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.
A remarkable number of folks have asserted their “right” to undertake behaviors that threaten the health, livelihood, and (potentially) lives of others. There seems relatively little recollection that every assertion of “right” is accompanied by a reciprocal acceptance of “responsibility.” My “right” to health care is married to another’s responsibility to provide it. My right to unfettered political speech comes with a responsibility for speaking in a way that seeks to advance the public good.
I find it curious how rarely people demand their responsibilities these days.
I hope you don't mind if I quote your sentiments at the next family bbq...very well put.
"Nothing follows"? Jeez, that seems a bit cruel ... or perhaps despairing in a Yeats sort of way: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world" sort of way.
T. Rowe Price Multi-Strategy Total Return keeps ticking up. Positive by 4.7% YTD, as of 7/6/20. Cheap enough to be in the running for "the new 60/40," at least if you assume that the "40" in question is fated to fall flat. From my perspective, the challenges are my inability to explain to myself what exactly the strategies do - I can repeat the words back to myself after I read them, but they don't stick - and, by its nature as a quant fund, the portfolio's positioning is inexplicable.
Queens Road Value keeps ticking along, down 9% YTD which is still top tier for a LCV fund. Sort of regrettable that it's losing assets even in years when its relative and absolute performance as both excellent (2017, up 20% and top 10% performer - investors flee). Increasingly it's the poster child for a "friends and family" fund: Queens Road manages over a billion for rich folks but can't get much past $30 million here.
The BlackRock and DFA ETFs-in-registration are interesting, at the very least. The active ETF / non-transparent active ETF development should be changing a lot of calculations.
Chip thought Lynn's piece was his most useful ever, in part because she can make the translation of investment options into Excel. Charles's was a great change-of-pace and I dearly appreciate Ed's willingness to become more directive about alternative investments.
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Two personal notes. Yesterday Will's Covid test came back negative ("none detected"), eight days after its submission. Sadly, the tests still have a high false negative rate; research published in June by Johns Hopkins says that there's a 30% probability that a person with a negative result is actually positive. Still no symptoms, we remain cautious and cautiously optimistic.
Chip shared online part of my short reflection on the reciprocal relation between rights and responsibilities. That went about the way you'd expect. The angrier respondents - like the woman (founder of a public relations firm? Oh, good.) caught on camera destroying a mask display at her local Target store - sort of skipped "thinking about the argument" went straight to "outrage." The results fell into two camps: the "you can't make me do nuthin'" camp and the "if you can make me wear a mask, then I can make you give up red meat and get your sorry *ss to the gym" camp.
I wonder if learning to talk about "externalities" would help address either? Sometimes my actions affect only me. Other times, my actions affect you. "Externalities" is the term economists give for the effects on you. Sometimes those effects are welcome; if I improve the exterior of my house, the value of your adjacent property goes up. That's a positive externality. If I shoot wildlife and dump their carcasses to rot in my yard, that's a negative externality.
Every culture implicitly decides what level of negative externality justifies some sort of sanction. If you get drunk at home, no sanction. Drunk and disorderly, some sanction. Drunk while operating a motor vehicle, major sanction. In general, as the magnitude of your effect on others risks, so does the swiftness and scope of the sanction. A person's decision to eat meat (negligible externality) is seen as a lot different from their decision to poison a public waterway (major externality).
All of which only works if people are willing to listen to each other, agree on the underlying facts and discuss the response that best reflects our shared responsibilities as members of the same neighborhood, city, nation, culture or whatever.
Mea Culpa. Next month I will just post that the Newsletter is posted if I happen to see it first. I just said nothing follows so no one would need to open the post....and just go straight to the Newsletter. Best, Mike
@MikeM2- We don't see it used much on MFO but it was very common on Fund Alarm, the predecessor site: "NTIP" in the headline. Means "No text in post", for situations where that's the case. We were just having a bit of fun with you- not to worry...
Comments
T. Rowe Price Multi-Strategy Total Return keeps ticking up. Positive by 4.7% YTD, as of 7/6/20. Cheap enough to be in the running for "the new 60/40," at least if you assume that the "40" in question is fated to fall flat. From my perspective, the challenges are my inability to explain to myself what exactly the strategies do - I can repeat the words back to myself after I read them, but they don't stick - and, by its nature as a quant fund, the portfolio's positioning is inexplicable.
Queens Road Value keeps ticking along, down 9% YTD which is still top tier for a LCV fund. Sort of regrettable that it's losing assets even in years when its relative and absolute performance as both excellent (2017, up 20% and top 10% performer - investors flee). Increasingly it's the poster child for a "friends and family" fund: Queens Road manages over a billion for rich folks but can't get much past $30 million here.
The BlackRock and DFA ETFs-in-registration are interesting, at the very least. The active ETF / non-transparent active ETF development should be changing a lot of calculations.
Chip thought Lynn's piece was his most useful ever, in part because she can make the translation of investment options into Excel. Charles's was a great change-of-pace and I dearly appreciate Ed's willingness to become more directive about alternative investments.
- - - - -
Two personal notes. Yesterday Will's Covid test came back negative ("none detected"), eight days after its submission. Sadly, the tests still have a high false negative rate; research published in June by Johns Hopkins says that there's a 30% probability that a person with a negative result is actually positive. Still no symptoms, we remain cautious and cautiously optimistic.
Chip shared online part of my short reflection on the reciprocal relation between rights and responsibilities. That went about the way you'd expect. The angrier respondents - like the woman (founder of a public relations firm? Oh, good.) caught on camera destroying a mask display at her local Target store - sort of skipped "thinking about the argument" went straight to "outrage." The results fell into two camps: the "you can't make me do nuthin'" camp and the "if you can make me wear a mask, then I can make you give up red meat and get your sorry *ss to the gym" camp.
I wonder if learning to talk about "externalities" would help address either? Sometimes my actions affect only me. Other times, my actions affect you. "Externalities" is the term economists give for the effects on you. Sometimes those effects are welcome; if I improve the exterior of my house, the value of your adjacent property goes up. That's a positive externality. If I shoot wildlife and dump their carcasses to rot in my yard, that's a negative externality.
Every culture implicitly decides what level of negative externality justifies some sort of sanction. If you get drunk at home, no sanction. Drunk and disorderly, some sanction. Drunk while operating a motor vehicle, major sanction. In general, as the magnitude of your effect on others risks, so does the swiftness and scope of the sanction. A person's decision to eat meat (negligible externality) is seen as a lot different from their decision to poison a public waterway (major externality).
All of which only works if people are willing to listen to each other, agree on the underlying facts and discuss the response that best reflects our shared responsibilities as members of the same neighborhood, city, nation, culture or whatever.
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Take great care and, as ever, thanks!
David
https://alphaarchitect.com/2016/06/07/will-bonds-deliver-crisis-alpha-in-the-next-crisis/