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the March issue is live!

David_Snowball
edited March 8 in Fund Discussions
I've always been rather taken by The Fate of the Titans, the once unassailable funds that slip and then slip from public view. When I started writing about funds (Brill's Mutual Funds Interactive! Once named by Barron's as one of the two best fund sites on the web, with the other being some impudent startup firm in Chicago), the Technology Value Fund has the surest thing to sure money that you could find. Two tech insiders, the now-departed Ken Kam and Kevin Landis, knew the tech industry in a way that mere professional investors couldn't. 60% a year for six years, with Ken reportedly getting nervous about the magnitude of the bubble and cashing out in '99. (Smart guy.) Six funds that would have called ARK or Royce to mind: every available flavor of the same thing. Then the inevitable: crash, bounce, crash. Bold decision to renounce the '40 Act and bring their genius to private equity. Bounce, crash, crash, crash. Never a word of doubt from Kevin who know has a fund valued at $0.06/share whose holdings are so illiquid that the fund can't be ... well, liquidated.

I tried to be a bit blunt on climate change and infrastructure, and a bit helpful on The Great Rotation thing. The warning about the new magic wand - private equity exposure - might fall somewhere in-between.

I might ask Chip to make an edit or two to better explain Goodhaven and the ETF in The Great Rotation.

Lynn did his predictably excellent work, data-rich and thoughtful, on bond funds that are not vanilla and bond ladders built without buying bonds, per se. Shadow highlights the death of MACSX (literally, the insiders called the fund Max). I have a bad feeling about Matthews ("new executive leadership" is rarely a good sign) and some ongoing anxiety about Grandeur Peak (where the lead manager of their best performing fund suddenly left, with Mr Blake stepping in until Mr Gardiner's mid-summer return). When I talked with the folks at GP, the take was "easy-peasy, nothing to see, we got this covered." And yet, assets are down by half during Mr. G's sabbatical and the complex has gone from almost all four- and five-star funds to almost all two star ones. It might be worth noticing.

Comments

  • Sven
    Thank you again to professor Snowball and his incredible team.
  • Devo
    in a world of "research" and financial journalism, the team at Mutual Fund Observer, are always a refreshing read. You walk away learning something new EVERY time. Love it.
  • Mona
    Devo said:

    in a world of "research" and financial journalism, the team at Mutual Fund Observer, are always a refreshing read. You walk away learning something new EVERY time. Love it.

    @Devo, and while we understand, we miss your monthly articles!
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