June 1, 2025

By David Snowball

Welcome to the June issue of the Mutual Fund Observer!

It’s a grand month, whose start was marked by the 165th commencement ceremony celebrating Augustana’s graduates. The college was born in 1860, an expression of longing and ambition. Swedish immigrants in the Midwest – and there were a lot of them – wanted to provide their children with a better life, which, to them, meant a good education. At the same time, they didn’t want their children to forget their homeland and its proud traditions.

So, they made a college. Modeled after the great universities in northern Europe, Augustana became an expression of faith: in the welcome that America gave its new citizens, in the country’s endless promise, in the power of education, Continue reading →

Investing Internationally for the Timid Investor

By Charles Lynn Bolin

I like Will Rogers’ quote, “Don’t gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it.” A good friend of mine once said that a balanced portfolio will usually have funds that are losing money. Then there are the unusual years like 2022 when few categories other than money market funds, short-term bonds, and commodities had positive returns. This article looks at how Vanguard Global Wellesley Income Fund (VGWIX) may fit into the portfolio of a timid investor, or how WisdomTree Dynamic Currency Hedged International Equity Fund (DDWM) might fit into the portfolio of a somewhat Continue reading →

Stories over stats: A simple approach to chaos-resistant investing

By Don Glickstein

I love baseball and personal finance, but I barely understand baseball’s sabermetrics and finance analytics. I want a good story.

The stat guys despise the Tampa Bay Rays’ Chandler Simpson because he only has a single tool: speed. The one home run he’s hit in his entire career was inside the park. This is a guy who can barely hit a ball out of the infield. I love him because he’s a Continue reading →

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

By Charles Lynn Bolin

I created my best laid plans of mice and men for retirement, or as Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “plans are worthless, but planning is indispensable”. I follow much of what Christine Benz recommends in How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement. I divide my intermediate investment bucket, consisting of Traditional IRAs, into conservative sub-portfolios of bonds that I manage and more aggressive sub-portfolios of stocks and bonds managed by Fidelity and Vanguard for growth and income. In this article, I look at managing withdrawals in a secular bear market with Continue reading →

“Something wicked this way comes,” Ray Bradbury (1962)

By David Snowball

It was a great and horrifying story about two young boys and the arrival of the Cooger and Dark Carnival in Green Town, Illinois. If you entered the carnival grounds late at night, you might be drawn to its iconic ride, Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show. It’s a story about the ways in which evil can be a powerful temptation to even the best of Continue reading →

Briefly Noted

By TheShadow

Updates

Jason Gottlieb becomes Artisan’s new CEO on June 4, 2025. He’s not a new import. Mr. Gottlieb has been the president of Artisan Partners since 2021. He joined the firm first in October 2016, prior to which he led Goldman Sachs’ Alternative Investment and Manager Selection Groups and was a portfolio manager on Goldman Sachs Multi-Manager Alternatives Fund. Artisan’s superpower has been its ability to identify and attract superstar management teams from elsewhere; the term they once used Continue reading →

May 1, 2025

By David Snowball

Dear friends,

Welcome to May, traditionally, the month in which to sell in!

These first few weeks of May are an odd time on campus. My seniors are scrambling for jobs (or antidepressants), the juniors are teeing up internships, and the youngsters are … well, mostly wondering what just happened to Continue reading →

Trending Funds YTD 2025

By Charles Lynn Bolin

Each month, I update my ranking system for the thousand or so funds that I track using the MFO Premium fund screener and Lipper global dataset. I then compare the funds that I own to the trending funds to see if I want to make any changes. I follow a diversified traditional portfolio approach with over half managed by Fidelity and Vanguard. In this article, I look at the Lipper Categories and highest ranked funds for bonds, mixed assets, and equities.

Bond Funds

Bond funds are ranked based upon 1) three-year risk-adjusted returns (Martin Ratio), 2) short-term returns and momentum, 2) risk (drawdowns and Ulcer Index), 3) bond quality, and 4) yields, among other metrics. The funds Continue reading →

Daily FLOW Updates

By Charles Boccadoro

This week we announced daily updates to our MFO Premium fund flow tool; specifically, FLOW, which combines four plots for a single fund: total return, total net assets (TNA, aka AUM), total net flows, and daily or monthly flows (depending on how reported), each versus same time period. On funds that Lipper updates daily, like SPY, TIBIX, and in fact for most funds (approx. 11,500 oldest share classes; 26,000 all share classes), this tool will now enable users to assess performance and flows through the Continue reading →

My Investment Strategy For 2025

By Charles Lynn Bolin

With the high volatility over tariffs, uncertainty, and concerns over the independence of the Federal Reserve, parts of this article may be out of date within hours of completing it. How does one invest in this environment? I have updated my Investment System to reflect my current strategy. In short, it is set up as a traditional 60% stock/40% bond portfolio within a range of 55% to 65% stocks based on my investment model. I set the model up to make small quarterly adjustments based on volatility-adjusted momentum and a shift between international and domestic growth based on valuations and momentum.

In April, I searched for and found that I can Continue reading →