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Conference nyoss1::market_investing

Title:	Market Investing

Moderator:	2155::michaud

Created:	Thu Jan 23 1992
Last Modified:	Thu Jun 05 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1060
Total number of notes:	10477

24.0. "So how interesting are your fund's reports?" by SUBSYS::GANESH (Ganesh) Tue Jan 28 1992 14:49

    I spent an hour last night reading the bi-annual "reports to 
    shareholders" from the Mathers Fund for the last few years.
    Consistent and impressive performance aside, I thought I should
    mention that these reports make for far more compelling reading
    than anything I've received from any fund I've ever owned.
    Very little marketing hype, just the facts as to where they
    put their money, broad impressions on prevailing economic
    and market conditions, and expectations for the future.
    It was a bit like history unfolding before my eyes.
    
    I have absolutely no business connection with this fund,
    other than as a new shareholder, but I thought I'd put in 
    a plug for them. They don't advertise. They don't offer
    a "family of funds" like the big houses so you can "switch"
    at will. You can't even buy or sell shares by telephone.
    These guys just run one fund, and seem to have done 
    a very good job of it for the last 26 years.
    
    The fund has been mostly in cash for the last two years 
    - currently in excess of 80%, I think, and the rest mostly 
    in gold stocks and S&P 500 shorts. 
    
    By the way, they were up 27% in 1987.
    
    - Ganesh.

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
24.1		ALBANY::MCWILLIAMS	Improvise if you have to ...	`Tue Jan 28 1992 14:59`	12
	I, too, am a Mathers fund shareholder (since April, '91) and have been impressed by the info packet they send out. It includes press clippings and, as -1 points out, detailed strategy statements by the fund managers. Mathers is in an extremely defensive position right now. While all the big brokerage houses are advocating portfolios consisting of up to 80% stocks and little cash, Mathers is about as contrarian as you can get. But as a recent Forbes article asked, why pay Mathers a 1+% management fee to run what is basically a money fund? Brian
24.2		SUBSYS::GANESH	Ganesh	`Tue Jan 28 1992 15:11`	17
	If I remember right, the management fee for 1991 was 0.98%, and that's higher than for most years in the past. Not particularly inexpensive, but still well under the industry average. I can think of one good reason to keep some money in the fund at all times. Should a crash occur, this fund has been known to move very quickly and capitalize on it when conditions warrant doing so. I don't see that happening if the market tanks in the near future, though. They're of the school of thought that "it's different this time". The fund manager feels that the current economic downturn is more akin to the contraction of the 1930's than to any post-WWII recession. I doubt he'd jump in and buy any stocks even if the market goes down the tubes shortly. - Ganesh.
24.3	here is one that I like	SSBN1::YANKES		`Tue Jan 28 1992 17:04`	13
	Re: .0 I like Fidelity's semi-annual sector fund report. Instead of printing up a separate report for each fund and individually distributing them, they have a substantial publication (oh, perhaps 60-70 pages of 8 1/2 x 11 size if I remember correctly) that contains the reports for each of the sector funds. They include very candid remarks on their outlook for each of the sectors in the short and longer terms. It is interesting to read and I liked getting the data on all those myriad sector funds and not just the one that I'm in. -craig
24.4	Sector report is detailed but OLD.	FREEBE::NEARY	Bob Neary	`Fri May 08 1992 11:20`	6
	But did you notice the dates on holdings,etc? In April they're sending out a report that states what their holdings were at the end of October in a portfolio that has a 300-400% turnover rate ! It could be ancient history. I've gotten surveys from Fidelity over the years and that's one of my complaints each time.
24.5	not really ever current info	TINCUP::HOLME		`Fri May 08 1992 11:52`	6
	And at that turnover rate if you buy based on their current holdings you will have something different in a few months time. It seems the best use of the current holdings information is to determine if the fund is really doing what it says its objectives are. For example claiming to be a world emerging fund when 60% of the holdings are General Motors.