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.
My problem with "rock star" active managers is that they almost invariably stumble at one point or another, I tend to find them near the end of their cycle of outperformance.
Then, when they begin to underperform, should I bail at the end of one d…
@Old_Skeet I found that the additional reward (if any) gained from managing a varied portfolio of active funds did not justify the effort involved.
But if I may borrow a (in my opinion) corny phrase from another investing website, "there's more t…
@ Old_Skeet - an impressive collection of funds. Do you have a benchmark that you measure your portfolio's performance against? How have you fared over the years?
I now use mostly index funds for equities, mostly actively managed funds for fixed …
I used to be a big fan of the Manning & Napier target date offerings. Their performance has only been average (or worse) over the past five years. Not sure what is going on, but I believe they may have had (in the past) one shot successes w…
Yes, I like both the Vanguard and (especially) the AQR offerings. Unfortunately many individual investors have been locked out of these funds (at least at Fidelity) with unrealistically large minimum purchase requirements.
@AndyJ I think you are spot on, at least as far as yesterday's results are concerned. The WSJ states that the euro had the biggest one day percentage gain against the dollar in six years. My MFs presumably have positions in favor of the dollar.
I k…
Since this tread seems to reference managed futures in general, I hope the following question won't be off topic: I own three managed futures funds as part of my group of non-traditional diversifiers. Yesterday, the best performer was down 3 1/2%.
…
My mistake was taking a position in Gaffney's (fairly) new bond fund EVBAX. She had a pretty good run at Loomis Sayles. But I suppose that was then....
There is an excellent thread on dynasty trusts on another investment website. I won't mention them by name, but it is maintained by investors who think indexing is the way to go.
@Old_Joe @catch22 I don't think @tampabay is going to cease "pontificating form a base of ignorance" or disclose his/her holdings (I suggested, months ago, that he do this).
Does the term "gadfly" work here? Time to simply ignore him/her?
@Old_Skeet May I ask a more discrete question? How are your finds doing relative to their benchmark indices?
I used to own a lot of funds. I seemed to buy at the peak of the managers' performance, watch his/her performance fall off, then wonder w…
Mr. Cunningham's argument may be persuasive, but the difficult question is which actively managed funds will outperform in the market environment that he describes.
My research indicated that the 2014 performance for BOND is substantially better than it's counterpart, PTTDX. I thought that BOND and PTTDX have similar holdings and the only real difference is that BOND is an ETF while PTTDX is a mutual fund. …
EM is starting to show some life, so there are a lot of ideas out there. It will be interesting to see who makes the right mutual fund call down the road. I'm going to play it down the middle with VWO and add in some PLVDX to see if smart beta is…
Interesting, just before I read this, I exchanged my holding in Robeco Long/Short BPLEX for the new PIMCO Long/Short offering PWLDX. BPLEX has been only a mediocre performer over the past few years and the Morningstar award reinforces my decisi…
Unconstrained bond funds seem to be very popular marketing tools by mutual fund companies these days. PIMCO's unconstrained fund PUBDX has performed poorly during its entire life.
PIMCO is probably trying to freshen up their offering in thi…
@Tampabay Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I look for actionable advice. Comments like those of Mr. Mezrich are sufficiently vague so as be, in my opinion, essentially worthless. Few people actually know when rates will rise and which active fu…
" 'If rates falling were part of this backdrop [of underperformance], then active managers should get their lead back when rates move higher' says Mezrich, who used data from the University of Chicago’s Center for Research in Security Prices. "
…
@Ted Yes, the K-1 is no big deal, except that it is typically not available until the last few days of March. I don't want to go on extension, so I have to join the last minute scramble at my tax preparer's office.
I used to wait eagerly for the Morningstar and Lipper fund managers of the year (or decade)to be named and then purchase those funds. What a fool I was back then.
@Ted This comment is not directed at you or your much appreciated postings.
The lesson I learned from "go anywhere" global macro funds (such as MFLDX and PAUDX) is that I should go somewhere myself...as far away from them as possible.
@kevindow Thanks for compiling and sharing an impressive list of funds and ETFs. I probably wouldn't venture into what I would call "non-core funds" such as Global Infrastructure funds (as identified by Lipper), but you present many interesting opt…
