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PRWCX performance YTD

edited May 5 in Other Investing
I track a few Mod Allocation funds, though I am mostly in PRWCX. Of these funds, PRWCX has underperformed all of them YTD, which is unusual. According to M* performance page, YTD it is 39 percentile which is the lowest in 10 years. The fund has received the most inflows in the last 12 months than during any other 12 month period in the last 10 years. The PM was out promoting his other new fund launches during this past year, and that may have resulted in PRWCX inflows too.

How has the fund been positioned YTD (causing it to underperform relative to its own history)?

(I ask this to see if I want to adjust my other allocations so I compensate for what PRWCX is doing to my portfolio, provided my conviction is different from the PM's relative to his allocation decreases and increases or if he is overallocated to something. He may decrease allocation to a position if it has grown to be too big but his conviction on that may not changed. So, not all his changes are an indication of his change in conviction.)

Thanks for your thoughts on PRWCX positioning.
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Comments

  • edited May 5
    The fund has received the most inflows in the last 12 months than during any other 12 month period in the last 10 years.
    I hate hearing that, but I suppose opening up that institutional ticker, TRAIX, added to the inflows. I wish they didn't do that.

    @Roy posted this prospectus/ manager commentary in a post early in the year. Some of the favorites listed have not come through so far, but the year is young.

    Personally, I have close to a 18-20% of portfolio stake in PRWCX and I added another 10% to PRCFX, so I'm heavily indebted to David G. To be honest, the slow YTD numbers do not concern me.

    https://prospectus-express.broadridge.com/summary.asp?

    From Roy's post early in the year.
    Giroux discusses AI and utilities.
    Sees value in:
    1) GARP stocks.
    2) Utilities
    3) High quality high yield and loans.
    4) Software.
    5) Healthcare.
    6) Energy. (Unusual for the fund)
    Does not see value in:
    1) Growth & tech that does not benefit from AI.
    2) Staples. He REALLY dislikes staples.
  • Almost 4x as much as the Index in Yoots. And yoots will never be a home run play. Over 8% of portfolio in Yoots. Almost 11% in Financials. (My own portf holds much more in Financials.) Financials, we are told, will break-out and flourish when rates come down from where they are, currently....
    ...So, just between the Yoots and Financials, yer talking about almost one-fifth of the PRWCX portfolio.

    30% in Tech. That's a huge slug. He's betting heavily on AI, I suppose. 20% in healthcare. About 7% higher than the Index. So, now we're up to 77%.

    Keep in mind that there was that shallow-ish April swoon. I like to track these others, for comparison:

    DODBX has sunk to BRONZE, per M*. YTD it's up by +2.98, landing it just into the bottom one-third of the category.

    MAPOX: up +3.41% YTD, 52nd percentile, in-group.
    PRWCX = +3.63, in 39th percentile, as you noted. The YIELD is up just a bit from the last time I looked. The fund holds about one-third of AUM in fixed income. Still a long way to go, this year.
  • I am unlikely to bail at this stage.
  • @Crash. Are you second guessing your active fund manager for not being an index hugger? I read on this very board that guy is the GOAT. Perhaps you think differently.
  • edited May 5
    @larryB No way. I'm just responding to @BaluBalu. Weightings might certainly hsve something to do with just middling performance at the moment.
  • It always comes down to the same thing: If you're going to be passive, but you don't want to just hold an index, then you need to trust your manager to male the right moves.

    If you're going to be active and perhaps second-guess your manager, then the manager choice becomes largely irrelevant. You kind of have to make up your mind as to what your plan is and behave accordingly.
  • edited May 5
    I do understand @BaluBalu’s point that the fund is lagging peers this year. And, like him, I try to stay broadly diversified across asset classes. Still, that +3.63% YTD would translate into something close to a 10-11% annual return if it continues. Not too shoddy - especially following last year’s +18.8%.

    Looks like the fund has some high fliers in its equity portfolio, including Microsoft. So I’d look to the 32% in bonds for clues to any underperformance. Do its peers hold that high a percentage? Would depend on duration. But most bonds have been hammered this year - even at the relatively short end. There was some turn-around late last week, and bonds are looking good in the overnight trading with the 10-year currently near 4.5% after topping out around 4.7% before Powell’s press conference..

    Folks know I’m agnostic on Mr. Giroux’s fund. But cannot dispute the performance and well deserved M* gold rating. I hope the fact I don’t own the fund doesn’t exclude my participation. I did own it for over 20 years,

    Interesting thread.
  • edited May 6
    From the comments, I think all you guys, just like me, are passive holders of PRWCX. I tried to make extra effort not to sound alarm about the fund or PM as I was afraid some posters might take it that way. I am not concerned about the fund but because I do not have a 100% passive portfolio, i have no excuse not to know my largest active fund, irrespective of whether it is underperforming or overperforming.

    Referring to the comments, the underperformance likely is not from the bond sleeve. There are floating rate funds that made 4% YTD. Fund likely outperformed FBALX on the bond sleeve, which means it likely underperformed FBALX on the equity side. XLF and XLU have returned nearly 8% YTD. It is possible the overweight in HC is weighing the fund down. The only dedicated sector funds I own are HC. So, I am overweight HC all around massively. I sold some HC OEFs because PRWCX is overweight but not enough because I am underperforming YTD in the non-trading part of my portfolio. I already did not have high conviction in HC; so, it does not make sense to double up: once thru PRWCX and then on my own. I have limitations on completely exiting HC dedicated funds because they are in taxable accounts.

    Knowing the fund has helped me in the past. E.g., When I figured he was reducing GE, I bought GE on my own because my conviction was high but I understood he does not have the luxury to wait out like I could. It is one of my better buys. For the same reason, I never owned APPL, not even when it got down to $125 in 2023, because BRK owns plenty of it and I own BRK. I check BRK’s 13F every quarter.

    I guess I will have to wait for a poster who takes an active interest in this fund to reply to the OP. I will go to the fund page and try to learn about it.

    @hank, all are welcome to participate as long as it helps in us understanding how the fund is positioned.
  • edited May 6
    One year/quarter a trend does not make and I just let the position do its thing ... I see no reason for concern w/PRWCX or Giroux at this point, or anytime soon pending some major oddities coming from him or the fund.

    Many of you know I don't care about benchmarking or keeping-up-with-the-jones relative performances when it comes to funds. If *I* can SWAN and be comfortable with its absolute performance in my view, that's all I care about. And that's still where I am with PRWCX.

    I think any underperformance may come from the bond side, since I think he's pretty well-positioned on the equity side. But is he going to shoot-the-lights-out on the equity side? No -- that's not his mandate.
  • The main reason it is underperforming is I doubled my position last fall.

    never fails
  • sma3 said:

    The main reason it is underperforming is I doubled my position last fall.

    never fails

    I was going to take the blame, but I’ll let you be the fall guy. Although I don’t own PRWCX, I’ve added quite a bit of TCAF and PRCFX to our accounts over the past six months, including more today. Since TR Price wouldn’t let me buy PRWCX, I figured this would be the next best thing.

    Obviously, I’m not concerned about the recent “underperformance.” TCAF is close to matching the returns of S&P index funds YTD, which is an extremely short time period to evaluate a fund.
  • Don't look now but a utilities fund I follow (UTG) is up 6.5% over the last 3 weeks. Hopefully Giroux is on to something.
  • Well, one big thing it has going for it is that it's not PG&E. That alone should give it quite a kick.:(
  • edited May 7
    Mark said:

    Don't look now but a utilities fund I follow (UTG) is up 6.5% over the last 3 weeks. Hopefully Giroux is on to something.

    Yep. FSUTX is the first place I looked in trying to detect the likely culprit here. But it is up nearly 12% YTD. GLFOX isn’t a utilities fund - but holds a lot of them. It’s been in a funk most of this year, but has begun to move up in recent days. (Strong dollar also impacting this one)
  • Mark said:

    Don't look now but a utilities fund I follow (UTG) is up 6.5% over the last 3 weeks. Hopefully Giroux is on to something.

    They started doing well shortly after Buffet said he wanted no more to do with them. That's the way it seems to me anyway. :)
  • Ironic (?) that one of the more “anti-AI” sectors—utilities—are rallying like AI stocks. It seems that utilities were linked to AI and chips and all their power needs.
  • Graust said:

    Ironic (?) that one of the more “anti-AI” sectors—utilities—are rallying like AI stocks. It seems that utilities were linked to AI and chips and all their power needs.

    Is that what it is? Fourteen percent YTD for FSUTX. Zowie. Must be.

    GRID has being doing pretty well too.
  • Sounds like it's time to start taking some profits.
  • edited May 10
    Mark said:

    Sounds like it's time to start taking some profits.

    ”Utilities” - Sound safe? I checked and found that FSUTX lost 36% during 2008.

  • Utes today. Maybe it's just sector rotation after all.

    I find it easier for me to already be there when things do rotate.
  • WABAC said:

    Utes today. Maybe it's just sector rotation after all.

    I find it easier for me to already be there when things do rotate.

    Indeed. A month or so ago I sold UTG and went into HTD…a John Hancock CEF holding both utilities plus preferred shares. I also hold a similar John Hancock fund, PTD. Both utilities and preferreds will benefit with moderation of rates. I consider it as fixed income with a kicker.
  • edited May 25
    This fund has significantly underperformed recently. I've reduced my position 75% over last few months.
  • stayCalm said:

    This fund has significantly underperformed recently. I've reduced my position 75% over last few months.

    What did you allocate the money to?

  • QLEIX, QRPIX, CEDIX and Treasuries.
  • edited May 26
    stayCalm said:

    QLEIX, QRPIX, CEDIX and Treasuries.

    Thanks. Interesting that all these funds are available at Schwab only through their advisory platform.

  • edited May 26
    QLEIX and QRPIX are not interval funds. While these two tickers are the "I" versions of these funds, both of these have non "I" versions that can be bought without an RIA. CEDIX is an interval fund.

    Where available, I buy the "I" version of mutual funds because the ER for these is typically lower.

    QLEIX has pretty high fees so I know it is an automatic eliminate for most here. However performance has been great especially in view of former darling BIVIX slipping quite a bit in 2024.
  • edited May 26
    Thanks, @stayCalm.

    M* used to have a tool / tab that listed all the platforms / brokerages where different classes of a fund are available. Is that tool still available?
  • edited May 26
    No idea about that tool (would be pretty useful if still around though for me 90% of my portfolio is with Schwab, rest with Fido).

    AQR Funds site has all the available classes and tickers for the two AQR funds I called out.

    I personally prefer Fido over Schwab but my RIA does not support Fido so I put up with Schwab.
  • @BaluBalu, it is now integrated within the M* Quote page. Scroll down to the end of the Quote page for a mutual fund ticker, and you will find the info about its other classes.
  • What lucky person gets to buy PACLX share class?
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