Dear friends, Welcome to the September edition of the Mutual Fund Observer, available at http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2016/09/september-1-2016/. We posted the issue late in the evening of September 1 but didn’t want to bother you at home, so we decided to send the notification this morning. Highlights of the September issue include:
Snowball’s satirical offering of a Certificate in ETF Punditry, to help recognize and systematize the writing of bad articles about investing. (I actually like passive funds as the core of many folks’ retirement portfolios; I simply detest careless journalism that enjoins folks to make potentially disastrous decisions based on sloppy thought.)
Seafarer Growth & Income has announced their decision to close to new investors at the end of September; we analyze the decision, the fund and the alternatives.
Mairs & Power Small Cap Fund, likewise, announced its decision to close at the end of September. We profile the fund as a way of help folks decide whether to act while they still have time.
Michael Willis and the folks at Index Funds S&P 500 Equal Weight Fund (cute ticker: INDEX) think they’ve found a way to inexpensively improve the S&P 500. We invited them for an Elevator Talk.
Edward Studzinski offers the essential antidote to unending blather and seas of ephemeral numbers: reading. Real, actual, attentive, with-a-book-and-not-a-Bloomberg, reading. He makes a compelling argument that it's neither a frill nor a frippery; it's the most essential qualification prerequisite for serious thought and serious success.
Leigh Walzer, in an exceptionally clear essay, looks at the ongoing shift to passive strategies, which he suspects will end up controlling 60% of the market, and shows how to avoid “the closet passives” for whatever portion of your portfolio is allocated to active strategies.
Bob Cochran, esteemed financial planner and member of MFO's Board of Directors, reflects upon the impact of a sustained low return environment on retirement planning.
Charles Boccadoro debuts MFO Premium’s new fund matrix correlation generator and uses it to illustrate ways to streamline and strengthen portfolios.
The investing community lost two very good people in August, and so we take a moment to remember and bid farewell to Ab Nicholas and Bonnie Baha.
It’s all complemented by nearly five dozen manager changes, and our usual host of new names, a slew of liquidated funds, several high profile re-openings and a handful of small victories.
We hope you’ll join us at www.mutualfundobserver.com!