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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.
  • Coronavirus Fiscal Fallout on U.S. Muni Issuers Worries Investors
    https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/03/us/03reuters-health-coronavirus-municipals.html
    https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN21L37G
    /Coronavirus Fiscal Fallout on U.S. Muni Issuers Worries Investors
    By Reuters
    April 3, 2020
    CHICAGO — Investors in the U.S. municipal bond market are growing increasingly worried over the ability of states, cities and other debt issuers to weather the financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus./
    Article discusses covid19 nationalized shut down may cause major downturns and possible credit crunch due to limited/frozen states and local authorities lack of incomes. Muni bonds defaulting risks maybe much higher in the near future.
    I think potus/congress/house maybe working to generate more bonds /govt bailouts to alleviate these stress in the near future.
    More BAB anyone?
  • what you shoulda done, given all the chumps out there
    Adam Grossman HumbleDollar
    If there’s one company that suddenly everyone knows, it’s Zoom, the videoconferencing company. It’s a great product and the stock (ticker symbol ZM) has enjoyed strong gains this year, up 123%. But there’s another Zoom that has done even better. It’s an obscure Chinese company with no revenue that happens to be listed on the U.S. market and with a much better ticker symbol: ZOOM. As a result, this other Zoom’s stock, which in the past typically traded for about a penny a share, has shot up nearly 900% this year.
  • Palm Valley Capital Fund (PVCMX)
    these guys reported an excellent 1st q. made 2%!
    coming out of this, this is their time to shine. of course, none of use can buy it. Mr. Snowball, can you have these guys put their fund on the major ebroker platforms?
  • Dodge and Cox
    D&C have good funds but many of them are riskier and it shows at market stress such as 2008 and many times when stocks go down and 2020 is no different
    For YTD
    Allocation DODBX -23.4...PRWCX -16.2...JABAX -13.1
    Mostly US LC: DODGX -32.1....SPY -22.4
    Foreign stocks: DODFX -34.5...AFCNX -21.9
    BTW, all the funds above have better long term(1-3-5-10-15 years) risk/reward than D&C funds too.
  • When Can America Reopen From Its Coronavirus Shutdown?
    Testing will be critical. For some reason that wasn't part of the politico analysis. We're still unable to do widespread testing even now. Shortages of reagents & PPE (as well as consistent leadership at the very top) still hamper this.
    From the Atlantic regarding timeline considerations:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-social-distancing-over-back-to-normal/608752/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20200330&silverid=NTkyMTU3MDQwMTE1S0
    From John Oliver:

  • When Can America Reopen From Its Coronavirus Shutdown?
    Here is one approach being considered in Italy: The scientific and political communities there are looking seriously at utilizing antibody testing to help determine who will be permitted to go back to work and move freely in public.
    Having the right antibodies to the virus in one’s blood — a potential marker of immunity — may soon determine who gets to work and who does not, who is locked down and who is free.
    The antibodies in healed Italians could be a valuable tool in determining who could safely exit quarantine to work, Dr. Crisanti said.
    In Veneto, Mr. Zaia has proposed that Italians in possession of antibodies showing they no longer have the virus could obtain a “license” that allows them to move around the country and work.
    https://nytimes.com/2020/04/04/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-antibodies.html
  • Bond mutual funds analysis act 2 !!
    I usually do lots of research but this market volatility and unpredictability are extremly high.
    3 good funds for you TGLMX,VFIIX,ANBEX
    TGLMX VS VFIIX
    1) VFIIX bonds rating are higher. Both heavily in MBS.
    2) VFIIX duration=2.3 is much lower than TGLMX duration=5.8
    3) VFIIX SD is lower and especially YTD. TGLMX peak to trough in March was over 6% while VFIIX was about 2.1%.
    4) And why YTD performance is close
    So, for the unknown wild market, VFIIX looks more of a sleep better fund.
    TGLMX VS ANBEX
    1) ANBEX invests mostly in Gov and lower % in Corp and hardly in MBS
    2) ANBEX risk/reward is better for YTD + 1-3 years and since inception 03/2016. See PV(link) since inception
    Portfolio CAGR Stdev Best Year Worst Year Max. Drawdown Sharpe Ratio Sortino Ratio
    ANBEX 4.91% 3.14% 7.84% 0.27% -2.32% 1.12 2.29
    TGLMX 3.72% 3.43% 7.27% -0.52% -3.13% 0.7 1.27
    VFIIX 2.86% 2.18% 5.83% -0.04% -1.95% 0.7 1.1
    3) For YTD (chart) ANBEX performance is better with a lower peak to trough loss too
    4) Of course, I also like ANBEX much smaller AUM and in this market also it's much higher turnover which means the managers' skill is working and they have many years of experience prior to running this fund.
  • M* Are Bond Funds 'Broken' as Diversifiers?
    Some jumbled thoughts on bonds and portfolio construction:
    I swapped my pure corporate bond funds for a global bond fund about 3 years ago in my Roth account. Since the Roth can sit idle longer than my traditional 401k and therefore has longer to recover, I am comfortable taking more risk in the Roth. The Roth is more of a laboratory for me, to keep me from doing massively stupid stuff in my 401k (which is larger, and where I apply conventional strategies). That said, I retain vanilla corporate coverage (and the usual bond/stock splits) via balanced funds, which are 45% of my Roth.
    The global bond fund I hold (DODLX) in my Roth has dropped more than it's vanilla corporate cousin (DODIX) would have, and has performed worse over it's lifetime. I rebalance quarterly, and would like to think that I have gotten some portfolio gains vis-a-vis a medium duration bond fund given reasonable rebalancing and global's greater volatility. Time will tell.
    Having lived through 2008 early enough in my investment career (when during the early stages of the crashing the correlation between all assets was high), I would not have expected bonds to have done spectacular in our current situation. Indeed, they have largely performed as I would have expected. It makes sense to me that downturns and pullbacks are different than panics.
    I went into 2020 holding about 25% cash in my 401k since everything just seemed completely out of whack. I have been rebalancing into all asset classes (domestic large cap & small cap, international, domestic corporate and global bond). I will be shifting my cash hold to 18% for the foreseable future. I don't think I'll go below 10% cash matter what happens.
    Time will tell, "interesting times", etc.
  • Mortgage REIT's

    By Tom Maloney at Bloomberg
    April 3, 2020
    * Many publicly traded U.S. REITs have lost most of their value.
    * Starwood Capital and JPMorgan are among those in hunt for bargains.
    "The market for mortgage-backed securities was in free fall, with fear running rampant and banks seizing collateral.
    So Tom Barrack, the chairman of real estate investment trust Colony Capital Inc., published an 1,800-word plea for the Federal Reserve to buy bonds backed by homes, cars and other assets and for banks to halt margin calls.
    That was last Saturday. In the week since, three top investors in the sector have engaged restructuring advisers, two others sold $7 billion of debt at a discount and publicly traded mortgage REITs in the U.S. lost more than $12 billion of market value, bringing total declines this year to at least $50 billion.
    The carnage shows no signs of abating. Prominent asset managers including Blackstone Group Inc., TPG and Apollo Global Management Inc. have been sucked into the vortex wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, with their associated mortgage REITs losing more than two-thirds of their value on average so far in 2020."
    After $50 Billion of Losses, No One Comes to Save the Mortgage Market
  • FUND reopenings
    I'm Master Artisan trader. I cycle in / out of their funds. I cylced out a little early in 2019 and didn't enjoy gains, and then was happy in February. However I started adding a bit and the floor simply fell our from under their funds.
    So I'm waiting to cycle back in. The point. Don't fall in love with funds / fund manager. In bull market KNOW which companies funds will do well and go along for the ride. Don't be greedy and don't try to get "market returns".
    Just the way I do things. Probably does not fit into either "trading" or "investing" definition.
    The one mistake was I bought APFDX and was forced to plonk down $2500. That's hurting.
  • When Can America Reopen From Its Coronavirus Shutdown?
    This article is divided into six sections. You can jump to the section of interest. Section 3 talks about relevant lessons learned from the Spanish Flu pandemic. Section 5 discusses methods that may make it possible to reopen parts of the economy fairly rapidly. (Just scroll to the top if the link takes you to the bottom of the article.)
    https://politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/02/coronavirus-economy-reopen-deaths-balance-analysis-159248
  • M* Are Bond Funds 'Broken' as Diversifiers?
    On regulation, there just seems too much dispersion on how things are priced. In the post-modem, if not regulation or in addition to it, a better mechanism to buy and sell bonds, more like equities.
    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/02/godfather-of-etfs-says-this-is-what-the-bond-market-needs.html
  • M* Fund Spy: Primecap Can Ride Out Its Airline Stocks' Turbulence
    Note again - this article reflects holdings as of year end 2019. We as shareholders have no idea what these funds hold today nor will we until the first of June, 2020 at best AND even then those holdings data will be stale as well.
  • M* Fund Spy: Primecap Can Ride Out Its Airline Stocks' Turbulence
    "The coronavirus’ economic fallout has hit investors in airline stocks especially hard, perhaps none more so than Pasadena-based Primecap Management Company. At year-end 2019, Primecap firmwide owned 14% to 16% of the shares outstanding in three different airlines and stakes in nine other air carriers. As Exhibit 1 shows, shares of each of these airlines shed between 40.7% and 76.1% during the depths of this still-unfolding bear market (Feb. 20, 2020, to March 23, 2020), versus a 33.8% drop for the S&P 500 index."
    All 6 Primecap funds are exposed
  • U.S. High-Yield Bond Funds See Record Inflow After Exodus
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-02/u-s-high-yield-bond-funds-see-record-inflow-of-7-09-billion
    /U.S. High-Yield Bond Funds See Record Inflow After Exodus
    GOLDMAN SACHS GP
    149.93USD+4.64+3.19%
    IVZ
    INVESCO LTD
    8.22USD+0.21+2.62%
    TDG
    TRANSDIGM GROUP
    284.47USD+11.93+4.38%
    Investors poured a record amount of cash into U.S. high-yield funds this week as the junk-bond market recovered from its worst slump in more than a decade.
    The funds added $7.09 billion in the week ended Wednesday, according to data from Refinitiv Lipper. This reversed a course that had seen almost $20 billion withdrawn from those same funds over the last six sessions, including $2 billion last week.
    ‘Tremendous Opportunity’
    As U.S. junk bonds started to find a floor, investors including Goldman Sachs and Invesco are seeing reasons to buy.
    “There are tremendous opportunities out there,” said Ashish Shah, co-chief investment officer of fixed income at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. He estimates junk bonds will return about 20% this year as growth rebounds in the fourth quarter and fallen angels outperform.
    High-yield lost 11.5% last month and is down 13.6% this year. The market fell almost 16% in October 2008. Last year’s total return was 14.3% and high-yield hasn’t been up more than 20% since 2009, when it surged 58%./
    Article discussed positives movements in junk bonds areas past few days. Maybe time to reconsider adding to corp junk bond positions. The curve may appears revived for junks past wk or so. Will it remains stable over next month?...who knows
    https://www.google.com/search?q=jnk+stock
  • Towle Deep Value Fund to reopen to new investors
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318342/000139834420007430/fp0052470_497.htm
    497 1 fp0052470_497.htm
    Towle Deep Value Fund
    (Ticker Symbol: TDVFX)
    A series of Investment Managers Series Trust
    Supplement dated April 3, 2020 to the
    Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information,
    both dated February 1, 2020, as supplemented,
    and the Summary Prospectus dated February 3, 2020 as supplemented.
    IMPORTANT NOTICE ON PURCHASE OF FUND SHARES
    Effective as April 6, 2020, the Towle Deep Value Fund is publicly offered to new investors.
    Please file this Supplement with your records.
  • The Selling Has Been Merciless ...
    @MikeW ... Thank you for your question on how I'm fairing. I am much in line with my conersative asset allocation funds which make up better than 25% of my overall portfolio. My best performer year to date in my hybrid income sleeve is CTFAX -1.72% while the worst one is FRINX -28.62%. Overall, this sleeve is down ytd a little under 15% and overall my portfolio as a whole bubbles being down a little above the 15% mark. So, I am running a pretty close to my conserative asset allocation funds which hold 30% to 50% equity.
    The income yield on my portfolio is a little shy of 4% with capital gain distributions factored in the distribution yield moves north of 5%. With this, I plan to keep buying with my portfolio's income gerneration while things are on sale. My current asset allocation is 15% cash, 40% income and 45% equity.
  • Howard Marks Releases Memo: 'Which Way Now?'
    "In one of his famous “memos,” which was released on March 31, Howard Marks (Trades, Portfolio), co-chairman of multibillion-dollar asset management firm Oaktree Capital, shared his updated thoughts on the state of the market currently as the coronavirus pandemic and oil price war continue on."
    Full Memo Here