Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

In this Discussion

Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

    Support MFO

  • Donate through PayPal

Neuberger Berman Global Allocation Fund (NGLAX)

I Would Appreciate Any & All Opinions About This Fund.

Comments

  • Never heard of it. I'll go onto Morningstar and take a fresh, unbiased look. $33.5 MM in assets; 5.75% load; 1.33% expense ratio; TTM yield, an astonishing 8.54%. There is nothing listed under the 30 day SEC yield in Morningstar. I looked at the top portfolio holdings, even googled the top holding: not easy to find information about it.
    A very esoteric investment portfolio. A lot of futures contracts. Maybe some fixed income arbitrage, things I know almost nothing about. I would call the fund company and discuss the portfolio with them in depth. The portfolio is extremely unusual, and that is a big understatement. The fund has 66% in cash per M*. Major short positions. One of the fund managers has a PhD, quite unusual, and one of the fund managers at the fund's inception had a PhD. Obviously a lot of brain power here. That in and of itself doesn't say anything good or bad. Long Term Capital Management had the ultimate in brain power, and that didn't end too well. Some major "Quant" brainpower at this fund! Excellent performance history compared to M*'s tactical allocation category. My opinion is that Loads are confiscatory unless one has a financial adviser, and the load is the method of payment for those services. But of course, a fund like this so unusual that you're not going to have a bunch of no load alternatives. Personally I wouldn't invest in a fund with only $33.5 million in assets. That's not a lot of skin in the game from the managers, their families, relatives and friends, the fund family itself and all their associates, the fund board and all of their associates, etc. The fund has been in operation for 3 years and 3 months, and not enough people associated with it are making significant personal financial commitments. Not a good sign to me at all. I would need to read the Prospectus and the fund reports, perform due diligence on the fund managers, explore the googled hits to see if I could find interviews of the fund managers, analysis and opinions about the fund. I'd go to Yahoo Finance and see if there are any posts about the fund in the message boards, and generally, turn over as many 'rocks' as I could. Let us know what you find out!
  • You can buy it at Fidelity no load, so the load by itself is not a problem.
  • edited April 2014
    I don’t own this fund; but, I have looked at it and studied it in the past.

    I have linked below its fact sheet which provides a good bit of information about it. I find it an interesting fund and one that I might position into sometime in the future. For me, the major deciding factor is to determine what it will bring to my portfolio that I don’t already have. Although I am looking for fund number fifty two I am in no hurray to tuck a fund into the portfolio just to reach this targeted number. However, this fund does interest me and if I were to purchase it, it would become the sixth member of my specialty fund sleeve. In addition, I would not put more than one percent of my overall portfolio into it as my specialty sleeve now accounts for about five percent of my overall portfolio.

    Here is it’s fact sheet. Notice that it can take short positions and invest in most anything it chooses. In addition, in studing this fund through Xray I am finding that it is a fund that changes it's holdings often as it has a turnover ratio of 187% with a current listed forward p/e ratio of 12.9 ... and, it kicks off a "probally engineered" high yield at 8.5% which M* shows is paid out annually.

    If you are the venturing type but don't like to trade your portfolio then this fund will do it for you. It's fact sheet says ... It strives to be in the right places and at the right times.

    http://www.nb.com/documents/public/en-us/l0080_mf_global_allocation_fs.pdf

    http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/f?t=NGLAX&region=USA

    Old_Skeet

  • I Appreciate The Replys - All Are Very Helpfull !!!
  • There is a "gross expense ratio" of 5.27%.
    Definitely would want to explore that to understand what's it's all about.
    The .pdf lists 3 expense ratios: Capped, Total, and Gross.
    The capped and total are clear.
    How well can a fund do longer term with a "gross expense ratio" of 5.27%?
  • Hi rjb112,

    I saw that expense ratio in my review but did not comment on it. I expect the high expense is due to the high turn over this fund has at 187% as reported by M*. After all, there is a cost associated with trading and executing its many strategies ... and, what you have pointed out is one of the main reasons I have not made a purchase ... although I still find it an interesting fund.

    Old_Skeet
Sign In or Register to comment.