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Posted: MFO Ratings Thru November and Flows Thru 6 December
The year turned out pretty good! The Great Normalization Bull is now in its 15th month. And, like has happened with each bull market for the past 100 years, the S&P 500 has recovered all previous drawdown and sits at a new all-time high, month-ending December.
Just posted all ratings to MFO Premium site through December using Refinitiv's data drop dated 5 January. Month to date numbers mixed. Tech off 4.3%, heathy up 2, SPY off 1.6. A bit of a letdown after the strong year-end numbers. Core bonds off 1.1.
Just posted all ratings to MFO Premium site through December using Refinitiv's data drop dated 12 January.
For the record, the 5 January drop posted last Saturday, 6 January. Mostly, these updates just reflect changes in Year-To-Date and Weeks-To-Date numbers.
Just posted all ratings to MFO Premium site through December using Refinitiv's data drop dated 19 January.
A good month so far! (Unless you are heavy BA.)
Longtime subscriber Richard just informed me that the Initial Investment metric is not working in screener. Sure enough, Lipper moved its call location in the LGDF and I did not get the memo.
Just posted January ratings to MFO Premium. Not that January fund performance was much to write home about. But the new features on the site are!
New metrics include:
1) ratings based on "Best Fit" Benchmarks, as assigned by Lipper, 2) an Active Passive Barometer, based on those same benchmarks, 3) ratings based on ETF Benchmarks, inspired by my colleague Devesh Shah, 4) Fund Family Ratings across all evaluation periods.
These can be found now mostly in the Calendar Year and Fixed Period Analyze tools in MultiSearch. Soon, they will be integrated more fully into the MultiSearch tool so you can screen on the values (APRVSBF and APRVSETF) and their attendant ratings (APRBF Rating and APRBE Rating), representing fund evaluation against Best Fit and ETF Benchmarks, respectfully.
The post is from Lipper's 2 February drop. Will post update with 10 February drop soon.
The update reflects a complete modernization of code used to both the background ratings computations as well as the real time screening code. The modernization effort started about a year ago and includes:
1) shared functions to reduce redundancy, 2) threading (aka parallel processing) to drastically improve background crunch time (3 hours per update vs 24), 3) explicit and strict computing modes for both background and real-time computations, which also help speed things up and helps keep programmers honest, 4) modern coding techniques such as Lists instead of Arrays and ForEach instructions instead of simple Do loops.
It had to be rolled into about ten years of patchwork code, so it took a while, but the result feels pretty good. It means much faster updates, better enhancements, and less likelihood of errors.
Give it a whirl, please. As always, if you see anything amiss, drop me a line ... will address soonest.
Enjoy,
c
PS. Remember that all the tools on the top line of the Navigator (Great Owls, Three Alarm, Quick Search, Dashboard of Profiled Funds) are free to the MFO Community.
Just posted all ratings to MFO Premium site through January using Refinitiv's data drop today ... reflecting MTD performance through 16 February.
Continuing to integrate many of the metrics and features associated with the new benchmark ratings into MultiSearch proper, including new Display Periods that enable comparison with Best-Fit and ETF Benchmarks at life of benchmarks. Much more to come.
With this update, we've eliminated Insurance Funds (some 2000), ETNs (about 100), and Trading Funds (Dedicated Short and Leveraged Equity). None of these seem appropriate to MFO or its subscribers. But, if this is a mistake ... please let us know!
Just in December 2023, I prepared a long write up what then was a unique feature of MFO Premium - its insurance fund coverage. Many years ago, M* had many of those, but it moved them from the free side to the professional side. But it seems that this unique feature of MFO is/will-be gone.
In trying to verify this, I find that NONE of my Saved MFO portfolios can run - there is an alert box that I must first remove unidentified IF-TICKERS from everywhere (i.e., from all portfolios) first. I am not going to do that yet. At least, this should be portfolio specific - i.e. the MFO portfolios without IF-TICKERS should run, while only those with IF-TICKERS should fail. Now, all of my MFO portfolios are basically frozen.
See these previous features on Insurance Funds at MFO. Once confirmed/verified, I will modify/update this information. MFO Premium suddenly has much less value for me personally.
Wow. You are first subscriber I've come across that uses Insurance Funds! In ten years, I do not believe I've ever seen them even discussed on the board.
In addition to suspecting they were of little use to MFO community, I have also found that they tend to be duplicates of portfolios found in other funds, becoming almost more like additional share classes instead of unique portfolios.
Not all have IF- tickers, only those that have do not have their own NASDAQ tickers. Then, we assign the IF- designator.
I'm curious. I'm assuming you purchase these through an insurance agent or a broker dealer with an insurance license.
And, do you find they offer portfolios (strategies) not available in other fund vehicles?
Hmm. I believe you should be able to run without saving. But, in any case, please do not remove ... we will add insurance funds back in.
Very much appreciate the feedback and will extend to your subscription for the hassle.
I get TIAA VAs within TIAA 403b. ANYONE with TIAA 403b/457 & IRAs would have access to them.
Other insurance co may be sponsors of 401k/403b. Their variable insurance products also have them.
MFO Premium doesn't need to keep 2,000, but those from major co - TIAA, MetLife, NY Life, Prudential, Allianz, Transamerica, etc plus Fido - it offers them as VIPs - variable insurance products for its own products, but mostly for other insurers. BTW, Vanguard off-loaded its VA operations to Transamerica, but still manages those VA portfolios.
These insurance funds (VAs) may be similar to listed funds but aren't classes or clones of listed funds. In fact, some growth VA portfolios may be more aggressive than their listed growth cousins. While this money can be moved online at will, in some ways, it's also captive money, so liquidity requirements are different. Also, as ERs may be higher, they have to pump up performance some way.
Another important difference is that as these are in tax-deferred/free accounts, there is no need to go through the routine of distributions (so, no 1099s), and then the (optional) reinvestments. Fund distribution routine is only so that the IRS can take its cut along the way - but some start to take distributions too seriously. So, the VAs just keep all within the portfolios and the VA-prices reflect TR. For listed funds, there are actual-prices, adjusted-prices (Yahoo Finance, StockCharts) or Growth of 10K to reflect TR.
If your 401k/403b/457 offers them, you can:
1. Use MFO now. People don't know about this and I thought I would be changing that.
2. Find similar listed fund. @Charles and I can do that easily, but many cannot.
1) screen for specific shareclass, like Inst (adviser request), 2) include etf and best-fit benchmarks with other criteria, 3) screen for better than etf or best-fit benchmark return, 4) set display period to any calendar year back to 2008, 5) screen for apr vs best-fit or etf benchmark values and ratings, 6) screen for up-market deviation values and ratings, in addition to bear market, 7) screen for family metrics at any display period, 8) family metrics are now broken into their own group, separate from mfo designations, 9) reamer ratio and rating now in return metrics, separate from mfo designations, 10) set display period to life of best-fit or etf benchmarks, fund manager and bond maturity tenure (devesh requests), or david's take (since profile published dates), 11) screen for multi-period apr, apr vs best-fit and etf benchmark ratings, for up dot-com bubble (dbc), great financial crisis (gfc) and covid (cv-19) bull and bear markets, 12) screen for batting average vs best-fit benchmark, in addition to batting average vs category average.
I can confirm that portfolios with insurance funds IF-TICKERS are now running normally. My saved MFO Premium portfolios are now unstuck.
So, if your portfolio has a mix of mutual funds/OEFs, ETFs, CEFs, IF-TICKERS, the MFO Premium can run it. This may be a work 401k/403b/457 plan or a variable-annuity/insurance portfolio that you may have.
Moreover, the MFO Premium has longer histories of IF-TICKERS than the insurance firms may provide at their websites.
I don't know of any other portfolio analytics software that can do that. I am familiar with M* Portfolio, M* Investor, Portfolio Visualizer, Stock Rover - even have primers for their use.
Of course, MFO has its limitations too - it won't handle stocks, and it isn't for portfolio transactions, just portfolio analytics.
Comments
For the record, the 5 January drop posted last Saturday, 6 January. Mostly, these updates just reflect changes in Year-To-Date and Weeks-To-Date numbers.
A good month so far! (Unless you are heavy BA.)
Longtime subscriber Richard just informed me that the Initial Investment metric is not working in screener. Sure enough, Lipper moved its call location in the LGDF and I did not get the memo.
Will get corrected soonest.
c
New metrics include:
1) ratings based on "Best Fit" Benchmarks, as assigned by Lipper,
2) an Active Passive Barometer, based on those same benchmarks,
3) ratings based on ETF Benchmarks, inspired by my colleague Devesh Shah,
4) Fund Family Ratings across all evaluation periods.
These can be found now mostly in the Calendar Year and Fixed Period Analyze tools in MultiSearch. Soon, they will be integrated more fully into the MultiSearch tool so you can screen on the values (APRVSBF and APRVSETF) and their attendant ratings (APRBF Rating and APRBE Rating), representing fund evaluation against Best Fit and ETF Benchmarks, respectfully.
The post is from Lipper's 2 February drop. Will post update with 10 February drop soon.
The update reflects a complete modernization of code used to both the background ratings computations as well as the real time screening code. The modernization effort started about a year ago and includes:
1) shared functions to reduce redundancy,
2) threading (aka parallel processing) to drastically improve background crunch time (3 hours per update vs 24),
3) explicit and strict computing modes for both background and real-time computations, which also help speed things up and helps keep programmers honest,
4) modern coding techniques such as Lists instead of Arrays and ForEach instructions instead of simple Do loops.
It had to be rolled into about ten years of patchwork code, so it took a while, but the result feels pretty good. It means much faster updates, better enhancements, and less likelihood of errors.
Give it a whirl, please. As always, if you see anything amiss, drop me a line ... will address soonest.
Enjoy,
c
PS. Remember that all the tools on the top line of the Navigator (Great Owls, Three Alarm, Quick Search, Dashboard of Profiled Funds) are free to the MFO Community.
Continuing to integrate many of the metrics and features associated with the new benchmark ratings into MultiSearch proper, including new Display Periods that enable comparison with Best-Fit and ETF Benchmarks at life of benchmarks. Much more to come.
I'm looking at you 2022.
Lots of changes.
More comments shortly.
You can now set Display period in MultiSearch to any calendar year back to 2008.
You can also use the Calendar Returns and Ratings tool via the Analyze button in MultiSearch.
Just in December 2023, I prepared a long write up what then was a unique feature of MFO Premium - its insurance fund coverage. Many years ago, M* had many of those, but it moved them from the free side to the professional side. But it seems that this unique feature of MFO is/will-be gone.
In trying to verify this, I find that NONE of my Saved MFO portfolios can run - there is an alert box that I must first remove unidentified IF-TICKERS from everywhere (i.e., from all portfolios) first. I am not going to do that yet. At least, this should be portfolio specific - i.e. the MFO portfolios without IF-TICKERS should run, while only those with IF-TICKERS should fail. Now, all of my MFO portfolios are basically frozen.
See these previous features on Insurance Funds at MFO. Once confirmed/verified, I will modify/update this information. MFO Premium suddenly has much less value for me personally.
1 https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/thread/536/tiaa-cref-vas-mfo
2 https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/61774/tiaa-cref-vas-at-mfo
3 At Facebook
Wow. You are first subscriber I've come across that uses Insurance Funds! In ten years, I do not believe I've ever seen them even discussed on the board.
In addition to suspecting they were of little use to MFO community, I have also found that they tend to be duplicates of portfolios found in other funds, becoming almost more like additional share classes instead of unique portfolios.
Not all have IF- tickers, only those that have do not have their own NASDAQ tickers. Then, we assign the IF- designator.
I'm curious. I'm assuming you purchase these through an insurance agent or a broker dealer with an insurance license.
And, do you find they offer portfolios (strategies) not available in other fund vehicles?
Hmm. I believe you should be able to run without saving. But, in any case, please do not remove ... we will add insurance funds back in.
Very much appreciate the feedback and will extend to your subscription for the hassle.
c
I get TIAA VAs within TIAA 403b. ANYONE with TIAA 403b/457 & IRAs would have access to them.
Other insurance co may be sponsors of 401k/403b. Their variable insurance products also have them.
MFO Premium doesn't need to keep 2,000, but those from major co - TIAA, MetLife, NY Life, Prudential, Allianz, Transamerica, etc plus Fido - it offers them as VIPs - variable insurance products for its own products, but mostly for other insurers. BTW, Vanguard off-loaded its VA operations to Transamerica, but still manages those VA portfolios.
Another important difference is that as these are in tax-deferred/free accounts, there is no need to go through the routine of distributions (so, no 1099s), and then the (optional) reinvestments. Fund distribution routine is only so that the IRS can take its cut along the way - but some start to take distributions too seriously. So, the VAs just keep all within the portfolios and the VA-prices reflect TR. For listed funds, there are actual-prices, adjusted-prices (Yahoo Finance, StockCharts) or Growth of 10K to reflect TR.
If your 401k/403b/457 offers them, you can:
1. Use MFO now. People don't know about this and I thought I would be changing that.
2. Find similar listed fund. @Charles and I can do that easily, but many cannot.
Insurance Funds are back on-line.
Let me know if all the Watchlist, etc with Insurance Funds are good again ... will work with you to fix soonest, if not.
Really appreciate the feedback and education.
c
Latest new features include:
1) screen for specific shareclass, like Inst (adviser request),
2) include etf and best-fit benchmarks with other criteria,
3) screen for better than etf or best-fit benchmark return,
4) set display period to any calendar year back to 2008,
5) screen for apr vs best-fit or etf benchmark values and ratings,
6) screen for up-market deviation values and ratings, in addition to bear market,
7) screen for family metrics at any display period,
8) family metrics are now broken into their own group, separate from mfo designations,
9) reamer ratio and rating now in return metrics, separate from mfo designations,
10) set display period to life of best-fit or etf benchmarks, fund manager and bond maturity tenure (devesh requests), or david's take (since profile published dates),
11) screen for multi-period apr, apr vs best-fit and etf benchmark ratings, for up dot-com bubble (dbc), great financial crisis (gfc) and covid (cv-19) bull and bear markets,
12) screen for batting average vs best-fit benchmark, in addition to batting average vs category average.
c
I can confirm that portfolios with insurance funds IF-TICKERS are now running normally. My saved MFO Premium portfolios are now unstuck.
So, if your portfolio has a mix of mutual funds/OEFs, ETFs, CEFs, IF-TICKERS, the MFO Premium can run it. This may be a work 401k/403b/457 plan or a variable-annuity/insurance portfolio that you may have.
Moreover, the MFO Premium has longer histories of IF-TICKERS than the insurance firms may provide at their websites.
I don't know of any other portfolio analytics software that can do that. I am familiar with M* Portfolio, M* Investor, Portfolio Visualizer, Stock Rover - even have primers for their use.
Of course, MFO has its limitations too - it won't handle stocks, and it isn't for portfolio transactions, just portfolio analytics.
Thanks @Charles.