What I have below are the top 4 funds over the past 3 years (note - American Century Heritage and Gifttrust are funds #1/#2 but have the same holdings and weightings and Eaton Vance Multi Cap has a normal and tax advantage fund which is #3/#4 so in theory this is the "top 6" funds but 2 of the 6 are overlapping funds) These same funds are also among the top 15 over the past 5 years in the category and I've also included Bridgeway Aggressive 2 (BRAIX) and Baron Partners (BPTRX) run by John Montgomery and Ron Baron respectively. The former is actually a highly thought of "quant" mutual fund (the computers make the decisions) and Baron runs his fund similar to a hedge fund strategy. Both are ranked highly over the 5 year period.
At the bottom of the table I included CGM Focus which has been the best fund over the past 3 and 5 year periods overall, and Quaker Strategic Growth (QUAGX) which is run by little known Manu Daftary but has a good record and runs a similar style to me - both these are considered large cap funds but are narrowly focused in terms of names. I also threw in TCW Growth Equities (TGGEX) which is another fund with a similar style and still ranked high in the category but not among the "best of the best". Almost all these funds have very similar idea to me - heavy concentration in limited amount of stocks, and relatively high turnovers. I wanted to see how tough this market has been on them since these are considered "the best", since it feels like it is beating me up of late. I also know from emails quite a few readers own these funds, especially CGM and Bridgeway which get a lot of press.
(click to enlarge)
So what I'm focusing on are the 1 month, 3 month, and year to date measures. And it looks like this market is taking us all out to the woodshed equally.
In the last month we've actually been one of the better performers with a few of the funds losing almost double the amount - all while the general indexes have held around "flat". The exception is Baron Partners which holds a whole different group of stocks than most of the other funds - many of the formerly out of favor stocks.
We're middle of the pack over 3 months as most of the funds are in the general same performance range, except for CGM Focus and Quaker Strategic which have been really struggling.
And in the year to date space we're middle of the pack again as most of the funds are clustered in the same spot.
For the 1 year period, we remain the only fund outside of Heebner to not be negative although it's starting to get closer and loser to break even. But even most of the peers among the "best" are 5 percentage points behind us. Ironically Baron Partners which has the best near term performance by being in the "out of favor" stocks has the 2nd worst 1 year performance. Bridgeway Aggressive 2 has really struggled.
Obviously the measure of a fund is not 3 mo, 6 mo, or 1 year. But since we don't have a long term record yet, I did want to see how we measure up to those with the best long term records. Essentially we seem to be very much in line over the 1 mo, 3 mo, and year to date periods. The market is quite the struggle for all; even those with the best long term track records. It continues my theme of a completely abstract, random, and without trend market. The time frames for positive trades are simply too short for most of us. When what is in favor today, is back out of favor in 48-72 hours, there is no way to really make a sustained move up. So we continue to try to preserve capital until easier times arrive.
