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Thanks David. I’d read your initial post and was wondering if perhaps what I’d noticed last week was just a lag in M * reflecting the increased short position. FWIW - I’m attaching a copy LCORX’s allocation as reported in the semi-annual report, March 31. The short positions then (10-11%) would appear to conform to the recently reported +5% increase.
Also of note, M* shows the fund today sitting on 17.7% cash, while in March they reported 11.8% “short-term investments”. They’ve certainly increased their armor against a potential market slide since the report’s publication. I can’t recall any other fund I’ve ever owned altering course that dramatically in fewer than 5 months. Chalk it up to inexperience I suppose.
I wonder how many investors really know what this fund does when they may have invested in it going by its name, "Core Investment."
I do not know about money market comparison but you might try the following:
Given the high current yields, are there not any bond funds that can beat LCORX for the next 1, 3, and 5 yrs?
We are just coming off some of the worse times for bond funds. Are not there any bond funds that beat LCORX over the past 1 and 3 yrs?
I am sold on active funds for equities, fixed income, and allocation funds but I am still looking for that buy and forget tactical fund (the elusive fourth category)!
That March piechart appears to be slices of gross assets. Shorts (traded equity securities, index funds, sector funds) have their own positive slices.
Look instead at the Schedule of Investments, where "Percentages are stated as a percent of net assets." Short term investments (MMFs and T-bills) comprised 14.9% of net assets last March.
Much of the cash is collateral for short sales. So one likely needs to take a closer look at the shorts and cash restrictions to get a clearer picture of how much cash the fund actually had or has available for trading. https://www.ici.org/viewpoints/view_14_sec_lending_01
I had previously asked the owners of this fund to share a sentence or two about the role of this fund (and PRPFX) plays or would play in their portfolio, which would give us additional context. I am not asking and will not ask them to justify their rationale and I hope the owners share without apprehension of potential judgement (none here).
I know @hank said why he is considering the fund. But got no responses from current owners.
I had previously asked the owners of this fund to share a sentence or two about the role of this fund (and PRPFX) plays or would play in their portfolio, which would give us additional context. … I know @hank said why he is considering the fund. But got no responses from current owners.
Oh - I do own LCORX. As I noted in an earlier comment, it filled a void created when I jettisoned DODBX (for technical reasons) after consolidating everything at Fidelity. If you know a little about well respected legendary DODBX that might suggest how you might utilize LCORX in a portfolio. I’d say “moderate growth.” Both funds seek to hedge equity risk. DODBX relies on bond holdings for this role while LCORX hedges risk by selling some equities short and by raising and lowering its cash level. Different approaches to the same end.
PRPFX is a fine fund which I have long owned. The approaches of the two funds are vastly different. Just my opinion, but I think PRPFX is less risky. The 2008 performance numbers for the two funds would lend some support.
@hank, Thanks. Thought you are a prospective owner - now I know you are a current owner.
Seems like your goal is Hedged Equity. And then you are using this fund for the means by which it attempts to accomplish the goal. I probably should read the manager commentary to understand their approach better - just a snap shot of portfolio contents may not do justice. One thing I like is it is a multi-manager fund.
Curious why you are using March 31 portfolio info. M* shows June 30 info - 60% fixed income. Very different and dynamic as you mentioned. Seems like a tactical long-short allocation fund.
I have always been nervous about long- short funds. I must confess to owning QLEIX (not yet a fan). I own the Hedge Equity funds HELO (passive hedging) and PHEFX (dynamic hedging) and am reasonably satisfied. These accomplish hedging differently than LCORX and they do not go short, to my knowledge.
”Curious why you are using March 31 portfolio info. M* shows June 30 info - 60% fixed income. Very different and dynamic as you mentioned. Seems like a tactical long-short allocation fund.”
The March 31 chart was posted only to allow comparisons with the more recent numbers to determine what changes in allocation may have been undertaken.
* I make no recommendation of this fund. I’d expect it to decline in an equity bear market like virtually every other equity fund. . My experience with this fund is extremely limited. (I hadn’t heard of it until David profiled it in November.) I did my own due diligence before sending money. Others should do the same.
"The manager turnover is the main reason M* recently downgraded its rating of LCORX to silver from gold. Interestingly, LCOR retains their gold rating."
Three of the 4 managers are unchanged at least since 2015. There was one manager change in 2021. IMO, not enough justification to drop fund rating because of manager change.
I know enough Gold rated funds I would not own and I am happy to own many Silver rated funds. I do not get hung up on M*'s Gold vs Silver.
In any case, I see the fund analysis at M* for LCORX done by solely machines. M*'s machine driven analysis and ratings have been more harmful than useful - the Chicago firm has taken to heart the Silicon Valley mantra of "fake it until you make it."
Their drop from Gold to Silver is as credible as you like. I would completely ignore their medal rating for LCORX.
It seems, since the recent market peak on July 16, the active / dynamic / tactical hedgers PHEFX and LCORX did not fare as well as the passive hedger HELO but PRWCX performed the best among these. I can accept the differences as not material / significant. However, I see that LCORX did so much better than PRWCX during the Covid crash or during the 2022-23 interest rate environment - so, I see the attraction to LCORX.
I guess I will take my chances with the passive hedger HELO which I already own and hope that if we have an armageddon situation, the Fed and Congress will bail the markets out. As I often say, it is not a question of whether an alt fund is good or bad, it really is what role one expects the fund to perform in one's portfolio. Since i already have two hedgers and if I count in MRFOX and QLEIX, that is four hedgers, I should not add one more to my portfolio, rather increase the existing ones or cut bait.
Most of my posts are not to educate or debate others but to help me think out loud and perhaps, revisit the posts when my memory fades. I bookmarked this thread and hopefully, I will remember.
Curious why you are using March 31 portfolio info. M* shows June 30 info - 60% fixed income. Very different and dynamic as you mentioned. Seems like a tactical long-short allocation fund.
As @hank did in another thread, you are looking at M*'s economic exposure view rather than its classic view. The classic view is designed to tell you what a fund is doing while the other views are designed to tell you more about how a fund is doing that.
LCORX is not so dynamic, at least based on 2nd quarter changes. Its 68% turnover is annual, not quarterly.
M*'s classic June 30th view shows 15.75% fixed income exposure. Very different from the 60% you are quoting. And that 15.75% is within rounding error of the 15% (14% IG + 1% HY) Leuthold itself shows in its 2nd quarter (June 30th) report.
If you're interested in what the newer portfolio views (economic exposure, market value) are supposed to show, here's a M* video. You must watch the tail end of the video for the charts. They are not shown in the text and without them the example is useless.
It was getting late when I last posted and I overlooked the 60% cash figure @BaluBalu cited. As you stated, he was looking at the economic rather than classic view at Morningstar as I once did, For some reason the ”economic” view appears to be the default view whenever I click on LCORX’s holdings at M*. So I nearly always need to reset it.
As much of @BaluBalu’s questioning (Devil’s Advocacy? ) has centered on how to incorporate a fund like LCORX into one’s overall portfolio construction, I’d suggest he start a separate thread on portfolio construction to garner as many different approaches as possible with an eye to see how LCORX might contribute.. He might also want to look at a thread I put up a couple weeks ago: How many funds is the right number? In spite of the silly misleading title, the thread does tread with caution into the realm of portfolio construction.
PS - In the above linked thread, I made reference to LCORX as a “balanced fund.” Technically that’s incorrect. However, for me it fills a spot once occupied by a balanced fund. I don’t find the risk / reward trade-offs substantially different. “Tactical Allocation” is a more accurate moniker.
@yogibb, thank you for the data. The “shorts” position and timing make the fund most interesting comparing to other allocation funds I have. More homework on my part since LCORX has sufficient long enough history through several drawdowns.
M* classifies LCORX as a tactical allocation fund. For the most part, a moderate allocation fund would serve the same purpose in my portfolio. With this in mind, I compared LCORX to three well-regarded moderate allocation funds. Since 05/01/2009 (constrained by RLBGX inception date), LCORX experienced the lowest maximum drawdown although its CAGR lagged significantly. All three moderate allocation funds had higher Sharpe/Sortino ratios.
It's interesting--to me--to ponder the enthusiasm for this tactical-allocation fund on the ink-buying side of this site versus the disdain for option-based funds.
It's interesting--to me--to ponder the enthusiasm for this tactical-allocation fund on the ink-buying side of this site versus the disdain for option-based funds.
My initial comment was simply that I agreed with LCORX shorting the QQQ. Later, I attempted to answer questions from another poster. Honestly, I have little “enthusiasm” myself for this one. In looking around to fill a portfolio need several months ago it looked like a reasonable fit. Occupies 10% of portfolio, as do all my funds. Were I to lighten up, it is the first thing I would exit. That 10% would probably move into fixed income.
I’m 78. A pension & Social Security meet most needs. But they do not cover expenses like new vehicles, travel or home infrastructure. Hence, I continue to invest, keeping very little in cash. (Old habits die hard.) I think it is important to consider age, risk tolerance and someone’s overall situation if trying to analyze their investment choices. I believe we tend to invest in what we know best from past experience. One person’s cup of tea may appear a rancid waste to another.
I didn’t check the others @Observant1 mentions, but there are records at Yahoo for LCORX that go back much farther than 2008. (You need to click “Show more” at the bottom of the initial list of dates.) LCORX lost 27.44% in 2008. Make whatever you want of that.
Thanks. No offense taken @WABC. Yours was a good question. Perhaps better put as: “What are the relative risks / rewards of Tactical Allocation approaches vs Options Based approaches? What could go wrong with either?”
LCORX seems more “old school” to me. I understand what it means to sell a stock short or to go long. And, in years past I’d “jigger” my relative weightings up and down (ie stocks, bonds, metals) to conform to whatever market view I held. Options trading is harder for me to fully understand. Not sure that at my age I need or want to get “up-to-speed” on this type of approach.
I hope no one has expressed disdain for another’s investment choices. Sorry if that has occurred. As I see it ….. It’s their money. They worked hard for it. If the investment fails, they are the one who suffers the loss - not me.
Seems like a good time to build a replicating portfolio for LCORX. Devo describes the process at this dinky linky.
Portfolio Visualizer gives us ten free years of data, and over that period of time LCORX shows a beta of .49. So we're going to test LCORX against a portfolio that is 51% cash and 49% SPY--I think that's the right breakdown.
This constructing of a look-a-like mix of investments to match an existing fund seems ludicrous to me. Isn't that what an over-all portfolio is supposed to be? It is obvious there are different ways to get the same results. A little of A added to a bit of B and you get the same result as C. Good luck managing that long term. Buying the S&P 500 and adding treasuries in an overall portfolio, how does that compare to holding a fund like LCORX which has a special place and purpose in a portfolio. I'm just not seeing the benefit.
This constructing of a look-a-like mix of investments to match an existing fund seems ludicrous to me. Isn't that what an over-all portfolio is supposed to be? It is obvious there are different ways to get the same results. A little of A added to a bit of B and you get the same result as C. Good luck managing that long term. Buying the S&P 500 and adding treasuries in an overall portfolio, how does that compare to holding a fund like LCORX which has a special place and purpose in a portfolio. I'm just not seeing the benefit.
What I am looking for are funds that end up with a better CAGR than the beta clone. The last time I ran DIVO through the grinder it beat the clone.
Leuthold's ETF may beat the clone simply due to lower costs. I'm no math whiz, but I do wonder if the cost of LCORX explains the difference in performance.
@mikem there are so many reasons to invest in a fund. Market returns and volatility are just one. Insight into the active manager and actions surely supersedes anything quantitative and analytical.
Having said that if we are to believe that 95% of large cap active managers can’t beat the equity indices in the USA long term, it opens the question: well what else is true which is similar.
These are starting points to look into a funds past, not a way to look into their future.
Interesting results for LCORX vs. the two replicating portfolios. The "replicants" generated lower max drawdowns, higher CAGRs, and higher Sharpe/Sortino Ratios. LCORX has a high expense ratio (albeit average for its category per M*) which detracts from returns.
Comments
Also of note, M* shows the fund today sitting on 17.7% cash, while in March they reported 11.8% “short-term investments”. They’ve certainly increased their armor against a potential market slide since the report’s publication. I can’t recall any other fund I’ve ever owned altering course that dramatically in fewer than 5 months. Chalk it up to inexperience I suppose.
You want an active fund and you got it!
I wonder how many investors really know what this fund does when they may have invested in it going by its name, "Core Investment."
I do not know about money market comparison but you might try the following:
Given the high current yields, are there not any bond funds that can beat LCORX for the next 1, 3, and 5 yrs?
We are just coming off some of the worse times for bond funds. Are not there any bond funds that beat LCORX over the past 1 and 3 yrs?
I am sold on active funds for equities, fixed income, and allocation funds but I am still looking for that buy and forget tactical fund (the elusive fourth category)!
Look instead at the Schedule of Investments, where "Percentages are stated as a percent of net assets." Short term investments (MMFs and T-bills) comprised 14.9% of net assets last March.
Much of the cash is collateral for short sales. So one likely needs to take a closer look at the shorts and cash restrictions to get a clearer picture of how much cash the fund actually had or has available for trading.
https://www.ici.org/viewpoints/view_14_sec_lending_01
I know @hank said why he is considering the fund. But got no responses from current owners.
PRPFX is a fine fund which I have long owned. The approaches of the two funds are vastly different. Just my opinion, but I think PRPFX is less risky. The 2008 performance numbers for the two funds would lend some support.
Seems like your goal is Hedged Equity. And then you are using this fund for the means by which it attempts to accomplish the goal. I probably should read the manager commentary to understand their approach better - just a snap shot of portfolio contents may not do justice. One thing I like is it is a multi-manager fund.
Curious why you are using March 31 portfolio info. M* shows June 30 info - 60% fixed income. Very different and dynamic as you mentioned. Seems like a tactical long-short allocation fund.
I have always been nervous about long- short funds. I must confess to owning QLEIX (not yet a fan). I own the Hedge Equity funds HELO (passive hedging) and PHEFX (dynamic hedging) and am reasonably satisfied. These accomplish hedging differently than LCORX and they do not go short, to my knowledge.
Thanks again for sharing.
The March 31 chart was posted only to allow comparisons with the more recent numbers to determine what changes in allocation may have been undertaken.
* I make no recommendation of this fund. I’d expect it to decline in an equity bear market like virtually every other equity fund. . My experience with this fund is extremely limited. (I hadn’t heard of it until David profiled it in November.) I did my own due diligence before sending money. Others should do the same.
Three of the 4 managers are unchanged at least since 2015. There was one manager change in 2021. IMO, not enough justification to drop fund rating because of manager change.
I know enough Gold rated funds I would not own and I am happy to own many Silver rated funds. I do not get hung up on M*'s Gold vs Silver.
In any case, I see the fund analysis at M* for LCORX done by solely machines. M*'s machine driven analysis and ratings have been more harmful than useful - the Chicago firm has taken to heart the Silicon Valley mantra of "fake it until you make it."
Their drop from Gold to Silver is as credible as you like. I would completely ignore their medal rating for LCORX.
It seems, since the recent market peak on July 16, the active / dynamic / tactical hedgers PHEFX and LCORX did not fare as well as the passive hedger HELO but PRWCX performed the best among these. I can accept the differences as not material / significant. However, I see that LCORX did so much better than PRWCX during the Covid crash or during the 2022-23 interest rate environment - so, I see the attraction to LCORX.
I guess I will take my chances with the passive hedger HELO which I already own and hope that if we have an armageddon situation, the Fed and Congress will bail the markets out. As I often say, it is not a question of whether an alt fund is good or bad, it really is what role one expects the fund to perform in one's portfolio. Since i already have two hedgers and if I count in MRFOX and QLEIX, that is four hedgers, I should not add one more to my portfolio, rather increase the existing ones or cut bait.
Most of my posts are not to educate or debate others but to help me think out loud and perhaps, revisit the posts when my memory fades. I bookmarked this thread and hopefully, I will remember.
As @hank did in another thread, you are looking at M*'s economic exposure view rather than its classic view. The classic view is designed to tell you what a fund is doing while the other views are designed to tell you more about how a fund is doing that.
LCORX is not so dynamic, at least based on 2nd quarter changes. Its 68% turnover is annual, not quarterly.
M*'s classic June 30th view shows 15.75% fixed income exposure. Very different from the 60% you are quoting. And that 15.75% is within rounding error of the 15% (14% IG + 1% HY) Leuthold itself shows in its 2nd quarter (June 30th) report.
If you're interested in how the classic view is calculated, here's a M* methodology paper:
Shorts and Derivatives in Portfolio Statistics, December 31, 2009.
If you're interested in what the newer portfolio views (economic exposure, market value) are supposed to show, here's a M* video. You must watch the tail end of the video for the charts. They are not shown in the text and without them the example is useless.
https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/204541/does-my-fund-invest-in-derivatives.aspx
It was getting late when I last posted and I overlooked the 60% cash figure @BaluBalu cited. As you stated, he was looking at the economic rather than classic view at Morningstar as I once did, For some reason the ”economic” view appears to be the default view whenever I click on LCORX’s holdings at M*. So I nearly always need to reset it.
As much of @BaluBalu’s questioning (Devil’s Advocacy? ) has centered on how to incorporate a fund like LCORX into one’s overall portfolio construction, I’d suggest he start a separate thread on portfolio construction to garner as many different approaches as possible with an eye to see how LCORX might contribute.. He might also want to look at a thread I put up a couple weeks ago: How many funds is the right number? In spite of the silly misleading title, the thread does tread with caution into the realm of portfolio construction.
PS - In the above linked thread, I made reference to LCORX as a “balanced fund.” Technically that’s incorrect. However, for me it fills a spot once occupied by a balanced fund. I don’t find the risk / reward trade-offs substantially different. “Tactical Allocation” is a more accurate moniker.
M* Risk Score LCORX 32, VFIAX 73, so for LCORX 43.84%
SD LCORX 9.92, VFIAX 17.84, so for LCORX 55.61%
Moderate-allocation range is 50-70%, so it's effectively near the lower end of moderate allocation or upper end of conservative-allocation.
Conservative-allocation is now split, 15-30%, 30-50%.
Thanks for the offer to educate me on portfolio construction. No thanks.
For the most part, a moderate allocation fund would serve the same purpose in my portfolio.
With this in mind, I compared LCORX to three well-regarded moderate allocation funds.
Since 05/01/2009 (constrained by RLBGX inception date), LCORX experienced
the lowest maximum drawdown although its CAGR lagged significantly.
All three moderate allocation funds had higher Sharpe/Sortino ratios.
Portfolio Backtester
I’m 78. A pension & Social Security meet most needs. But they do not cover expenses like new vehicles, travel or home infrastructure. Hence, I continue to invest, keeping very little in cash. (Old habits die hard.) I think it is important to consider age, risk tolerance and someone’s overall situation if trying to analyze their investment choices. I believe we tend to invest in what we know best from past experience. One person’s cup of tea may appear a rancid waste to another.
I didn’t check the others @Observant1 mentions, but there are records at Yahoo for LCORX that go back much farther than 2008. (You need to click “Show more” at the bottom of the initial list of dates.) LCORX lost 27.44% in 2008. Make whatever you want of that.
Yahoo Finance
LCORX seems more “old school” to me. I understand what it means to sell a stock short or to go long. And, in years past I’d “jigger” my relative weightings up and down (ie stocks, bonds, metals) to conform to whatever market view I held. Options trading is harder for me to fully understand. Not sure that at my age I need or want to get “up-to-speed” on this type of approach.
I hope no one has expressed disdain for another’s investment choices. Sorry if that has occurred. As I see it ….. It’s their money. They worked hard for it. If the investment fails, they are the one who suffers the loss - not me.
Regards
Portfolio Visualizer gives us ten free years of data, and over that period of time LCORX shows a beta of .49. So we're going to test LCORX against a portfolio that is 51% cash and 49% SPY--I think that's the right breakdown.
And here are the results: YADL (yet another dinky linky.)
To get the betas to match over time I had to adjust the breakdown to 50/50/ And here is the result for that.
And you did not have the manage risk.
Leuthold's ETF may beat the clone simply due to lower costs. I'm no math whiz, but I do wonder if the cost of LCORX explains the difference in performance.
Having said that if we are to believe that 95% of large cap active managers can’t beat the equity indices in the USA long term, it opens the question: well what else is true which is similar.
These are starting points to look into a funds past, not a way to look into their future.
Interesting results for LCORX vs. the two replicating portfolios.
The "replicants" generated lower max drawdowns, higher CAGRs, and higher Sharpe/Sortino Ratios.
LCORX has a high expense ratio (albeit average for its category per M*) which detracts from returns.