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Does anyone have access to this fund's AUM as of year-end since its inception (1982); or can you point me in the right direction? I have checked the free data providers (Morningstar, etc.), but they do not go back this far. I have also tried contacting the manager directly, but they have been unresponsive... Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Their May 31, 1995 prospectus filed with the SEC will get you AUM from 1985 FY end (1/31/86) to 1994 FY end (1/31/95). That should get you started. For anything earlier, try microfiche for Barrons, WSJ, or NYTimes at your public library - they may have that data. Post 1994 is a piece of cake - just read the annual reports at the SEC.
You may want to dig up the history of management changes from the old documentation so you can see if its pre-Cuggino management troubles correlated at all with performance issues.
David Snowball wrote in 2008:
"The Permanent Portfolio fund is a sort of amped-up version of Hussman’s fund; it has produced remarkable results with a one-of-a-kind portfolio (gold and silver bullion rather than precious metal stocks, Swiss francs, real estate and natural resources stocks, aggressive growth stocks and U.S. government bonds). Morningstar analysts haven’t covered the fund since it was, under previous management, involved in a major scandal in the mid-1990s. PRPFX has lost money in only three of the past 27 years (most recently, 1994) though it does suffer through periods of low single digit returns. I’ve always been skeptical of the fund because of that checkered past and its manager’s refusal to invest a single dollar in it. That having been said, it has with some considerable consistency made a lot of money for its investors."
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David Snowball wrote in 2008:
"The Permanent Portfolio fund is a sort of amped-up version of Hussman’s fund; it has produced remarkable results with a one-of-a-kind portfolio (gold and silver bullion rather than precious metal stocks, Swiss francs, real estate and natural resources stocks, aggressive growth stocks and U.S. government bonds). Morningstar analysts haven’t covered the fund since it was, under previous management, involved in a major scandal in the mid-1990s. PRPFX has lost money in only three of the past 27 years (most recently, 1994) though it does suffer through periods of low single digit returns. I’ve always been skeptical of the fund because of that checkered past and its manager’s refusal to invest a single dollar in it. That having been said, it has with some considerable consistency made a lot of money for its investors."
See http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/archive/hussm01.htm