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.
Interesting this fund is brought up, since we used it back in the early 1990s when Bill Wilby ran it. We sold it when he retired and really have not looked at it since. Still some impressive long-term and short-term rankings. M* comments are typic…
Hi, Vintage. Long-term care policies have been around for more than 25 years, and they have changed a lot during that time. At one time, there were dozens of insurance companies offering products designed to provide benefits should the policy owne…
Best and Worst sometimes has a lot to do with timing...when you buy a fund. For example, WASYX had a fantastic run until it ran into problems with asset bloat and big management changes. Those folks who owned it from 2007- 2013 and sold it for wha…
Like all of these people, eventually they will be right. But as someone else pointed out, when they eventually ARE right, no one reminds people how often they have been wrong. Much better to position your portfolio so you can handle a correction/s…
I would be cautious of any "intermediate term" bond fund in a period of rising rates, but I would really make sure the duration is something with which you can live. OSTIX, PONDX, BSIIX. Look at the history of the funds you are considering, month-…
This is the same tactic used by the Dems when they were in control and the CRS issued reports they did not like. Politics is politics. And while this is not fake news, it is OLD news.
I do not plan to touch my retirement account until the RMD year. But since I like to have 5-7 years of cash flow needs stashed aside so that I do not have to sell equities in a down market, I will use a combination of staggered CDs for the first co…
I assume that you are asking if you swap ABC Fund for DEF Fund, is there tax to pay? If you realize a taxable gain on the sale of ABC Fund, and if you held ABC Fund for one year or longer, that gain is subject to capital gains tax rates. Tax rates…
Understand that I do not pooh-pooh the large increase in central bank balance sheets. It is real and we should be concerned. But this is not some fact that Mr. Gross mysteriously found. It's been discussed for years. So, yeah, move along.
This is too bizarre, even for Mr. Gross. Skip to the last paragraph, like most of his wanderings. Translation..."Don't fight the Fed. Rates will remain artificially low for some time". Here is a great case for ignoring the celebrity status of a…
C-class shares should be outlawed. NO ONE except the broker benefits from these. If this is the only way some investors can eventually get to F-class shares, go somewhere else. It wasn't very long ago that folks who were sold C-class shares were …
Am Funds is primarily a large cap shop. That is their bread and butter. Some years they will do a bit better than their benchmark, some years they underperform some. As another poster said, when you own hundreds of stocks, it is darned hard to con…
In periods of rising interest rates, there is some validity to owning actively-managed fixed-income funds because of what JohnChisum says above. There are plenty of these that do not add value, but those who do are worth investigating. But a simpl…
Assuming we are in a period of rising interest rates, I would urge caution on any aggressive, long-duration, HY investment. Most investors are not seeking long-term volatility, and that is exactly what they will likely get. Search for non-index fu…
PONDX is a darned good compliment to OSTIX, since it owns/has owned very small amounts of credit. Its allocation to government and securitized bonds gives it a very different posture.
OSTIX comes as close to buy-and-hold as any. Although it is not a high-yield fund, that is where M* puts it. It's downside protection is evident from its 2008 return vs the pure HY funds. I would not even want to own a pure HY fund because of thi…
OSTIX is one of the best moves we made 14 years ago. Consistent, conservative, cautious management. M* still does not understand this fund, and that is fine by me.
I have learned to not pay much attention to any of these Barron groups. Goodness knows Mr. Gundlach was wrong on a number of things last year, too. Forget about trying to guess which countries will be the best in any year. Either own a cheap inde…
Actually I just met with someone from Osterweis yesterday. I have really not looked at the two new funds. As all of their others, these were created because of client requests and team talent. OSTGX manager Jim Callinan was at Robertson Stephens …
There are very few things we can control, and most of these require assumptions of some sort. The exceptions are how much you spend, your investment expenses, and the overall risk/volatility of your investments. There are some others, but these ar…
This sub-asset class is one to consider as an add-on to an existing EM position. Understand it probably carries more volatility and risk than any other. And the generally very high expenses should be considered in the risk/cost/reward evaluation. …
One thing for sure, he sells a lot of books. His forecasts might be mostly terrible, but he does have a method to his fortune telling. On the other hand, it is important to consider ideas and outlooks that are not in line with our own biases.
I think most would agree that fixed-income investing could survive just fine without either of these two children. Give me managers like Dan Ivascyn, Matt Egan, Carl Kaufman, and Jason Brady who are seldom in the news at all.
I tend not to spend much time with these publicity attention getters from M*. I do have two comments, one general, the other specific. The first is that in every stock category, there are index funds and ETFs that have done as well as the nominees…
I am not sure there is a compelling reason to own smallcap value or smallcap growth per se. Why not look at the entire Intl smallcap space? QUSIX has been a good option for actively-managed funds. I would compare it to DLS even though DLS is a lo…
msf, what you describe is not stupidity, it's the chance to learn from our mistakes. Goodness knows I have made plenty in the past, and probably will do so in the future. We can all disagree on things (and we do), but one of the best features of t…
The message from all these fund companies is that we'll use the new T-class shares for the DOL-related accounts. But we'll keep and use the commission share classes for everything else. M* asks how the A (and B & C) shares will survive. Easy,…
I am not sure this is such a contrarian view. It is perhaps more withering than some others, but we are inundated by doom and gloom most every day. The last few years have forced investors to be contrarians if they want to have a positive return. …
M* has had a problem with classifying a lot of funds. It's nature is to fit everything into neat boxes, often times without regard to what the fund really is, its philosophy, and its history. They crammed OSTIX into the HY group a few years ago, w…
SFGIX (or SIGIX) is a very good option for investors who want EM with much lower-than-average volatility. It is one of a handful of EM funds with a positive 3-Yr Sortino Ratio. It will have a 5-Yr anniversary on 2/15/17 and will start showing up o…
