Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
If you believe it is possible to recapture the loss to your portfolio, to whatever level you choose, what investment option(s), (large-cap, mid-cap, small-cap, international large, small, emerging market or gold/silver) would you place your bets and what funds would you have the most confidence for the option(s) you choose.
I am not investment guru/expert, but I would imagine betting on more aggressive heavily stock driven portfolio [90/10], or Emerging market/oversea products may get you back to previous peak soon if there is indeed recovery. Many predict maybe few years before we see dows at 30000 levels. Others say recessions on horizon and unemployment rate maybe extremely high in near future and severe economiccontractions.
For us late 40 years old, has many years until retirement, our portfolio still comprise 80/20, mostly index products. We are also couch potatoes thus we do hold Tdf 2045 funds in vanguard and schwab. We did not sell, hoping for market to recover soon
Our largest holders currently : Brk.b Vanguard primecap core Vanguard emergent market etf VWO EEM Wellington fund vwelx Vanguard star vgstx Fbnd Bnd Vti Voo
Been adding vde qqq and vti last week, even going all way downs
Probably will sell good holding bonds [private-corp bbb ] soon, would need cash to pay uncle Sam 2019 tax next few weeks.
I'm planning on riding the stock market back up with pretty much with what I rode it down with; however, I have increased my allocation to equities from 40% to 45% and reduced cash to from 20% to 15% and kept my fixed at 40%. I added to a couple of my equity income funds and also to a couple of funds held in the growth area of my portfolio at the 8%, 13%, 19%, 26% and 28% decline marks on the S&P 500 Index. With this, I'm positioned and now I await the rebound. In addition, since my portfolio generates a good income stream I'll put some of this income generation back into my portfolio as the stock market rebounds.
Good question ! As of close yesterday the only green I saw in my account was a CD. Cost basis were all red !! Now this brings me to ask. Should I add to funds with the most loss to cost basis or add to one that stood out with a basis loss of less than one % ? Option #2 Sell the biggest losers & buy the ones (MFs) that lost the least. Option #3 Reverse option #2 Option #4 Stay put, do nothing
Experience tell me in order to fully recover the loss that would be time, recovery time that is. During 2008 drawdown, S&P500 index took over 4 years to full recovery the loss from peak to trough. Depending on your asset allocation, it may be shorter (hopefully not longer).
At presence the sell-off is severe, i.e. the rate of decline is even steeper than 2008. There are days when the supposedly opposite asset classes such as bond vs. equity move in the same direction, which indicates panic selling to cash. So jumping to one ship on fire to another is not a viable option to recover the loss.
If you follow Charles Bolin article on MFO, he is near retirement and his portfolio is constructed very conservatively with 20% equity. He should be doing quite well now considering S&P 500 index is down over 30% as of 3/20/2020.
Look around you and see what's working. Don't fall for the head feint to the airlines, hotels, casinos, tourism, Trump Resorts, etc. Sounds like they might get their bailout but they can't get 'demand' from the gov't. Demand for these industries will be depressed for years. Unless you're very, very nimble and are FOD, I'd focus on what will work and have demand going forward.
Video conferencing and anything that replaces F2F with Virtual. Online shopping? Who does it? Who delivers? Schooling? All virtual.
I'm adding to Asia and have been scaling in since just before this broke [yeah, bad timing but I didn't have to wait long to become whole]. For funds, I like the House of Matthews and am riding MPACX, MATFX, MCHFX. Needless to say, I'm all over the pm's with SLV, SILJ, GDXJ, CEF, and some junior miners.
Most of my allocation is overseas at this point - say 85-90%. It's in both bonds and equities, mostly the former.
Good question without an exact answer @Bobpa. What might be good to look for is managers with great track records who had a lot of cash coming into this bear market. AKREX would be my 1st choice to put money back to work. I already own it and it has held up well in a relative sense, so an easy choice for me. There was a lot of discussion on the Yacktman funds a month or 2 ago. YAFFX might be a good consideration. I personally started and have been adding to BRK/B for the reason mentioned above. Berkshire Hathaway has a ton of cash on hand and has been known to put it to work when others are fleeing the market. Many say it has under performed the past few years during the bull, but this could be it's time to shine.
There are probably other good suggestions for great managers with cash on hand.
Is it smart to start taking the losses in taxable accounts and just putting the money to work elsewhere? - ARTGX & TBGVX both have loss i could harvest - but i am hard pressed to find something better in those asset categories
@newgirl, selling now near the bottom is the classic mistake of locking-in your loss. Both funds are well managed and it is not realistic to expect them to somehow outperform in this severe selloff. This will pass and the market will recover fully. The question is how long will it takes.
@Sven. I Totally understand that ! I was not planning on selling and going to cash . I was looking for something substantially similar. Sell the shares in one at the end of the day and roll over to a similar funds, at the same time . SO book the loss and still have the money invested in similar strategy. I am having trouble finding the funds to roll it into.
In severe selloff period, mutual funds within the same asset class tend to be move in lock-step to each each. Both of these funds are value-oriented. You may want to consider growth-oriented global funds which I think they have declined 30% or more.
Hi newgirl! Well, I have a couple real disasters in the port, and think about "trading them in" for something of better merit that's also down. Stuff that's down comes in a few forms: funds/stocks that will outlast my lifetime, and some that are so sick I will outlast them. Boeing/GE make a nice dichotomy (I hold both). For now. Meanwhile, I also hold ARTGX and TBGVX, the Tweedy goes back 20 years or so, and I put it in my kids Roths as well. I wouldn't think of selling either one. It's a fun game. Best, hawk
I am also looking at what to prune and what to add. Two global growth funds, MGGPX and BGAFX, have held up amazingly well. I own the former, but consider the latter to be its equal. As of last night neither fund had lost more than 15% YTD, with the Baron fund at around -9%. All this could change in an instant, but I could see jettisoning APFDX and cutting back on DSENX in favor of one or both of MGGPX or BGAFX. Kind of surprised the Baron fund is not a Great Owl.
In response to newgirl, I have already taken a tax loss in my taxable account and will use the $ to shop when things go on sale. Pick something you don't see yourself wanting to own after the plague and bank the tax loss. Cripes, you know Congress will make it a easy write off.
I have not lost confidence in ARTGX or TBGVX-YAFIX I'd like to replace them with similar as temporary parking place to harvest the losses - ( i am still working - at least I hope so !) DDVIX ( value) and LCEYX dividend - both under performed before the deep dive, but I held on - not wanting to take the gains . All advice wellcome !
I have been harvesting tax losses in my trading pot in cases that provide me the opportunity to improve the quality of its holdings at a reasonable entry point. This downturn is providing those opportunities. My OEFs are almost all long term holdings. However, I am considering selling one of my two EM funds later this spring to harvest a tax loss. Matthews is coming out with a new EM fund I will check out as a possible replacement candidate.
@newgirl It depends. Matthews has a good brand name, i.e. they seem in general to be investor focused and knowledgeable about their investment products. But, there is some sense they are slicing the EM pie into too many pieces by coming out with another new EM product. Also, there will be no performance history you can use to judge how the fund performs in practice. But, sometimes there is a new fund bounce as the fund has low total assets and is able to make opportunistic initial investments in all holdings. So, it depends. One thing I will do is to look into who will be managing the new fund and what its investment universe will include. It is probably safest to pick a fund with a long term performance history. You might want to check out the MFO Premium Multisearch service if you haven't already done that.
@charles -assuming you meant this > "Assess your portfolio--but don't obsess"? Thanks ! not obsessing just trying to make lemonade. I am close to retirement, but still running business. These are all in taxable accounts. I am not touching my 401k .
I'm going to be selling out of ARTJX and taking advantage of the tax loss. I will be adding to AKREX, APGAX, and MGGPX all of which have done pretty well . Has anyone evaluated CPOAX or ARTYX? Both funds have held up really well in this selloff and lead their categories in performance over the long term.
I really like the Matthews funds - esp. MAPIX and MACSX - but they can really slam you with distributions. Of course, not an issue in an IRA. Also really like AKREX - and interestingly, although it looks like it tracks VGT (Vanguard Technology) they have complementary portfolios. RLSFX actually made money this month - a nice touch.
I would not discount a fund that got hammered - if its good in every other respect and just got oversold - It might even be a better candidate . I am still looking for an alternative to ARTGX, and TBGVX that I would not mind holding on to, if the position goes up a lot in the next 30 days. I sold LCEYX & DDVIX today - will buy VIDGX on next dip
If you believe it is possible to recapture the loss to your portfolio, to whatever level you choose, what investment option(s), (large-cap, mid-cap, small-cap, international large, small, emerging market or gold/silver) would you place your bets and what funds would you have the most confidence for the option(s) you choose.
I do have great confidence in David Giroux (spelling?) at PRWCX. I believe his long-term play in utilities is smart. It's still my biggest holding, even after this Virus Crash. I'll not be switching horses in mid-stream.
Ever since early FEBRUARY, wifey and me have been TRYING to get her 403b out of MassMutual and into something else. VEIRX has fallen hard, because it holds a lot of the big-name "pillars" of the current Market. By now, we've rejected VLAAX. ZERO customer service. Papers were filed, all with Signature guarantee. Over a month has gone by, and the phone agents--- well, all they can do is TALK to you. They can't do for some other employee what that other employee should have done...
...So, now, we have settled on Bruce BRUFX. We've requested the paperwork. It hasn't arrived yet. I figure the shut-downs over coronavirus are gonna make this whole thing a not very slick, swift and easy process. Still, the MAIL comes as expected, every day.
I moved to overweight bonds in 2019. RPSIX, PRSNX and PTIAX. Did it help during this current precipitous Market downturn? Not as expected. But ya, my portf is down quite a bit less than it would have been. But the bond funds fell, too! That fact truly smells. "Like Mango Chutney and burnt hair." ....
I'm sticking with my picks. The others, not already mentioned here, are PRIDX and PRDSX. They are deliberately small and very small slices of the portfolio, respectively.
Comments
I am not investment guru/expert, but I would imagine betting on more aggressive heavily stock driven portfolio [90/10], or Emerging market/oversea products may get you back to previous peak soon if there is indeed recovery. Many predict maybe few years before we see dows at 30000 levels. Others say recessions on horizon and unemployment rate maybe extremely high in near future and severe economiccontractions.
For us late 40 years old, has many years until retirement, our portfolio still comprise 80/20, mostly index products. We are also couch potatoes thus we do hold Tdf 2045 funds in vanguard and schwab. We did not sell, hoping for market to recover soon
Our largest holders currently :
Brk.b
Vanguard primecap core
Vanguard emergent market etf VWO
EEM
Wellington fund vwelx
Vanguard star vgstx
Fbnd
Bnd
Vti
Voo
Been adding vde qqq and vti last week, even going all way downs
Probably will sell good holding bonds [private-corp bbb ] soon, would need cash to pay uncle Sam 2019 tax next few weeks.
Regards
Option #2 Sell the biggest losers & buy the ones (MFs) that lost the least.
Option #3 Reverse option #2
Option #4 Stay put, do nothing
All replies taken with a grain of salt.
Derf
At presence the sell-off is severe, i.e. the rate of decline is even steeper than 2008. There are days when the supposedly opposite asset classes such as bond vs. equity move in the same direction, which indicates panic selling to cash. So jumping to one ship on fire to another is not a viable option to recover the loss.
If you follow Charles Bolin article on MFO, he is near retirement and his portfolio is constructed very conservatively with 20% equity. He should be doing quite well now considering S&P 500 index is down over 30% as of 3/20/2020.
Look around you and see what's working. Don't fall for the head feint to the airlines, hotels, casinos, tourism, Trump Resorts, etc. Sounds like they might get their bailout but they can't get 'demand' from the gov't. Demand for these industries will be depressed for years. Unless you're very, very nimble and are FOD, I'd focus on what will work and have demand going forward.
Video conferencing and anything that replaces F2F with Virtual. Online shopping? Who does it? Who delivers? Schooling? All virtual.
I'm adding to Asia and have been scaling in since just before this broke [yeah, bad timing but I didn't have to wait long to become whole]. For funds, I like the House of Matthews and am riding MPACX, MATFX, MCHFX. Needless to say, I'm all over the pm's with SLV, SILJ, GDXJ, CEF, and some junior miners.
Most of my allocation is overseas at this point - say 85-90%. It's in both bonds and equities, mostly the former.
Good luck,
peace, and flatten the curve,
rono
There are probably other good suggestions for great managers with cash on hand.
I'll add to the bond funds when there is some profit to rebalance into them. For now they are on their own.
I have not added to any of the outre funds that might prosper when the aliens invade. Or when inflation takes off. Whichever comes first.
Meanwhile, I also hold ARTGX and TBGVX, the Tweedy goes back 20 years or so, and I put it in my kids Roths as well. I wouldn't think of selling either one.
It's a fun game.
Best, hawk
In response to newgirl, I have already taken a tax loss in my taxable account and will use the $ to shop when things go on sale. Pick something you don't see yourself wanting to own after the plague and bank the tax loss. Cripes, you know Congress will make it a easy write off.
Peace,
Rono
I am struggling with ARTGX AND TBGVX
You can avoid the wash rule by switching to a similar fund. Not sure how picky they are.
Peace and Flatten the Curve
Rono
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/974302/retirees-and-pre-retirees-youve-got-this
Thanks ! not obsessing just trying to make lemonade. I am close to retirement, but still running business. These are all in taxable accounts. I am not touching my 401k .
Also really like AKREX - and interestingly, although it looks like it tracks VGT (Vanguard Technology) they have complementary portfolios.
RLSFX actually made money this month - a nice touch.
Ever since early FEBRUARY, wifey and me have been TRYING to get her 403b out of MassMutual and into something else. VEIRX has fallen hard, because it holds a lot of the big-name "pillars" of the current Market. By now, we've rejected VLAAX. ZERO customer service. Papers were filed, all with Signature guarantee. Over a month has gone by, and the phone agents--- well, all they can do is TALK to you. They can't do for some other employee what that other employee should have done...
...So, now, we have settled on Bruce BRUFX. We've requested the paperwork. It hasn't arrived yet. I figure the shut-downs over coronavirus are gonna make this whole thing a not very slick, swift and easy process. Still, the MAIL comes as expected, every day.
I moved to overweight bonds in 2019. RPSIX, PRSNX and PTIAX. Did it help during this current precipitous Market downturn? Not as expected. But ya, my portf is down quite a bit less than it would have been. But the bond funds fell, too! That fact truly smells. "Like Mango Chutney and burnt hair." ....
I'm sticking with my picks. The others, not already mentioned here, are PRIDX and PRDSX. They are deliberately small and very small slices of the portfolio, respectively.