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How Did Members First Find MFO? IOW What Got You Here?
I think I found it after trying to figure out where an M* writer got off to.
Mike Lee? Stan Lee? Used to cover ETF's at M*. Wrote a couple of pieces here.
I don't follow ETF's. But I always enjoyed reading his stuff.
I believe you are referring to Sam Lee who is a talented writer. Like you, I also enjoyed reading his articles. After he left Morningstar, he founded SVRN Asset Management.
The mention of datelining brought back memories. Gary Smith (not the FOX biz guy) shared the process with us way back. Basically, it's arbitraging the markets based upon the international datelines and when particular markets closed. Back then the mutual funds would update their prices when the respective market opened. Ah, but both Europe and Asia are closed when our market is still open later in the day. That meant that if there was some major market moves late in the day, the foreign funds would not be able to adjust their prices until the next day.
For example, the Fed makes a big announcement late in the day and our market, which had been down all day, suddenly reverses strongly to the upside. Hot dog. Buy those Asian mutual funds Knowing you had a locked in gain the minute their markets opened. The same could work on the reverse - late day sell off on a basically positive upside day (while they were still open overseas) - where you would sell the int'l funds to avoid the loss.
Folks this was the closest thing to free money you could imagine. The houses initially tried to stem this process by imposing ERFs (Early Redemption Fees) of normally 2% if sold in less than 6 months. feh. On a good day, this was chump change.
Later they changed to 'perceived' pricing of int'l funds based upon our market close [read: now they guess at their pricing until the int'l markets open and give the accurate numbers.].
I came over from the old Fund Alarm. I believe that I read about it in an issue of the No-Load Fund Investor when it was run by Sheldon Jacobs. I was thrashing about and needed help.
I remember owning a 3 alarm fund back in the 90's... VWUSX...Fund Alarm was there to guide me away from this disaster and the rest was history.
I miss @Ted, @BobC, @Scott...and others. Keep focused on making this website the best mutual fund website it can be. We drift too often into the polarization of modern politics...well, too often for my taste.
I think I found it after trying to figure out where an M* writer got off to.
Mike Lee? Stan Lee? Used to cover ETF's at M*. Wrote a couple of pieces here.
I don't follow ETF's. But I always enjoyed reading his stuff.
I believe you are referring to Sam Lee who is a talented writer. Like you, I also enjoyed reading his articles. After he left Morningstar, he founded SVRN Asset Management.
I checked out his site. Thanks for the tip.
He had a couple of blog posts. But seems to have lost the yen to scribble for a wider audience.
For me it was misc.invest.mutual-funds (with a hyphen) to FundAlarm to MFO. I believe I followed Ed to FundAlarm when nonmoderated Usenet groups became nothing but spam.
For me it was misc.invest.mutual-funds (with a hyphen:-)) to FundAlarm to MFO. I believe I followed Ed to FundAlarm when nonmoderated Usenet groups became nothing but spam.
Looking for usenet files that I've got scattered all over the place in backups of backups of backups, I ran across a posting of Ed's that I saved, from mid 1999. We can reasonably figure that I moved to FundAlarm some time early this century.
That post (after stripping headers):
Mike Roberts wrote: > Please tell me which funds for the next 1,3 5, and 10 years will outperform > the S&P 500 Index. What's that - I'm waiting............
Hi Mike, I'm not Sal, but here's a list: FSPHX, FSDCX, FSCSX, FSPTX, FDLSX, FDCPX, NTCHX, VGHCX, JAMRX, JAOLX, JASSX, JAVLX. Do you need more?
The S&P 500 (as represented by VFIAX) dropped 19% over that span. Half of the six Fidelity Selects did better, half worse over 5 and 10 years. Only two did better over 3 years. Here's a graph for the Fidelity funds.
As for the Janus funds:
JAMRX was Janus Mercury at the time (it was renamed around 2006)
JAOLX was Janus Olympus at the time, and was merged into Janus Orion JORNX in 2006; this in turn was renamed Janus Global Select (with a new, global investment policy) in 2010.
JASSX was Janus Special Situations, which barely survived three years; it was merged into JSVAX Janus Strategic Value and renamed Janus Special Equity, which was renamed Janus Contrarian in 2004.
JAVLX was Janus Twenty, which was merged into JACTX Janus Forty in 2017.
Between the dot com bust and the 2003 timing scandal, Janus did not have a happy turn of the century.
As for the non-Fidelity, non-Janus funds, I think people know that VGHCX has always been a great performer, though it slowed down a bit in the past decade. NTCHX underperformed the S&P 500 in all timeframes in question.
@msf, I remember an "Ed" from when I 1st found FundAlarm discussion board, maybe sometime around '06. If memory serves, he was an older gentleman you made thoughtful, knowledgeable comments. I remember he did not want to make the transition from the FundAlarm format to MFO. I wish he did.
@MikeM - I don't recall Ed not wanting to make the transition to MFO. I do recall that he was a strong proponent of CEF's and included them in his posts often. He also had a wickedly sarcastic sense of humor.
@msf Informative summary of usenet files. How I remember (now) the churn that these Janus funds underwent and how their firm AUM dropped so precipitously.
I remember Ed’s depth of knowledge as well as the “wickedly sarcastic sense of humor” Mark references. His last post ISTM was to the effect he didn’t want to participate in a board he characterized as “Links Central” or something fairly close to that. So often when people leave - or threaten to - they’re back again. In Ed’s case I can’t remember his ever posting again. A true loss.
I’m fairly certain that remark might be buried in the board’s extensive archives, as it was after we transitioned from FA to mfo.
@bee - Thanks for the link to a 2001 Fund Alarm page. It appears that was before my time. Being a science buff, I surely would have remembered a handle like Neutron. How clever and unique!
Comments
Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out.
The mention of datelining brought back memories. Gary Smith (not the FOX biz guy) shared the process with us way back. Basically, it's arbitraging the markets based upon the international datelines and when particular markets closed. Back then the mutual funds would update their prices when the respective market opened. Ah, but both Europe and Asia are closed when our market is still open later in the day. That meant that if there was some major market moves late in the day, the foreign funds would not be able to adjust their prices until the next day.
For example, the Fed makes a big announcement late in the day and our market, which had been down all day, suddenly reverses strongly to the upside. Hot dog. Buy those Asian mutual funds Knowing you had a locked in gain the minute their markets opened. The same could work on the reverse - late day sell off on a basically positive upside day (while they were still open overseas) - where you would sell the int'l funds to avoid the loss.
Folks this was the closest thing to free money you could imagine. The houses initially tried to stem this process by imposing ERFs (Early Redemption Fees) of normally 2% if sold in less than 6 months. feh. On a good day, this was chump change.
Later they changed to 'perceived' pricing of int'l funds based upon our market close [read: now they guess at their pricing until the int'l markets open and give the accurate numbers.].
It was fun while it lasted.
and so it goes,
peace and wear a damn mask,
rono
Back when Mutual Fund Magazine was still around (believe it stopped publishing during the dot.com bubble).
I miss @Ted, @BobC, @Scott...and others. Keep focused on making this website the best mutual fund website it can be. We drift too often into the polarization of modern politics...well, too often for my taste.
He had a couple of blog posts. But seems to have lost the yen to scribble for a wider audience.
For me it was misc.invest.mutual-funds (with a hyphen:-)) to FundAlarm to MFO. I believe I followed Ed to FundAlarm when nonmoderated Usenet groups became nothing but spam.
And the approximate time frame for that was...?
That post (after stripping headers): The S&P 500 (as represented by VFIAX) dropped 19% over that span. Half of the six Fidelity Selects did better, half worse over 5 and 10 years. Only two did better over 3 years. Here's a graph for the Fidelity funds.
As for the Janus funds:
JAMRX was Janus Mercury at the time (it was renamed around 2006)
JAOLX was Janus Olympus at the time, and was merged into Janus Orion JORNX in 2006; this in turn was renamed Janus Global Select (with a new, global investment policy) in 2010.
JASSX was Janus Special Situations, which barely survived three years; it was merged into JSVAX Janus Strategic Value and renamed Janus Special Equity, which was renamed Janus Contrarian in 2004.
JAVLX was Janus Twenty, which was merged into JACTX Janus Forty in 2017.
Between the dot com bust and the 2003 timing scandal, Janus did not have a happy turn of the century.
As for the non-Fidelity, non-Janus funds, I think people know that VGHCX has always been a great performer, though it slowed down a bit in the past decade. NTCHX underperformed the S&P 500 in all timeframes in question.
I’m fairly certain that remark might be buried in the board’s extensive archives, as it was after we transitioned from FA to mfo.
@msf - Thanks or all the digging.
@bee - Thanks for the link to a 2001 Fund Alarm page. It appears that was before my time. Being a science buff, I surely would have remembered a handle like Neutron. How clever and unique!
For convenience, here’s that link again.
https://web.archive.org/web/20011205080443/http://64.45.57.12/wwwboard/wwwboard.html