way you did. If you had 40, you would be numb.

PS - I have a botched root canal and another fractured tooth next to it and quite loopy on drugs. But still, my name is VF and I approve this message.

AndyJ

Hey Crash, ignore the subtext and focus on Mike's suggestion. Anytime you wonder about a fund's performance vs. the market, first order of biz is to look at individual holdings. Also, sector concentrations can sometimes help suss out the differences.

On holdings, M* shows the top 25 on the Portfolio/Holdings pages (the top 100 if you pay the premium). The Equity View tab shows YTD gains/losses of each one, and the Equity Prices tab shows that day's results. Here's PRWCX.

Crash

@AndyJ I appreciate the response. You're right.

Roy

@crash

I was expecting a nice gain for PRWCX that day as well and was even in denial for awhile that evening thinking the NAV had not been updated yet. Once reality set in I took comfort in knowing how much PRWCX had killed it over the past 12 years of our being shareholders of the fund. Every actively managed fund will have a day where it is out of step with the market. Otherwise, it's an index fund.

Crash

+1.