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Sigh. While I like Contra, there's hardly a line in this blog that's entirely accurate.
- Largest fund in the world? PTTRX has $136.837B (Lipper), while all shares combined of Pimco Total Return have $236.93B (Pimco), vs. $72B for Contra (SeekingAlpha).
- Industry average expense of $1.44%? On a dollar weighted average, including amortized loads, stock funds average 0.99%, bond funds 0.75% (per ICI; M* figures are similar; M* also reports Contra's fee level as "average" for its type, hardly the low end that SeekingAlpha asserts).
- Fidelity's performance-based management fee "must have given a strong motivation to the portfolio managers"? That explains why all of Fidelity's funds have done so well. Not.
- Portfolio managers (plural) during the last decade? Will Danoff and who?
- "The five-year mean volatility ratio of the fund is 0.55 ...Thus, Contrafund was able to beat the market, with ... lower volatility." Conveniently omitting that the mean volatility of the market was 0.35 and that of the category was 0.36. Not saying that other metrics didn't conflict, but this is cherry picking.
- Lots of figures mix 3 year, 5 year, and 10 year time frames often in the same sentence.
Again, I think this is a fine fund; it's just not a fine report.
Comments
- Largest fund in the world? PTTRX has $136.837B (Lipper), while all shares combined of Pimco Total Return have $236.93B (Pimco), vs. $72B for Contra (SeekingAlpha).
- Industry average expense of $1.44%? On a dollar weighted average, including amortized loads, stock funds average 0.99%, bond funds 0.75% (per ICI; M* figures are similar; M* also reports Contra's fee level as "average" for its type, hardly the low end that SeekingAlpha asserts).
- Fidelity's performance-based management fee "must have given a strong motivation to the portfolio managers"? That explains why all of Fidelity's funds have done so well. Not.
- Portfolio managers (plural) during the last decade? Will Danoff and who?
- "The five-year mean volatility ratio of the fund is 0.55 ...Thus, Contrafund was able to beat the market, with ... lower volatility." Conveniently omitting that the mean volatility of the market was 0.35 and that of the category was 0.36. Not saying that other metrics didn't conflict, but this is cherry picking.
- Lots of figures mix 3 year, 5 year, and 10 year time frames often in the same sentence.
Again, I think this is a fine fund; it's just not a fine report.