| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 514.1 | | VMSDEV::HALLYB | Fish have no concept of fire | Thu Jul 01 1993 08:59 | 27 |
| Choices have been historically quite limited due to the SEC's desire to
"protect" you. I've yet to see a public mutual fund that has succeeded
in holding an outright short position.
You can sell short some Dreyfus and Fidelity funds, which is not the
same as buying funds that sell short. Specifically: Dreyfus Strategic
World Investing, Dreyfus Global Investing, Fidelity New Millenium and
others I forget. Fido has flip-flopped on shorting funds in the past,
right now it's "on" again. Some phone numbers are 718-896-1206 for
Dreyfus and 617-570-5900 for Fido. The "800" equivalents are surely
somewhere in this conference
Once I tried to short a Fido fund but had a bad experience. Despite
the required uptick in fund pricing I didn't get an order filled.
It took a lot of effort before the FidoReps finally told me that they
"Didn't have any shares available for shorting". Which sounds like
a lot of BS, I don't think Fido was honest with me on that.
If you anticipate a repeat of 1973/1974 then you might want to look
into the Robertson Stephens Contrarian Fund, 800-766-3863. They claim
they will allocate their assets in 50% long gold-related shares, 25%
real estate and 25% short of "overvalued cult stocks". At least, they
claim that's their model; I'd be interested in hearing if they actually
get the go-ahead to publicly run that way (they were scheduled open on
June 29th).
John
|
| 514.2 | | NAC::HEERMANCE | Belly Aching on an Empty Stomach | Fri Jul 02 1993 12:19 | 10 |
| I called up Steven's Contrarian and they're going to send me
information on the fund. Their fund minimum is $5000, they
don't have a sales or redeption charge, but they have a high
management fee around 3/4%.
Does anyone know the current position for Fidelity's Contra
fund? I know they have a 3% load so I've tended to stay
away from their funds.
Martin
|
| 514.3 | | DSSDEV::PIEKOS | Zoo TV | Fri Jul 02 1993 15:17 | 4 |
| .75% isn't that high of a management fee. I believe the average for
mutual funds is around 1.5%.
John Piekos
|
| 514.4 | Spinoffs from Rushmore | VMSDEV::HALLYB | Fish have no concept of fire | Tue Nov 30 1993 11:41 | 17 |
| It looks like there have been some recent S.E.C. changes in this area,
probably coincident with the new rules that permit fund buying without
having been shipped a prospectus. Specifically, I have been told of a
fund, currently being registered, that plans to sell short exclusively.
At the moment that's all I know 'cause they aren't registered in NH yet
and can't send me a prospectus -- it was just an add-on to a different
point in a conversation with the managment company: Rydex Series Trust,
1-800-820-0888.
Rydex is a fund management company that specializes in mutual funds
for in-and-out traders. They have a broad-market fund, a gold-silver
fund, a government-bond fund and (soon) a sell-short fund. Presumably
also a money-market fund. All of these permit unlimited switching between
funds at no cost, except of course for fund management fees (which run
in the 1�% range for their broad-market fund.)
John
|
| 514.5 | More on Expense Ratio of R.S.Contrarian | POBOX::PATEL | | Mon Dec 20 1993 13:21 | 13 |
| Regarding 514.2 which talked about high management fees.
Actually I read somewhere that they have a high "Total Expense Ratio"
which includes the management fee + expenses + 12(b)-1 fees. I think
it is 'cause they are going to be doing quite a bit of trading based on
their econometric/asset_allocation models.
Expense ratios etc are worth keeping in mind for the selection of a
fund if you have many funds to choose from (in that category); But I
would not focus on them.
KP
primary focus on"
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