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.
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MikeM
I know you are not a fan of his, Mona (understatement :) )
Another Bills fan!!! Junkster just sent me a note saying the same. GO BILLS! They will be right down the road from me when training camp starts next week at St. John Fisher College. But tickets sold out in hours, so I won't be going. Are you from the area, Western NY?
Hi Bee. Here is a statistical way to look at probable return range for each of the holdings you gave. Basically, the data is calculated by using 90% probability, or 1.5 x the 3 year standard deviation, then subtracting it from the the 3 year avg ret…
Reply to @CathyG:
Hi Cathy. I guess you should be cautious of every investment, but imho the Yacktman funds have demonstrated an ability towards capital preservation well beyond the average large cap fund. Heck, even with holdings in Newscorp (and…
I agree with investor, even though I certainly hope it works out for Yacktman... I own YAFFX.
I read an article in Barrons early this year that RIM was under valued and a good investment. Just recently (in the last month maybe), I read again in Ba…
Reply to @Anonymous:
Hi skeeter. Just want to say that I've been impressed with your disciplined investment style. You don't seem to be prone to knee-jerk reactions, but always take a measured approach. Thanks for sharing.
Reply to @Anonymous:
I kind of agree with you anonymous Ralph. We have to stop the special hand-outs given to the Warren Buffet's of the world and start taxing at a fair rate. So, we are both on the same page. Heck, Warren himself says it's prepost…
Reply to @rono:
Hi rono. Hope your retirement is everything you wanted it to be. I miss your daily reports on Asia and the Metals.
I've totally changed my view on the stability of this country. Riots or even inbred terrorist actions? I think the…
Hi Kathy. I don't have any insight to share on Swiss currency or the direction of precious metals going forward, or even what treasuries will be doing (another sizable holding in this fund). I do think though that all these investments are "safe hav…
Reply to @David_Snowball:
Hi David. Your commentary on ARIVX swayed me to buy this fund last week. I sold my mid-cap fund, WTSLX, about a month ago when all this debt ceiling stuff started looking to be a good excuse for the market to correct. I w…
Reply to @johnN:
"can't mix politics w/ market +/- religions...lol "
Hay John. If memory serves, you live in Texas, right? Religion+Polictics... how about that governor of yours? I understand the religious rally he held was sponsored by a group t…
Reply to @AndyJ:
Can't really agree with you Andy. If you were to change the comparison benchmark every time Hussman shifts his allocation, you could always make a case his fund falls behind in short-term results. What I like about this fund is it…
Reply to @Old_Joe:
Of course you know Joe, this comes from "the main stream media". You won't find this mentioned on Fox News!
Kidding of course... I also sent this to a few of my lean-to-the-right friends.
As you know, Berkowitz's huge bet on financial institutions is what threw this fund and the new FAAFX fund into a tail spin. And it's not so much the the St. Joe's investment everyone talks about that was the killer, but it's larger holdings in AIG …
Reply to @BRBond:
Hi BRBond. I couldn't agree more with your simplified tax proposal. Good stuff. Got to wonder why an over-haul of the tax codes doesn't fair as a higher priority. Special interests and lobbyists maybe? I don't know.
Reply to @Maurice:
Oh... I'm old enough.
I have no problem with cutting spending. It's an obvious choice. My point is this country has always increased taxes to reduce deficits. It's not new. It';s not un-American. The maximum fed tax rates from …
Reply to @prinx:
prinx and bnath001: I sent you guys an email explaining the spreadsheet Cathy mentioned. Basically, it just calculates the "probable range" of returns you can expect from a portfolio using past return and standard deviation data.
Reply to @Dante:
Not sure about the data you are looking at in Yahoo, but if you go to M* / Performance, and compare PETDX and CSRSX, growth of $10,000 isn't much different between the two funds since 2004. Actually, PETDX grew to $26000, 2004 - Y…
Hi Kathy. For the heck of it, below is a portfolio from Seeking Alpha that supposedly duplicates Permanent Portfolio. It of course isn't exact, but you can see where the losses from yesterday (growth stocks, nat resources, silver, real estate) out w…
Your words are pretty much verbatim to the book I took to read while on vacation in the Finger Lakes last week. I didn't get through the entire book yet (had to visit a few of the great winerys in the area and get a little fishing in), but what you …
To each his own, but I see no foundation for your comments. The volatility as measured by standard deviation of this fund is much much lower than say the S&P 500 (a fully invested comparison). The worth of FPACX as I see it is in it's downside p…
Hi Max. Sorry to hear about your sudden loss of a job. Having gone through 12 downsizings in the last 10 years myself, I've seen many friends take the hit. Know one is ever really prepared. I've survived by hiding under my desk when the boss hands o…
Hi MJG. Not sure why you expected flack. Your well described and thought out method seems as thorough a market forecasting system as any I've seen posted here before. Great job. As for myself, summer is a very busy time. I've printed your post so th…
I don't see any compelling reason in this article to build your own Permanent Portfolio with ETF's. Why bother when the fund does the work for you and the results are the same (actually better than the Harry Brown original).
PRPFX Permanent Portfol…
Hi MJG. Thanks for breaking down the formulas. Not to sound like a dummy, but where do you get the correlation coefficient and what correlation are we talking about, what to what? Is this the correlation between the 2 funds you want to compare? I'd…
MJG, an excellent exercise. I have done similar things to put together a "core" group of balanced and allocation type funds and used return and volatility (stdev) to compare the groupings. I never looked at correlation between funds. I like that vie…
Hi Scott. I agree the performance is similar and they both are heavy financial stocks. Interesting though that FAAFX doesn't hold any St. Joe's and it's largest holding, MBIA, doesn't show up in FAIRX holdings. FAAFX is also holding 2x the cash. Tim…
Investor, Inccipiter; Joe is right. You guys have become the experts and the helpers so thank you. I have the same problem as Cathy along with many more when I use my work computer. I'm guessing it's the browser (Internet Explorer) and/or the firewa…
In my 401k, I have about 20% in a GIC (guaranteed fixed income fund paying 4.1%). Next highest holdings are 15% in FPACX FPA Crescent and 12% in PRPFX Perm Portf.
Hi Lynda. Like VintageFreak says, I wouldn't sell this fund due to this article. Actually I have not read this article, but I get the gist from the dialog in the posts. If you bought the fund because of it's very good performance during the market d…
Matt, in case you did not notice the article in JohnN's post earlier today on MLP's, I linked it here for you to read.
Are Energy-Partnership Funds Worth the Energy?
By IAN SALISBURY
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870481050457630577…
Just noticed your interest in the GOODX fund. Based on the commentaries I read in David Snowball's posts, I would certainly not jump on this one. I don't think these guys have ever managed a mutual fund before. Why should we believe these guys will …
The Sortino value and the M* downside measure are doing the same thing you do when looking at 2008, except these statistics are looking for how well the fund does for downside (like you do for 2008) all the time. I think these new statistics are pr…
To be honest DPN, I don't believe in the M* box strategy all that much. I think it is very useful to make sure you are diversified between equities and fixed income/cash and have a comfortable split between US and International stocks, but I don't t…
Hi DPN. I would suggest you do a few Instant X-ray's in M* to see where you are at now and then change a couple different senarios. A quick look shows you are at 92% stocks (71% US, 21% intrnl'). Only 4% bonds. Another thing that stands out is of th…
I'm in. Bought the allocation fund about a month ago. Neither FAIRX or FAAFX have done very well year-to-date. They do trend together pretty closely. I'm guessing the allocation fund has a pretty similar portfolio as FAIRX - very concentrated in fin…
PSA, make sure you compare the DBLTX Total Return fund and the DBLFX, "Core" bond fund. You may already have done so and know that the Total Return is what you want, but beware that Total Return is concentrated in Mortgage fixed income securities (~…
An emerging market bond fund I've been contemplating buying is the new fund from Doubleline DBLEX. Right now I'm happy with the international exposure I have through Loomis Sayles Bond, about 27% in foreign fixed income.
The FMI family of funds is excellent. I own their small cap fund, FMI Focus, FMIOX. I think their large cap, FMIHX, is at least in the top 5 of large cap funds to own as a core holding. Great long term record, great risk reward rating - seems to do…
