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World Stock Funds-Are they a viable alternative?

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  • edited November 2021

    In the Foreign Large Blend category, I like SCIEX and MIEIX*.
    The SCIEX management team also manages 30% of VWILX.
    MIEIX has below average costs, low turnover, and usually provides good downside protection.
    Mr. Ling started managing MIEIX on 10/01/2009; Mr. Webber began managing SCIEX on 03/01/2010.
    Portfolio Visualizer Results from Mar 2010 - Oct 2021


    *Morningstar fund category was Foreign Large Growth prior to 2020

    Thank you, @Observant1 as well. I looked up MIEIX and noticed a large outflow of funds this year from M*'s pages. By the way, which brokers allow to hold/trade this fund as Schwab says: "Restricted".
  • edited November 2021
    @Mav123,

    I owned MIEIX via my 401k.
    My 401k changed to the CIT version of MIEIX this past July.
    M* lists MIEIX brokerage availability here.
  • Thanks for bringing MIEX to our attention. I did my due diligence on it and was excited to buy it when I found that Schwab unfortunately doesn’t offer it. Starting to review SCIEX now instead. A bit more volatile but almost same performance over a 10 year period.
  • edited December 2021
    To followup on my 11/10 comment, I may actually dump MGGIX and go with BST instead, to rotate into some large cap tech+income (ie, adding more 'value' and less 'growth') versus a more growth/tech-oriented 'world stock' fund as the markets continue to tread water and churn going into 2022. Not 100% sure I'll make the move, but that's my current thinking ahead of annual distributions on Friday ... battening down the hatches a bit, so to speak.
  • @rforno: BST is not a fund I have ever considered. I did note that it has or will pay a big distribution this month and that since July it has traded at a deeper and deeper discount. The regular monthly distribution of some 22 cents per share suggests to me that the fund has a distribution policy in place to help reduce the discount. I have owned an equity CEF that did a similar thing and it turned to be a good way to purchase shares through reinvestment, turning it into an equity/income fund. BTW, I own MGGPX and will have to assess its role in the portfolio as you are doing.
  • As previously mentioned, I have MGGPX and MFAIX in some accounts. Few months ago added PRGSX. Have been generally happy with all but the first fund which has really had a poor year. Have recently considered moving more out of it to PRGSX etc.

    Another fund on an old watchlist is FDIVX but I don’t hear it mentioned too much on the boards. BST as in Blackrock? That’s US equity and Science Tech.
  • @JonGaltill: right, BST is a BlackRock closed end science and tech fund, but it does have a global portfolio. Of its 3 managers, 1 also serves on BME, the Health Sciences CEF that has done well previously, although it has done little to merit its M* 5 star rating in recent years.
  • BenWP said:

    @JonGaltill: right, BST is a BlackRock closed end science and tech fund, but it does have a global portfolio. Of its 3 managers, 1 also serves on BME, the Health Sciences CEF that has done well previously, although it has done little to merit its M* 5 star rating in recent years.

    I own BME and it's been solid in my view. No concerns about that one ... not to go off-topic but I'm fairly impressed with how Blackrock allocates for their CEFs.
  • M* star-ratings are purely based on past performance in the category and are backward-looking. So, no judgements are required for 5* ratings for BST and BME. There are no forward-looking M* Analyst ratings for BST (Technology) or BME (Health).

    Both M* Technology and Health categories are tiny.
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