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My experimental money has room (fewer experiments running at the moment). I am usually a good test for lady luck.
July issue of Monthly Commentary has two good articles on International investing / funds: one each by Devesh and David. Check it out.
Edit: Longs be ware! I have a buy order in for BLNDX.
I warned you guys!
BLNDX down 2.62% since purchase (4 day holding). Of the many things in my portfolio, during my holding, only thing that performed worse than BLNDX is QQQ. I look to my experiments to meet or exceed a 60/40 bond/equity portfolio - pretty low bar but also not a slam dunk to beat when yields are high. In my own portfolio, YTD I am barely able to keep up with PRWCX, which itself is not having a great year (relative to its history). My bond / equity allocation is pretty similar to PRWCX, except my fixed income is more cash.
Since its peak on July16, BLNDX is down more than 5%.
All of Empower dashboard is free. It has quotes and charts (I don't use charts). I have two limited use cases for Empower -- automated aggregation and allocation view.
I use the Retirement Planner on occasion but I prefer PV for that.
I am a bit familiar with Empower as it handles 401k of a relative. But I never looked at its free personal investing dashboard. Looks like it is only an app without a PC version. I will try to find out what info is available without setting up a login. I already use both M* Portfolio/M* Investors and Stock Rover (and I don't use brokerage connections), so I am not interested in getting into a 3rd (really, 4th?) portfolio tracking software, but am only interested in evaluating the Empower App.
Full name is Empower Annuity Insurance Company of America.
Empower is the old Great-West with several other recordkeeping businesses rolled up in it. It's now a subsidiary of Canadian Great-West Lifeco. It claims to be the 2nd largest retirement plan provider - depending on the source, the 1st may be Fidelity or TIAA or Fed TSP.
I can absorb up to 5% loss before exiting. But I am not going to increase it which means I am going to exit sooner than latter to reduce clutter in my portfolio. I have not found the magic pill / perennial longevity fund. When rates were low (pre-Covid), it was inexpensive to run these experiments but not so much now.
Edit: Every time I start a new position, I start hoping to increase it to a minimum 10% of portfolio. Sadly, most of the times I fold them without increasing from the initial position. Oddly enough, I seem to have more luck with individual stocks than funds and I spend very little time researching stocks and almost all of the time I spend on investments is trying out new funds, which makes me wonder quite often if investment outcomes are mostly luck.
Empower Personal Dashboard is a browser app, there is nothing to download to PC or Mac. It also has decent Android and iOS versions (I use both but the mobile apps are not full equivalents of browser)
If one is not going to use the account aggregation feature and use it in 100% manual mode, makes sense to remain anonymous but keep in mind that Empower requires 2FA so you can't be 100% anonymous with a disposable e-mail address (unless you have a throw-away mobile number of course!)
I view BLNDX as a commodities long-short fund. Manager provides great monthly commentary on his thinking. I owned it many years back but sold off all my position because I found better candidates for what I was looking for in a LS fund.
That said, all trend follower funds work till they don't.
So going back 30 or so years there were a bunch of investors called the turtle traders...one guru guy trained them up as CTAs... they all made a bunch of money
Some say they were just at the right place at the right time... commodity up cycle...trend following then hit a flat spot for quite a while
Maybe good place to be during stagflation cycle?
Trading currencies is tough, not that I would know but governments can flip the card table on you at any time
My thoughts re BLNDX...is I am passing on it as long as I can get 5%plus in tbills...why get greedy and screw around with the black box stuff?
BLNDX is down 10% from its July 16 peak. SPY lost about 1.5% less. Did someone mention BLNDX is an All Weather fund? More like up the escalator and down the elevator.
In the June Standpoint commentary for BLNDX, it stated it's biggest winners as:
Biggest Winners Long U.S. and Japanese equities. Short soybeans, corn, and Japanese yen.
I guess holding Japanese equity will be their biggest loser in the next report. Still, YTD the fund is up 7.6% compared to a couple other notables from another thread, QDSNX at 5.7% and QQMNX at 9.8%. After several years holding BLNDX, I have to admit, QQMNX is a tempting alternative in this alternative field for a less bumpy ride and, so far, excellent returns (+12.1 3Y).
Looking at the 5 yr chart, and if you ignore the current drop from July 16, BLNDX chart held up pretty well. Look at that Covid crash performance. Not sure why it could not navigate the current situation. All good things and such. Apologies to all the long time holders that I bought into it.
Macro trend following and mean reversion, the kind of trading BLNDX probably does, is difficult to do for most players because there is no "fundamental" value for Sugar or Coffee or the Yen. Thing can move and these days everything moves faster than it used to. Macro portfolio deal with this problem using risk limits - for position sizing as well as when to cut losses. BLNDX experienced one of those events in the last few weeks. This should be considered normal for the fund, just as 10-20% drawdowns in stocks should be considered normal in a given year. I have no exposure to BLNDX. When a fund reports it made money on getting Sugar contracts move right, I know I know nothing about what they might do next. They have a good track record and if one is to put money into a fund because of their track record, the next logical thing is to stop asking "why the fund moved" questions. The only thing that matters is performance and your own risk limit for how much you can tolerate a selloff. Someone should consider researching if its a good idea to buy into such strategies AFTER the 10% selloff. It might lead to better entry points if one still likes the fund/manager.
re BLNDX...seems to me that a large selling point of the fund is the "all-weather", diversification provided by the fund...I would state that this could also act as "wrong way leverage" at times when compared to a moderate stock/bond/cash allocation fund ...so even though the stock markets are getting hammered, you could also be hammered via wrong way commodity or currency positioning...seems to at times exacerbate the drawdowns, no? You need to be careful to not get lulled to sleep thinking you are "protected" from downdrafts etc due to the all-weather approach, causing you to allocate more of your portfolio into it and then, you get the drawdown before you could say boo...
So it's really an allocation fund that includes commodities exposure, and as a result can display high volatility (SD). David went back for an explanation on the -5% single day loss on BLNDX from a few years ago, and of course it was related to commodities.
Comments
I have been tracking my portfolio since 2107 and I do not think M* portfolio tool has changed / improved much since then.
One last question. Do they have quotes and charts for OEFs, CEFs, and ETFs for free?
BLNDX down 2.62% since purchase (4 day holding). Of the many things in my portfolio, during my holding, only thing that performed worse than BLNDX is QQQ. I look to my experiments to meet or exceed a 60/40 bond/equity portfolio - pretty low bar but also not a slam dunk to beat when yields are high. In my own portfolio, YTD I am barely able to keep up with PRWCX, which itself is not having a great year (relative to its history). My bond / equity allocation is pretty similar to PRWCX, except my fixed income is more cash.
Since its peak on July16, BLNDX is down more than 5%.
I use the Retirement Planner on occasion but I prefer PV for that.
Full name is Empower Annuity Insurance Company of America.
Empower is the old Great-West with several other recordkeeping businesses rolled up in it. It's now a subsidiary of Canadian Great-West Lifeco. It claims to be the 2nd largest retirement plan provider - depending on the source, the 1st may be Fidelity or TIAA or Fed TSP.
https://www.empower.com/personal-investors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empower_(financial_services)
p.s, do you plan to exit soon?
After posting the above on July 19, I sold the fund before it lost even more of its value.
I can absorb up to 5% loss before exiting. But I am not going to increase it which means I am going to exit sooner than latter to reduce clutter in my portfolio. I have not found the magic pill / perennial longevity fund. When rates were low (pre-Covid), it was inexpensive to run these experiments but not so much now.
Edit: Every time I start a new position, I start hoping to increase it to a minimum 10% of portfolio. Sadly, most of the times I fold them without increasing from the initial position. Oddly enough, I seem to have more luck with individual stocks than funds and I spend very little time researching stocks and almost all of the time I spend on investments is trying out new funds, which makes me wonder quite often if investment outcomes are mostly luck.
https://www.empower.com/personal-investors/financial-tools
https://www.empower.com/signup-v1
If one is not going to use the account aggregation feature and use it in 100% manual mode, makes sense to remain anonymous but keep in mind that Empower requires 2FA so you can't be 100% anonymous with a disposable e-mail address (unless you have a throw-away mobile number of course!)
That said, all trend follower funds work till they don't.
Some say they were just at the right place at the right time... commodity up cycle...trend following then hit a flat spot for quite a while
Maybe good place to be during stagflation cycle?
Trading currencies is tough, not that I would know but governments can flip the card table on you at any time
My thoughts re BLNDX...is I am passing on it as long as I can get 5%plus in tbills...why get greedy and screw around with the black box stuff?
Well said, I agree.
BLNDX is down 10% from its July 16 peak. SPY lost about 1.5% less. Did someone mention BLNDX is an All Weather fund? More like up the escalator and down the elevator.
BIVIX (a fallen angel) is also recently showing signs of life.
David went back for an explanation on the -5% single day loss on BLNDX from a few years ago, and of course it was related to commodities.
This is not a fund for the squeamish.