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The March 2026 Issue

chipchip
in Fund Discussions
Welcome to the new year, at least as our Roman forebears knew it. The hyacinth and crocuses are adamant about taking their place on stage, which means it’s March and the March MFO is live https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/issue/march-2026/.

Highlights from this month’s issue:

Our colleague Lynn Bolin shares Hope Is Not a Good Strategy, Lynn's periodic reminder that markets have memory even when investors don't. His counsel is not panic but preparation — modest cash reserves, genuine downside protection, and resistance to the comfortable assumption that the last three years represent a new normal rather than the late innings of a cyclical bull.

Perpetual Income for Dummies, also by Lynn, answers a friend's request for a simple, durable portfolio that generates steady withdrawals, keeps pace with inflation, and survives both recessions and rising rates without requiring its owner to be a professional. A portfolio you can actually live with, in both senses of the phrase.

In New Year’s Resolution #2: Don’t Underwrite Yachts, I raise two possibilities: (1) the term “crazy-rich” has gotten entirely too literal lately and (2) you do have options, through not frictionless ones, for stepping back and reasserting a degree of balance … at least in the sliver of the world you have control over.

Extraordinary times (aka “now”) call for extraordinary thoughtfulness. In Building the Insulated Portfolio, we use the extraordinary tools available through MFO Premium to answer the question: Are these funds earning their spot in a risk-conscious portfolio? Good news: 80% are. Other news: two promising funds have turned consistently south, measured by both robust returns and downside resilience. Chip has rolled out the chopping block.

The folks at Disciplined Growth Investors run a consistently strong balanced fund. In late February, they launched a second fund, Disciplined Growth Investors Equity Fund, that (a) is a conversion of a long-running limited partnership and (b) embodies just the equity sleeve of the DGI flagship fund. It’s an interesting old-school product.

And, as always, The Shadow shares the record of the investment industry’s most recent twists, turns, and twerks, in Briefly Noted. That includes a fairly consequential piece on the renaissance of Matthews Asia, a good group that seems unwilling to settle for half-measures.

All waiting for you at MFO … and in the beloved long scroll version: https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2026/3/ (See: I do read all of your emails, and can totally feel that love for the LSV!)

Comments

  • chipchip
    And, if you're on Substack, I just shared New Year’s Resolution #2: Don’t Underwrite Yachts as David's first post on that platform. Please visit, read, and share - https://dsnowball.substack.com/p/new-years-resolution-2-dont-underwrite?r=7sscva
  • yogibearbullyogibearbull
    I tried to post this in the morning but MFO didn't cooperate. So, I had all day to refine it (-:).

    Great follow up by @lynnbolin2021 on perpetual withdrawals. Also many thanks for the mention of my related note.

    Bolin's new perpetual withdrawal portfolio does meet the perpetual condition for 4% withdrawals with PWR > 4%, SWRM > 4%.

    Morningstar all-bond portfolio fails, as expected (both PWR & SWRM are undefined). Bonds aren't equities even though HY bonds have high correlation with equities. Most withdrawal studies recommend 40-60% equities.

    VWINX is a great fund although it failed 4% perpetual test for the last 10 years because PWR < 4, SWRM < 4. Bolin's data shows nominal ending values, but looking at inflation-adjusted ending values will make that clear. However, it does better for longer periods but that cannot be seen now with free-PV.

    Note that PV-PWR assumes annual %withdrawals (so, fluctuate annually), while SWRM assumes conventional Bengen-type initial $withdrawals adjusted for COLA (so, steadily rise).

    These technical details may not be of general interest, so here is a link for those interested,
    https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/2421/thread
  • rforno
    Even though I already use another *fantastic* (paid) service for email, I'm also in the process of switching to Proton since I use their other products already (and b/c ProtonMail has realtime notifications unlike IOS Mail which has 15m as the minimum interval) ... and for other reasons.

    Thanks for the shoutout to The Conversation! I've been a contributor there for 10+ years and agree it's a very useful and thought-provoking site.
  • MrRufflesMrRuffles
    I’m curious what the case is for holding both Seafarer funds when they have a 91% correlation and SIVLX has both markedly better performance and downside capture than SIGIX.
  • David_Snowball
    Embedded taxable gains, primarily.

    I bought Seafarer Overseas G&I at launch. Why? EM made sense, Andrew made more sense, growth + value made fair sense. On whole my preference for very long time frame holdings is (a) tilt toward value / quality / small when you can (so I traded my Artisan SC for Artisan SCV, Artisan Int'l for Artisan Int'l Value as the latter became available) and (b) hold forever. If Seafarer had launched both G&I and Value simultaneously, I probably would have invested in Value from the get-go, but they didn't. So know I've transferred some G&I shares to V and am putting new money into Value.
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