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Thanks for the kind words. I think the guys did some exceptional work. Devesh's story struck me as timely, well-researched and important.
I've received two or three requests to write about particular funds in the month ahead, including Frank Value…
Yep. The nature of a private board, at least in this software, is that it's invisible until you're a member. It would be reassuring if non-members could at least see the name of the board over in the left-side roster, but the software doesn't have t…
Hi, sma.
A quick follow-up.
1. I added the table to Mark's article as a way of giving folks leads. He's an innocent victim of my good intentions.
2. MFO Premium's screener defaults to providing the oldest share class of each portfolio, and that's…
@BenWP: when I talked to Artisan, they said the plan was to have Mr. Zhou (and, separately, Ms. Hsiao) run private strategies rather than public funds. In general, managers who have moved from one fund to another will launch cloned strategies aroun…
The poll problem is not Devesh's. I screwed something up in the setup but can't figure out what, and Chip is in Chicago on conference. My current plan is to wait for her return and, if we can fix the error, I will resend the link to the poll by mas…
Pretty much everything is automated for me. Palm Valley Capital and Riverpark Short-Term are both up. Seafarer and FPA Crescent are is near the top of their respective heaps. The others... meh. A bit above average or a bit below average. Nothing tra…
UTF looks to be an interesting cautionary tale. It appears to be about 60/40 US with a currency hedge. The fund's current NAV is still below its December 2007 peak. Hmmm ...
There's also a BlackRock US infrastructure ETF. Lipper hides US infrastructure under "industrials" and puts the rest under "global infrastructure." Investigating now!
As Charles has noted before, the MFO Premium screener defaults to a fund's oldest share class, which is often its institutional class. With up to 18 different share classes being offered by some firms, it's a mess to sort through to find the class m…
Thanks. I think the guys produced some really first-rate work again this month.
Too, do let me know if there are particular funds that have aroused your curiosity. I try to poke around on your behalf when I can!
David
@stayCalm: it was a brute force operation. Set the category parameter, sorted by 5-year Sharpe (PRWCX is near the top), then ran correlations on the top 20. ID'd the folks above 90 and checked the portfolios individually. Charles might have a more e…
I scanned for funds with high five-year correlations to PRCWX and high international exposure. I'm not arguing for or against them, but I'll note the Pax Sustainable Allocation (PAXWX, formerly Pax World) and Fidelity Advisor Multi-Asset Income (FAY…
If you have specific questions about Invenomic, do let me know. Ali & co. have been pretty responsive in the past, going so far as meeting me for coffee and an interview in lovely Moline, Illinois. I'd happily raise your questions or ask the fol…
Hi, guys.
It's "announced" now, so it will stay atop the page.
One got a sense that something was up when Debbi called my cellphone yesterday morning for the first time ... well, ever. The conversation started with the words, "Oh, David ..." and s…
Morningstar emailed a note about CG exposure today. Let me know if you think it warrants a separate post. It reads, in part
Morningstar’s associate director of equity strategies, Christopher Franz today published the Capital Gains Roundup for 2021…
Standpoint always has 50% invested in equity ETFs but they can use futures contracts to change that exposure. In summer, when we spoke, that were at 65% net exposure. The futures sleeve has position triggers at 3/6/9 months, I believe. A three month…
By the way, three of the funds in registration are metaversary. One is literally the Metaverse ETF. One is the Clockwise ETF which urges us to embrace “5G enabled opportunistic investing,” which “focuses on the meaning of time.” The Green Alpha ETF …
Hi, guys.
And thanks!
I think the Standpoint Multi Asset fund is worth a look. That combination of "bonds priced to return zero, stocks priced to return zero, both susceptible to a sharp correction" has me wondering about options that generate som…
i am writing today to let you know that beginning next July (July 1, 2022) I will be taking a three-year sabbatical from Grandeur Peak to serve as a mission president with my wife, Susie, for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The le…
Yuh ... ordered the flooring in March, had it delayed four times and had contractors saying things like "well, I'm sort of booked through February 2022 but if you can hold off til then ..." In consequence, I wasn't predisposed to ask the flooring f…
VICEX and, before it, Morgan SinShares which was a CEF. I bet you're wondering why neither of those dominates everybody's "must have" list? Might be that VICEX trails its peers in every single period MFO tracks ... and there are a lot of them ... ex…
Morningstar's screener and portfolio tracker have been down more than they've been up this morning. I got to one page that literally read "Ooops..." and a bunch where the page frame loaded but the page functions did not.
Curiously, I had a bit more…
My rough formula for capacity starts with the smallest firm that they would like to include in the portfolio. Currently, that's Rolls Royce. You don't want to own more than 5% of the float or you become a controlling owner, which complicates the man…
Hi, Guy.
I'll ask Ed on your behalf.
On the capacity question, no. Being an ANT does not reduce any capacity constraints the strategy might otherwise have. That being said, it looks like they're running at $3 billion below their former peak. It a…
For a long time, Morningstar shared complete brokerage availability listings with us each month. With the departure of a really good soul, they reconsidered and cut us off. (An entirely understandable business decision.) As a result, I don't have cu…
Hi, guys.
Sorry for the long absence. I think the Semper + Brentview launch was a sort of "kindred souls" thing. I spoke at length to the guys involved and they seemed very much united in their view of each other and their relations with the invest…
Yeah ... lots of folks find the hassle of running a fund really unattractive. That partly explains the huge level of merger & acquisition activity. My general sense that is mid-sized managers - the 10-50 fund folks - are in the worst spot. Bouti…
Hi, guys.
And thanks for the kind words. They mean more than you know.
Too, don't write us off just yet. At base, I'm looking for a path toward the fulfillment of two goals: (1) some better balance in my life and (2) new energy and fresh perspecti…
For Lipper, it is an "equity income" fund. That struck me as an objective ("generate income while investing in equities"), consistent with the fund's objective ("long-term appreciation while providing high current income"). The strategy is investin…
Five-star fund in Morningstar's system, a high-vol, major laggard in MFO/Lipper. The key is whether you classified it by portfolio composition (energy) or investment objective (equity income).
It might one day earn the word "Action" in the name, but the mandate seems remarkably passive to me. "Hey, if it's not too much trouble, could you maybe consider doing some good - directly or indirectly? If that's too much of a bother, maybe just no…
