Archives of “mutual fund” tag

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Jason Zweig’s Rules for Investing

  
  Education
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1. Take the Global View: Use a spreadsheet to track your total net worth — not day-to-day price fluctuations.

2. Hope for the best, but expect the worst: Brace for disaster via diversification and learning market history. Expect good investments to do poorly from time to time. Don’t allow temporary under-performance or disaster to cause you to panic.

3. Investigate, then invest: Study companies’ financial statement, mutual funds’ prospectus, and advisors’ background. Do your homework!

4. Never say always: Never put more than 10% of your net worth into any one investment.

5. Know what you don’t know: Don’t believe you know everything. Look across different time periods; ask what might make an investment go down.

6. The past is not prologue: Investors buy low sell high! They don’t buy something merely because it is trending higher.

7. Weigh what they say: Ask any forecaster for their complete track record of predictions. Before deploying a strategy, gather objective evidence of its performance.

8. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is: High Return + Low Risk + Short Time = Fraud.

9. Costs are killers: Trading costs can equal 1%; Mutual fund fees are another 1-2%; If middlemen take 3-5% of your cash, its a huge drag on returns.

10. Eggs go splat: Never put all your eggs in one basket; diversify across U.S., Foreign stocks, bonds and cash. Never fill your 401(k) with employee company stock.

10 Trading -Wisdom Quotes

  
  Education
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  1. Ignore hearsay and don’t let your ego get the better of you.

“I learned that an opinion isn’t worth that much. It is more important to listen to the market.”
“Most traders who fail have large egos and can’t admit that they are wrong. Even those who are willing to admit that they are wrong early in their career can’t admit it later on! Also, some traders fail because they are too worried about losing. I’m not afraid to lose. When you start being afraid to lose, you’re finished.”

Brian Gelber

  1. Timing is paramount.

“I don’t lose much on trades, because I wait for the exact right moment.”

Mark Weinstein

  1. Accept full responsibility for your actions and don’t fall prey to self-sabotage.

“Many people actually want to lose on a subconscious level.”

“The realization that you are responsible for your results is the key to successful investing. Winners know they are responsible for their results; losers think they are not.”

Dr. Van K. Tharp (more…)

Daiwa to launch 'Trump-related' mutual fund

  
Analysis, Education
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Daiwa Asset Management is set to start operating a mutual fund that invests in stocks related to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s infrastructure investment policy. Daiwa will launch the product on Tuesday.

The open-end mutual fund — the first of its kind in Japan since Trump’s election victory in November 2016 — is likely to be made available to retail investors by the end of the month.

 The U.S. infrastructure builder equity fund, which invests in U.S. companies, will quantify how much each stock will benefit from Trump’s infrastructure policy, based on criteria such as sales ratio in the U.S. and the degree of obsolescence of the target infrastructure. The details of the portfolio will be determined by how much share prices are undervalued and how competitive the companies are.

The portfolio, comprising 30-50 companies — mostly in the construction, transport and materials sectors — will be adjusted as appropriate as Trump’s policy takes form.

Trump has pledged to spend $1 trillion to overhaul the country’s aging infrastructure over the next decade.

Not A One Way Train

  
  Education
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Words of wisdom from Dave Landry’s new book, The Layman’s Guide To Trading Stocks:

Wall Street Myth 1: The market always goes up longer term

It seems to be universally preached that the market “always goes up longer term.” And, all you have to do is buy a diversified mutual fund or index fund and wait. The problem is that markets do not always go up longer term. Well, I suppose it all depends on what you mean by longer term.

Suppose you bought stocks in 1929 at the market peak. Provided you could have held through a 90% loss, it would then have taken you a quarter of a century just to get back to breakeven.

Let’s say you bought stocks in the mid-1960’s. Your return would have been almost zero until the market finally broke out in 1983, which was 17 years later.

When I began this chapter, I was concerned that there might be a “that was then, this is now” mentality. After all, the benchmark S&P 500 wasn’t far below breakeven from the 2000 peak. I thought I was going to have to make a strong case for not buying and holding. Unfortunately for the buy and hold crowd, the market made my case for me. The bear market that began in late 2007 would turn out to be the worst since 1929. By March 2009, the S&P was at 13-year lows. From these lows, the market will have to rally over 200 percent just to get to breakeven.

At more than one cocktail party, I have had people laugh in my face when I tell them that the market can go 25 years or more without going up. This has made for some heated discussions and awkward social situations. I have since learned from Dale Carnegie and my wife Marcy to just nod my head and enjoy my drink. Do not take my word for it, just look at the charts and grab me a Black and Tan while you are at it!

These 13-cent stamps beat the U.S. stock market

  
Analysis, Education
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Are stocks always the best long-term investment?

Maybe not.

When some obscure Hawaiian stamps from 1851 go up for auction later this month, they are expected to fetch from $50,000 to $75,000 each.

And if they do, that will mean they have almost certainly been a better financial investment — probably a much better investment — over the past 165 years than the U.S. stock market.

The 13-cent so-called “Missionaries” were used by Christian missionaries in the Hawaiian islands to send letters home. At the time, Hawaii was an independent kingdom. The Associated Press reports that the stamps are part of a 77-stamp collection being sold by Bill Gross, the bond market guru. Ten such “Missionaries” in near-mint condition are being sold.

If the stamps sell for $50,000 each, that will represent a compound annual return of 8.1% over the initial 13-cent purchase price. If the stamps sell for $75,000, you can raise that to 8.4%. (more…)

Links For Traders

  
Education, LINKS
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Close view of links in a chain
Interesting reads:

 

You don't even need to beat the market to make a billion

  
Analysis, Education
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Forbes on 2016 hedge fund performance


The average hedge fund returned 5.6% last year compared to 12% for the S&P 500 but that doesn’t mean the managers of the SPY ETF earned the most.
Forbes put together a list of the hedge fund managers who earned the most in 2016 and the results probably won’t surprise you. The familiar names are there and the paychecks are out-of-sight.

  1. James Simons – Renaissance Technologies $1.5 billion
  2. Michael Platt – BlueCrest $1.5 billion
  3. Ray Dalio – Bridgewater $1.4 billion
  4. David Tepper – Appaloosa $750 million
  5. Ken Griffith – Citadel $500 million
  6. Dan Loeb – Third Point $400 million
  7. Paul Singer – Elliott $400 million
  8. David Shaw – DE Shaw $400 million
  9. John Overdeck – Two Sigman $375 million
  10. David Sieger – Two Sigman $375 million
  11. Michael Hintze CQS $325 million
  12. San Druckenmillier – Duquesne $300 million
  13. Brett Ichan – Ichan Capital $280 million

(more…)

How Does Buffett Make So Much Money? Not How You Think!

  
Analysis, Education
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Excerpt:

Berkshire Hathaway has realized a Sharpe ratio of 0.76, higher than any other stock or mutual fund with a history of more than 30 years, and Berkshire has a significant alpha to traditional risk factors. However, we find that the alpha becomes insignificant when controlling for exposures to Betting-Against-Beta and Quality-Minus-Junk factors. Further, we estimate that Buffett’s leverage is about 1.6-to-1 on average. Buffett’s returns appear to be neither luck nor magic, but, rather, reward for the use of leverage combined with a focus on cheap, safe, quality stocks. Decomposing Berkshires’ portfolio into ownership in publicly traded stocks versus wholly-owned private companies, we find that the former performs the best, suggesting that Buffett’s returns are more due to stock selection than to his effect on management. These results have broad implications for market efficiency and the implementability of academic factors.

Buffett’s record is remarkable in many ways, but just how spectacular has the performance of Berkshire Hathaway been compared to other stocks or mutual funds? Looking at all U.S. stocks from 1926 to 2011 that have been traded for more than 30 years, we find that Berkshire Hathaway has the highest Sharpe ratio among all. Similarly, Buffett has a higher Sharpe ratio than all U.S. mutual funds that have been around for more than 30 years.

We document how Buffett’s performance is outstanding as the best among all stocks and mutual funds that have existed for at least 30 years. Nevertheless, his Sharpe ratio of 0.76 might be lower than many investors imagine. While optimistic asset managers often claim to be able to achieve Sharpe ratios above 1 or 2, long-term investors might do well by setting a realistic performance goal and bracing themselves for the tough periods that even Buffett has experienced.

In essence, we find that the secret to Buffett’s success is his preference for cheap, safe, high-quality stocks combined with his consistent use of leverage to magnify returns while surviving the inevitable large absolute and relative drawdowns this entails. Indeed, we find that stocks with the characteristics favored by Buffett have done well in general, that Buffett applies about 1.6-to-1 leverage financed partly using insurance float with a low financing rate, and that leveraging safe stocks can largely explain Buffett’s performance.

 
Source: Andrea Frazzini, David Kabiller and Lasse H. Pedersen, “Buffett’s Alpha.”

Links for you

  
Education, LINKS
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linksforu

  • Goodbye, yellow brick road! (Doug Kass)

  • Could we have less talk about gloom and about doom in 2010? (Money)

     Most people stink at market timing. Investors pull money out of stock funds (MarketWatch)

  • The Housing Crisis and Wall Street Shame (Robert Reich)

  • Are we coming out of recession? (Market Talk)

  • Get ready for half a recovery (New York Times)


  • One in six companies on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index may raise its next dividend payment (Bloomberg)

    • I’m always suspicious about the market [but that doesn’t mean I don’t find opportunities] (Jutia)

  • Dangers of an overheated China (New York Times)

  • Brazil GDP to Grow 6.1% in 2010 (Bloomberg)

  • 15 european banks now have assets larger than their domestic economies (Fund My Mutual Fund)

  • Correlation between the world’s tallest buildings and economic downturns (AlphaDinar)

  • Need a reminder? (Memorari)

  • RIP Mark Pittman (Bloomberg)

  • Life of a blogger (Slope Of Hope)

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