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.
Can anyone offer a reason why ZEOIX is holding up better?
From a quick glance, the main reason must be that it's not as junky as RSIVX. (See the yield difference and the credit quality distribution.)
Market neutral QMNNX. Also, I've been surprised how contained QUSOX's losses have been. It's held up better than GPROX, even with an all-foreign portfolio.
A sort of interesting technical tidbit: 1970 has been cited I dunno how many times (e.g., here, months ago) as a key support level for the S&P, and it closed there, on the nose, today.
"A bit illogical. If currently low rates aren't providing much stimulus, why do they think going back to these rates at some future point would help?"
It won't. But what else can they do...well, aside from NIRP, that is.
At that point, it'd be more…
Great point of JG's that once the first 0.25 or so is in, Fed watching will probably shift to "when's the next one" and "how fast," and won't settle down at all. Fed "uncertainty" won't go away, it'll just shift focus. (And then there's always the c…
On RSIVX, I think it depends on whether you invest primarily for income or for total return. If the former, it still looks fairly good. One indicator: last December, in the HY selloff, it did better than its peers/near-peers of the short & junky…
Had to go back & reread the text on the Stalwarts funds: says capacity is ~ $7B for the two, so they should be available for a while, or at least not hard closed for a while.
In the past I've used DFJ (small cap Japan), EWS (Singapore), and EWH (Hong Kong) for value trading, but don't have any single-country ex-U.S. holdings now. EWS is at a 52-week low, but I'm not buying (at least yet) since it looks like there are ple…
RSIVX has struggled this year, that's for sure. I see other funds as better alternatives for total return, such as DLINX, ASHDX and OSTIX.
+1. The funds Will mentioned have considerably better Sharpes and up-down capture than RSIVX. (It's in the sa…
Fidelity offers lots of A shares load-waived & NTF, including OSMAX. The ones that are LW & NTF are shown as such right below the name of the fund, at the top of the fund page, e.g., here.
Buying/selling at these levels? Not much, still ~ 40% cash & stable value, but nibbling at three relatively attractively priced cef's of various portfolios and pedigrees (PTY, DBL, FPF) and one etf (PCY), plus adding a little to core-ish bonds s…
RNDLX assets are divvied into three sleeves, two FI sleeves run by Dbl and the CEF sleeve run by RN, and RN as I understand it determines the allocations to each sleeve, which they can change fairly significantly. One attraction someone on M* mentio…
@kevindow. I have sworn off all things AQR. They are not a retail investors friend.
PS How are you able to by institutional shares?
AQR at Fidelity in an IRA is reasonable. I'm in their market neutral fund, QMNNX (investor shares' ticker), which at…
TSP: With that view on coal, you have to wonder what planet those guys are living on. Does FPA have an interstellar mailing address these days? -- AJ
P.S. And I mean that purely in an investment sense.
msf: "And you can't write checks from a MM account within a brokerage."
Yes, when they converted my account, I received a note that the old check-writing scheme was no longer valid, but that I could specify a Vanguard fund in the account for check-…
Hi @AndyJ, Have not checked; but just from the top of the head recall. The 60 day rule "sale" holding period for some funds is not necessarily a Fido fee, if I recall properly.
The 60d early redemption fee I meant is Fido's for a non-Fido fund pur…
Vanguard used to give you one account number for Vanguard MFs and a different account & number for investments bought thru the brokerage. Last year they consolidated - Vanguard funds, other family funds, stocks, etfs, etc. are all accounted for …
Thanks from here too, Bee - the audio link is a really good source generally about strategic allocation for income-focused investing, and specifically for ideas for tweaks for H2 2015. -- AJ
I'm really interested in it, but a personal rule I follow 99% of the time is to wait for at least the first report before investing in a new fund. I'm not sure yet that it's guaranteed to be the same fund, and I really didn't consider it, in its old…
I just scrolled down through the P's, R's, and S's (since I started on the Parnassus page), looking at a fund here & there with decent (mostly A) rankings on down-market performance, and several of them are hugely at odds with M* risk ratings.
…
david, you mean the D rating of PRBLX in up markets? I think I remember right that Forbes used to have it as a C/A, so if that's correct it's gone down one notch for up markets. Not really a surprise; it's been dragging along for the past year or so…
If the M* portfolio holdings detail and the fund fact sheet are to be believed, SHAIX is going for market neutral & low-ish volatiility. It's essentially long the S&P 500 and short an equivalent total percentage of 120+ stocks. Over the last…
David S.: "It might be that uprooting Mr. K. from Thornburg's rich analyst corps will cause him to wither ...."
That's my question exactly about LK at Artisan; what kind of analyst support will he have there?
I see the prospectus (both forms) &am…
I've been a fan of Cam Hui's analysis (Humble Student of the Markets) for a while, and he has a good piece up on OJ's question. Short version: a 10-20% equity downdraft is likely in the near to intermediate term, but it needs a trigger to get going,…
Interesting that the 'Principal Investment Strategies' in the prelim prospectus reads like a multi-asset, multi-strategy alt fund, but the advisor is listed on p. 24 as Vanguard's Equity Investment Group. Then it goes on to say that "the Fund reserv…
" ... based on more than two decades of data, 1) randomly selected active U.S. small-company stock funds, 2) randomly selected active international large-company stock funds, and 3) randomly selected active U.S. large-company funds that were screen…
Taxable account. What I use it for is basically the expectation I mentioned. I keep a range of credit-risky FI in what I think of as a separate sleeve in the portfolio, and ASHDX is a lower duration/higher quality (and therefore presumably less risk…
I've had a moderate position in ASHDX since early this year; so far, so good. Short-term, higher-quality junk is the game, decent yield with lower volatility & credit risk (than other HY) is the expectation. Haven't followed OSTIX lately, but in…
I guess Mr. Icahn was on vacation on another planet last June, when junk really was high-priced at a spread of 3.4 and yield of 5.2, versus 4.6 and 6.1 now. Is he confusing energy junk with the broader category? Maybe - lower down in the article, it…
That Driehaus paper is excellent. I was interested to see what fund portfolio moves managers are making to try to accommodate reduced liquidity (in addition to or instead of what David Sherman talks about), and found this in the paper:
"Here’s what…
Great call; missed it but caught the mp3 yesterday. I thought AF's explanation of how security picking and macro interact in the Seafarer process was about the most detailed and illuminating I've heard from any manager.
Great analysis, msf.
Brian W.: "It would be nice if more employers offered 401k plans, but who would use them." At least 80% participate now, per the info from the EBRI paper msf quotes.
OJ: "In the example that you give, you present an improbable extreme situation ..."
Maybe, but there could be multiple other reasons to vote against a board candidate or a slate of candidates - cronyism, self dealing, etc., and I'd argue you're giv…
OJ - how about this hypothetical: A fund you own has a large stake in a particular company. A known securities fraudster is nominated for the board of said company. Wouldn't you want your fund's shares in the company voted against that board candida…
Looks like at least the latest conference calls get a summary and a replay link under Funds/Featured Funds, from the menu at the top of each page. I guess we can assume the Seafarer call will wind up there when ready (?).