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Limiting availability of Highbridge Dynamic Commodities Strategy Fund?

edited April 2011 in Fund Discussions
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1217286/000119312511100451/d497.htm

Supplement dated April 18, 2011 to the Prospectuses dated February 28, 2011

Effective May 2, 2011, the Highbridge Dynamic Commodities Strategy Fund (the “Fund”) will be publicly offered on a limited basis. Investors will not be eligible to purchase shares of the Fund, except as described below:


Shareholders of record of the Fund as of May 2, 2011 are able to continue to purchase additional shares in their existing Fund accounts either through J.P. Morgan Funds Services or a Financial Intermediary and may continue to reinvest dividends or capital gains distributions from shares owned in such Fund;

Shareholders of record of the Fund as of May 2, 2011 are able to add to their accounts through exchanges from other J.P. Morgan Funds;

Group employer retirement plans including 401(k), 403(b) and 457 plans (and their successor plans), which have the Fund available to participants on or before April 18, 2011, may continue to open Fund accounts for new participants and purchase additional shares in existing participant accounts. Group employer retirement plans including 401(k), 403(b) and 457 plans (and their successor plans) may also establish new accounts with the Fund, provided the group employer retirement plan has been accepted for investment by the Fund and its distributor on or before May 2, 2011. Additionally, certain fee-based advisory programs may purchase shares of the Fund for new and existing accounts. These particular programs were accepted for continued investment by the Fund and its distributor on or before May 2, 2011;

Ÿ Current and future JPMorgan SmartRetirement Funds and such other J.P. Morgan Funds as are designated by the J.P. Morgan Funds Board of Trustees will be able to purchase shares of the Fund.


If all shares of the Fund in an existing shareholder’s account are voluntarily redeemed or involuntarily redeemed (due to instances when a shareholder does not meet aggregate account balance minimums or when participants in Systematic Investment Plans do not meet minimum investment requirements), then the shareholder’s account will be closed. Such former Fund shareholders will not be able to buy additional Fund shares or reopen their accounts in the Fund. The foregoing restrictions, however, do not apply to participants in eligible employer retirement plans.

If the Fund receives a purchase order directly from an investor who is not eligible to purchase shares of the Fund, after the limited offering dates outlined above, J.P. Morgan Funds Services will attempt to contact the investor to determine whether he or she would like to purchase shares of another J.P. Morgan Fund or would prefer that the investment be refunded. If J.P. Morgan Funds Services cannot contact the investor within 30 days, the entire investment will be refunded.


Comments

  • Any idea why this might be the case?
  • too much money too fast, no?
  • looks like they want to leave capacity for preferred investors.
  • Interesting to see.
  • Scott,I believe that you own this fund,so do you have any thoughts on why
    this commodities fund would be 100% cash.
    http://quote.morningstar.com/fund/f.aspx?t=HDCCX
    Thanks.
  • The fund is not 100% cash. Morningstar has never listed the holdings for this fund - they are available on the fund's website.
  • amaizing performance for cash: +1.15% today! Spencer, the M* can't handle anything but bonds and stocks. they reflect collateral that the fund uses for their swaps and futures exposure. the M* report here is meaningless -- you need to try to get the info from the fund's dox, from highbridge or jpmorgan directly.
  • The funds that invest in futures contracts and other derivatives often hold collateral. Typically, the collateral is in short term bonds (such as T-Bills) and equivalent which M* lists as cash.
  • edited April 2011
    While looking at HDCCX, I just noticed that PIMCO had a new Commodity fund.

    PCLDX - PIMCO CommoditiesPLUS Strategy (the ticker is for D class). It looks like it is much cheaper than HDCCX. The manager seems to be a former rocket scientist!

    It actually seems to invest more like older PCRDX - PIMCO Commodity Real Return Strategy (again for D class) in that it invests in Futures/Derivatives but invests the collateral in cash/bonds.

    Overall structure of the two PIMCO funds are very similar except for the commodity index they follow and the composition of bonds. The older fund (PCRDX) has DJ-UBS Commodity Index based futures basket while the new one follows Credit Suisse Commodity benchmark. The older fund invests the collateral heavily T-Bills and TIPS. The new one has a much broader diversified bond collateral (government, mortage, corporate, high yield, foreign, emerging)

    Oh, did I mention that both PIMCO funds are still way much cheaper than HDCCX.
  • If both of the PIMCO products are largely oriented toward tracking indices, they probably should not be directly compared to HDCCX.

    HDCCX is not primarily an indexed product; it is genuinely actively managed. It can (and does) use substantial leverage and take substantial long and short positions on commodities. It follows a trading strategy. It has high costs due to (in part) this strategy.

    While the PIMCO funds can short, I believe they are ultimately more oriented toward tracking their indices; perhaps the shorting is used only as a defensive move in broadly declining markets for commodities. When I compared both funds a short while ago, it does not appear that the one fund made active use of shorting.

    The PIMCO funds will throw off a lot more income than the Highbridge fund. This is because most of the income generated by the Highbridge fund is applied toward trading costs, which can be quite sizeble.

  • You may be right but I have doubts.

    But I believe you and others are more likely getting the fund company cool-aid and if the expense ratio goes like this I doubt the Highbridge fund will earn its keep over the long term.
  • You may be right. As Soros (I believe it was) said "...this is the market, you have no friends in the market...". Icahn said something similar.

    With that in mind, I was aware of the large difference in E/R for Highbridge versus, say, PIMCO's products, as well as the fact that PIMCO throws off income while Highbridge does not, etc. So, I called JPM funds. The rep there was very familiar with the fund and quite adamant: the Highbridge fund is not an indexed product, it is a fund run by traders. I hold the fund in a brokerage account, and spoke with my broker before buying it and he confirmed the same.

    Long story short -- I will freely admit I may have been mislead by a couple of different folks and that I'm taking a chance by going with such a new fund; but everything I've seen about the funds suggests that Highbridge is not an indexed product (and PIMCO's commodity funds are).



  • edited April 2011
    My guess is that active management of commodity futures and what I would consider fairly substantial use of leverage at times are elements of the higher cost. It's certainly a different fund from the Pimco offerings, but all three are fine funds and worthy of consideration depending on what one is looking for. I think it's a good thing that the offerings in this category are changing and evolving and the addition of active management is unique. Personally, I view the Highbridge fund as more of a mid-term holding, while the Pimco fund will stand as the longer-term commodity holding.
  • Investors' points are well-taken however. Commodities are the "asset class du jour", ergo you can't put it beyond financial firms to throw together something that sounds really cool, but is really an overpriced version of a more basic product. The use of the term "Dynamic" and "Plus" in a fund name is usually a give away, as well.

    With that said, I did a bit of due diligence and feel pretty certain that this is a product which will differ from indexed products. I also tend to think if the Highbridge fund was merely an index fund, there wouldn't be such a rush to close it to new investors after one quarter.

    I do miss the income that the PIMCO analogues would generate, and of course regret the higher fees of the Highbridge fund, but am willing to act on the assumption (for the moment) that this product offers a genuinely different way to play commodities.
    Haven't made a decision yet for my Roth account, but may go with the PIMCO products there.
  • I definitely can see the "Dynamic" and other terms used as selling/marketing. I do feel a little better about the fund coming from Highbridge, and I do think the managers have pretty considerable experience. The fund is nearing its first B-day, and while it's not a fund that I will be holding for ages (I've taken profits on a fairly significant portion and will take profits on the remainder sooner than later and just go back to the Pimco fund only) I think it's certainly done well over the 1yr period.
  • Hey Scott,

    Could you explain the differences between PCRDX = Pimco Commodities Real Return and PCLDX = Pimco Commodities Plus Strategy?

    Thanks,

    bee
  • edited April 2011
    Bee, I assume you have seen my comparison between the two funds. I see the difference in benchmark index and collateral.
  • Thanks,
    I missed it...found it...thanks!

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