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Uhhh ... actually the story focused on the limitations of Morningstar's star rating system. RPHYX, which we've been talking about for two years and whose closure we signaled about a month before the event, received its first star rating in October …
In truth, it looks like a bunch of funds are reorganizing. I flagged three or four in October that made similar announcements. Generally these are change-of-ownership events, either managers selling out to larger advisers or managers buying their …
Hi, Sven.
The record for ARLSX is too short to provide a meaningful comparison. If you overlap the charts of the two at Morningstar, it appears that MFLDX is modestly more volatile and has produced a modestly greater upside since the ARLSX launch.…
Howdy.
I interviewed a bunch of long/short managers last year, some quite talented. The conclusion that I reached was that ARLSX had the most thoughtful, clearly-articulated risk management discipline of them all. I talk about that in the fund pr…
Reply to @Charles: ...like D&C, once a BM&O employee, always a BM&O employee
I admit that I find this argument fascinating. BM&O was founded in 1931. In the last 82 years, exactly two partners (that is, the folks who manage the m…
John and I had a nice chat over the noon hour yesterday. His general theme was "now we can get back to normal finance topics, rather than 24/7 debt crises." Mine was, "yep, but it's not going to get any easier." John does read MFO (you might be s…
By Morningstar's calculation, high quality (wide moat) stocks are sitting exactly at fair value as of 10/17 while low quality (no moat) stocks are about 8% overvalued. Just as I look at the three-year valuation chart, 8-12% overvalued is about as h…
Hi, Slick!
Here's an inexpert question: assuming a 22% tax rate, wouldn't you need to expect returns of noticeably more than 5.5% on your IRAs over the next two years in order to justify selling the bonds? That is, the bonds are guaranteed a taxab…
Uhhh ... they're not "global." Heck, two of the three (China and Europe) aren't even "global ex-US". The problem, literally, might be that "international" took up too many characters in the headline.
David
Reply to @kallerid: Oddly, they can't post a transcript without having it censored by their compliance group. I've spoken with two managers who run their own conference calls with investors. Their compliance groups have told them they can answer a…
Reply to @kallerid: We're working out a date in the second or third week of December for a call with David. October (Zac Wydra of BMPEX) and November (John Park and Greg Jackson of SEEDX) were already taken.
David
Reply to @kallerid: I asked for you. The manager says that he thinks of it as a hybrid between short- and intermediate-term, with a lot of flexibility and a strong commitment to capital preservation.
Right now, he's about 30% in cash. Within the…
Reply to @claimui: Heigh ho!
I asked the folks at RiverPark about assets levels and sustainability. They reply:
... there was concern regarding the asset level not being viable. That is not a worry. The Fund is profitable at these levels, and m…
I'm not sure whether it's intentional, but the reporter certainly makes Fama come across as slightly befuddled. He's 74 ("a father of four and a grandfather of ten ... an avid windsurfer and golfer, an opera buff, and a fading tennis player" accord…
Heigh ho!
Sorry about the delayed response. Fifty-two Propaganda exams and five senior project drafts cry out for attention and repair, so I'm running way off.
In general, the SP stuff worries me a bit because it's pretty poorly written. I know …
Reply to @willmatt72: Mr. Sherman would, I suspect, discourage that behavior. He's been pretty clear that RPHYX is a cash-management account but the new fund is not. His intention is to manage it very conservatively (that is, with an emphasis on c…
If folks are interested, I'll share the SPIVA report tomorrow. It's the S&P Index Versus Active comparisons that I referred to in the October cover essay. It's likely that I need Charles to think through the implications of some of the author'…
I sort of agree with VF and Mark. I did a bit of scholarly work, once upon a time, on stock boards (in particular, investors' strategies for dealing with a "can't miss" stock that imploded in scandal). Three things struck me back then: the amount …
Our profiles of it are here: http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2011/07/ing-corporate-leaders-trust-b-lexcx/. If you scan "media mentions" under the "about" tab, you'll see at least one more article on the fund which cites our work.
For what it's w…
Funds are sometimes available before the website recognizes that fact. Scottrade's website half-recognizes the fund but won't yet process an order on it.
If things are clear Monday, I'll share the word.
Reply to @claimui: Dang, dang, dang (so to speak).
That's the consequence of the mad rush to post, pack and get to Chicago for the ETF conference.
Nuts, nuts, nuts. Chip's embedded the links now. Thanks for the heads-up!
Back to listening to …
Reply to @Charles: The buzz is all about "managed portfolios for smart beta." The move to ETFs seems to be accelerating and there's an emerging industry in helping advisers move their clients' entire portfolio into a basket of ETFs whose compositio…
Reply to @msf: You can't imagine how much of a headache this one point has caused. Here's the explanation for the resets that Schaja and Sherman offer:
Interest rate resets – uhhh … my ears started ringing during this part of the interview; I had …
Reply to @Ted: Indeed, you did. I'm mostly just irked that they were asking, yesterday, for a $125 subscription to their funds newsletter based on ...
Take care,
David
Reply to @BobC: Yuh ... I might poke just a tiny bit at Mr. Kinnel and his list. In the promotional email for it (received this week), he touted three particularly excellent funds - based on their long-time management teams and discipline. The man…
"RiverPark Advisors announced the launch of its third liquid alternatives fund, the Structural Alpha Fund, which joins the RiverPark Long/Short Opportunity Fund and RiverPark Gargoyle Hedged Value Fund."
That's a very peculiar press release, in the…
Thanks, big guy!
Curious rhythm to such things ... fund registrations this month seem well under half (maybe a quarter?) of what went last month, but this month's registrants still hit the critical December 30 launch deadline.
Odd.
Davd
Reply to @VintageFreak: Here's my April 2012 grump about the fund.
(Headline) James Wang is not “the greatest investor you’ve never heard of”
Investment News gave that title to the reclusive manager of the Oceanstone Fund (OSFDX) who was the only …
Charles! Just to be clear: Charles did all the work, from initial contact to the Bottom Line. And did it really well. I chipped in several text edits.
David
Reply to @Mark: "1,000.00 US Dollars of 1929 are worth 10,721.86 US Dollars of 2013" per http://stats.areppim.com/calc/calc_usdlrxdeflator.php. The closing peak of the 1920s bull market occurred on September 3, 1929, when the Dow Industrials hit 38…
