Dear friends,
We're celebrating our first anniversary - our 65,000th visitor and quarter-millionth visit - this month.
Arguable highlights to the April commentary includes
- A skeptical look at whether you really want anything "Permanent" in your Portfolio, with a comparison of the actual portfolios of three "permanent" products
- A launch alert for two new RiverPark Funds, Gargoyle Hedged Value Fund and Long/Short Opportunity. The former will actually launch May 1, the latter is available on Monday. Both have interesting strategies and solid records as hedge funds. Given RiverPark’s success bringing other institutional and hedge fund managers to “the mass affluent,” these two funds warrant attention.
- Speaking of attention, Gary Black – the president of Janus famous for going to war with their elite portfolio managers (15 left) and losing a multi-million dollar lawsuit – has filed to launch his own long/short fund, which we note in “Funds in Registration.”
- A profile of Litman Gregory Masters Alternative Strategies (MASNX) – which brings four teams with exceptional track records together in what’s likely to be one of the “multi-alternative” universe’s strongest offerings.
- A profile of Tribuntary Balanced, Institutional (FOBAX), a former bank fund with a misleading name (Institutional belies its $1000 investment minimum), flexible strategy and unmatched risk/reward profile. This profile was actually suggested by one of the folks on the board.
- And a follow-up on FundReveal, in which the founders address a couple of your most pressing questions and we unveil a bit of a partnership with them.
And our "The Best of the Web" feature highlights cool and informative podcasts, including four serious "weekday" and three lighter "weekend" ones (Junior has me pegged as a three-day weekend guy and had me do those three) plus first word of Chuck Jaffe’s return to the airwaves
Thought you'd like to know,
David
Comments
I'm not in charge of breakfast at this house, this Sunday morning. The wife and daughter will likely know why I have slept in a bit after the sun has risen.
Regards,
Catch
I have a question/comment about FOBAX. When I compared it to OAKBX since inception (1996), I found that $10 invested in FOBAX in 1996 since that time became $27.48, which is not bad, but the same amount invested in OAKBX became $50.41, and this result was achieved by OAKBX with low risk and with much greater consistency compared to FOBAX, which did not grow at all from 1997 to 2002. During the last 5 years FOBAX achieved slightly better results, but OAKBX did it with smaller risk (plunged much less in 2008).
Because of the fund's transitions in management (the manager joined in 10/06) and function (from a sort of in-house bank fund to a somewhat less conservative one), I I tried to focus a little less on the 10-year and longer record than on the five year one. Over five years, FOBAX and OAKBX are in a dead heat in terms of returns. OAKBX is the less volatile of the two but has a far weaker three-year (i.e., upmarket) record.
I would imagine, going forward, that OAKBX will be the steadier fund. The mere fact that it's hauling $20 billion limits the opportunity to get frisky. Mr. Studzinski retired last year, leaving Mr. McGregor alone at the helm. I'm not entirely sure that that's ideal. Mr. McGregor himself is about 60, so I wouldn't expect him to be leaving soon and he might get a formal co-manager at some point.
Bottom line: It's hard to imagine better mainstream choices that Vanguard STAR, Vanguard Balanced Index, or Oakmark Equity & Income. What Tributary offers is a slightly different, slightly more flexible take on portfolio construction, coupled with pretty good evidence that the guys can pull it off.
Hope that helps,
David
That said, it remains on the due diligence list for Chip's second mutual fund. Last month, she settled on RiverPark Short-Term High Yield (RPHYX) as her first. It will play the sort of cash-equivalent anchor role in her newborn portfolio.
David
BTW, a while back I mentioned to you about FMIJX. I hope that you take a look at FMIJX sometime. That could be a good conservative companion to GLRBX for international coverage.
David
If I'm reading that right, my curiosity is how they're going to fill a fund with maybe a handful of positions at most, unless what qualifies as a "listed hedge fund" (such as Greenlight Reinsurance and its roundabout connection to David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital) covers a wide variety of things.
GTAA manager Meb Faber (who wrote a chapter in his book on these funds) also apparently addressed this fund from Global X the other day:
http://www.mebanefaber.com/2012/03/27/13f-listed-hedge-funds-etfs-on-the-way - and apparently he had tried (and scrapped) his attempt to offer a fund-of-funds ETN for these publicly listed hedge funds in 2008 before the market tumble. His comments on the fund of hedge fund positions is also interesting.
Yep - the prospectus text is from the upcoming Global X offering.
David