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Posts Tagged ‘investment strategy’

When we have so many mutual funds to choose from, we often get lost in some of the irrelevant details. We seem to want to chase the next trend, the biggest or hottest sectors and so on. Bond funds, value funds, dividend funds; we talk about these specific investments right here on our site just as planner do with their clients. If we were looking at economic figures, we would call it micro-economics. But when it comes to investments and mutual funds in particular, taking a macro-economic approach might actually help tell us about where investors should steer their money.

If we look globally, for example, we see that the Japanese Yen has been taking a hit over the last week or so because of that country’s position on interest rates. Unlike the US where the economy is (finally) starting to grow and rates have increased (Fed Funds Rate) and are expected to continue to increase, Japan is looking to reduce rates so that people will borrow and therefore buy more. While this fiscal policy will devalue their currency, the implications for Japanese corporations, particularly those that export their goods, are actually very positive.

In fact, a devaluation in currency combined with increased foreign spending will have a turbocharging effect on Japanese companies that report their financial results in Yen. Not only will sales revenue increase, but if foreign dollars are being used to purchase goods, the currency conversion results in a forex gain on the financial statements.

This could be a bad thing in the long-term. As the Yen stabilizes and starts gaining in value again, the company may have forex losses which can offset or more-than-offset stable or even climbing revenues.

What this means for mutual fund investors that is that Japanese-heavy value mutual funds might be a safe bet for shorter-term gains. Why? Because the premise of a value mutual fund is that the securities held within the portfolio are undervalued. This can be based on any number of criteria, but are normally price-to-earnings, price-to-book (value), price-to-cash and so on and so forth. Ultimately, the fund manager will determine whether to include a security in his or her value fund, but the qualifying criteria will come down to one thing: the security is underpriced.

This security, mind you, can be equity or income based. Right now, investors would gain either way. Japanese bonds can very easily increase in value if rates start dropping. Japanese equities can also increase, but it could take more time before revenues start to increase and translate in to balance sheet strength.

Our next step is pick a value mutual fund that meets our specific investment objectives (with time and risk as the driving force behind such a decision).

Now this is a top-down investment approach. It is how the Mutual Fund Site comes across mutual fund recommendations. A financial planner and/or investment advisor will work this way as well. Except they do this by also understanding your goals and matching up your goals and beliefs as best as they can to the macro-economic situation.

A long-term investors who has a decent appetite for risk will be ill-served to keep all of his or her investments in domestic securities. It normally “fits” to incorporate foreign or global investments into the plan. It never (or it should never) involve finding a value fund and then justifying a reason why it makes sense.

With that in mind, buying any kind of mutual fund because of a recommendation is often the wrong approach. Taking a bottom-down, birds-eye approach to your investments always makes more sense.

There are plenty of reasons why investors should steer away from mutual funds that invest in gold. While some mutual funds have performed well thanks to their gold holdings, there is a lot of concern among professional money managers that gold may have reached the end of the profit road.

It could be one of those situations where hindsight will tell us that the warnings signs were all to apparent. Here are some of them:

Consider the abundance of infomercials on television that ask people to send in their unused gold to be converted into “cash.” At these prices, many of these companies are able to turn a nice profit from all of that activity – in fact, they can even offer to pick up the tab on the courier expenses and insurance. The bottom line is that Gold is at a healthy, attractive price right now… if you are selling it.

…there are some fundamental reasons to steer clear of gold and gold funds

When it comes to investing in gold, one of the most active players are Exchange Traded Funds. Think about that. ETF’s, not central banks, not large financial institutions. What this tells us is that retail investors, who are investing in these ETF’s, are picking up Gold at prices that are so attractive that some of the largest countries in the world are offloading the metal at extremely lucrative prices. What Contrarian Profits.com points out is that when these investors decide to take a profit, the selling of gold by these exchange traded funds will push the price of gold down faster and farther than most expect.

And this makes a great deal of sense. Consider oil. The year was 2008, the month was July and oil touched $147.30, the highest it had ever seen. Since then, oil gradually fell (okay, that’s being polite: oil actually fell like a stone) to under $40 by November of that same year. This does no suggest that gold will suffer the same fate, but nobody expected crude oil to take such a drastic hit in such a short period of time. In fact, some analysts were calling for oil to hit $250 by the following summer (it never reached that).

Although they called crude oil the new “liquid gold” there are more than just rhetorical similarities between the two. First off, oil ran up as the economy reached its peak. Gold, on the other hand became a lot more overbought as the economy reached its trough and has begun to recover. For gold to remain in high demand, the economy needs to remain beaten down and all other inflation hedging investments lights currencies as well as other commodities become less attractive. Ultimately gold prices can be seen as highly sensitive and linked to the economic cycle.

Secondly, oil is a commodity, just as gold is. Just as oil supply is essentially limited and its production is controlled by OPEC, so too is gold supply controlled. In fact, gold production and supply is also shrinking. The point here is simply that arguments that gold will continues to see its prices climb in steady succession are unfounded and cannot be mistaken as fact, despite what some of the others are saying.

Essentially, the Mutual Fund Site believes that gold is expensive right now. We agree with Contrarian Profits that there are some fundamental reasons to steer clear of gold and gold funds that are heavily invested in the commodity, including some Gold ETFs. But because of this uncertainty, we also do not recommend taking a short position against the commodity either; it is best to sit this one out rather than endure a painful recovery process like those who, in the 1980’s bought Gold in the high $500’s and had to wait over fifteen (15) years for the prices to reach such highs again.

Sifting through the reels of available mutual funds to include in your portfolio is no easy task. Investors are faced with so many options that it is literally very interesting to try to figure out why one person chose one fund and another with the same tolerance for risk, available time and investment objectives chose a completely different fund. That could be why some people who disagree with our Top fixed income pick (a high yield fund) and our top small cap pick might have different ideas (although we can’t imagine why).

But one of the things nobody can really argue is the following: to pick a mutual fund, whether it is one we like or one we have never even mentioned on this site, one needs to study the MAPS (Management, Assets, Performance, Strategy) of the mutual fund in question. These are just the basics, folks. Spending ten minutes or so to say you understand them will reward you will less stress between the day you invest and the day your statements arrives in the mail.

M – Management: Arguably the least exciting part of your review process, getting to know the management team behind a mutual fund is important. Why? Because management dictates the fund’s style, how the assets will be invested. This is also important to know if you are going to base your investment decision heavily on some past performance record. The thing with management is that as it changes, so does the investment style and often even the fund’s strategy; what might have been a small cap domestic value fund one year can change to a small/mid cap blend fund with a management change. So, management is very important. Google the manager’s name, visit the fund company’s website to see what he or she has published there. Again, not very exciting, but it will reveal more than you think.

A – Assets: Possibly the most exciting part of your research will involve digging into the fund itself and finding out what underlying assets make it tick. Our High Yield Fund pick for 2010 for example has a very pretty asset list, with strong companies and a strong yield. In fact, those assets were probably one of the driving forces behind our taking a much closer look at the fund. But to date, that fund has underperformed its peer group. The reason this does not concern us, however, is that we believe in the strategy of the fund and its management team is strong enough to keep to it. But still, if we did not know what those assets were ahead of time, we never would have looked at what we believe is going to be one of the best-performing high yield funds this year.

P – Performance: We all know that past performance is never indicative of future performance. However, it does give us a scorecard for how the fund has performed. This is increasingly important now because the market turmoil of the past 2 years and some can help us gauge whether the performance has kept up or lagged the benchmark. While important from a trending perspective, however, past performance is never something that alone should dictate whether to purchase a mutual fund.

S – Strategy: A mutual fund’s strategy is a lot like a contract. If a fund manager states that the strategy is one thing but the fund goes ahead and gets involved with something completely off-side, then it makes sense to “fire” that manager and find another. For this reason, you should get to know the mutual fund’s strategy rather intimately because it will form the standard to which you hold the fund’s management team accountable for its performance. And if that fund manager should stray from the stated strategy, then it becomes necessary to re-evaluate your relationship with that fund and fund company.

MAPS. Not hard to remember and not all that time consuming to execute. By keeping this abbreviation in mind when evaluating possible investment avenues, you will gain a fair level of comfort and knowledge about the mutual funds your planner might be pushing and know whether they make sense for you.

Recently, the Mutual Fund Site presented a post about the easiest and smartest investment strategy: investing regularly on an automated contribution plan. This investment strategy is also (or better) known as Dollar Cost Averaging and makes perfect sense when used with mutual funds, whether more-volatile funds that invest in small cap stocks, index funds, or even bond funds.

Aside from buying more units when the markets are down (and less units when the market is up), Dollar Cost Averaging strips the issue of “market timing” out of your investment strategy. This can be fairly important because virtually nobody can “time” the market with absolute accuracy. That means only luck and no amount of research can help an investor buy at the absolute lowest.

Likewise, even the unluckiest investor will have difficulty buying at the absolute highest, but we often feel that way – that we bought at the highest and now our investments are doomed to fail.

This is where Dollar Cost Averaging makes great sense. Not only because it takes the “guess” work and “luck” out of the situation, but because historically it errs on the up-side. That means that if you use dollar cost averaging, your returns are more likely going to resemble the returns of someone who has the great luck and skill to buy at the absolutely lowest days.

This may seem strange because one would think that, statistically, you are more likely to buy the “average” or median between the best and worst possible days to invest. This would be true in a flat market, but historically markets have risen. Therefore, in a 10-year rolling average, even the “worst” possible day will be the best day at some point.

In fact, a Canadian Financial institution actually ran these numbers based on their market, the S&P TSX index. In their illustration, if you were to invest at the absolute worst days over the period of 1989 through to 2009, your returns would still be positive at 5.42% annually. The absolute best days: 7.36%.

And by employing a Dollar Cost Averaging strategy and invested each month on the first business day of the month, your return would have been 6.38%, less than 1% lower than if you had invested at the absolute best time possible for the year but nearly 2% better than if you had invested on the absolute worst days.

Interesting that a simple, more-affordable strategy could yield such positive results. But again, when you look at the historically rising market, it makes sense. In a declining market, the rates above would probably be reversed, but ultimately, investing through an automated investment program (dollar cost averaging) allows you the benefits of not having to worry about the impossibility of market timing, especially when it comes those riskier mutual funds, like those investing in small cap stocks. The investment strategy, however, can be used with other types of investments as well, even those in declining market-value environment such as bond funds.

Give it some thought….

One of the reasons we like the Ivy Small Cap Value fund so much that we named it as one of our top mutual fund picks for 2010 is that it invests heavily in the right kind of financial services firms. The kind that have great value, even if they are consider small cap stocks or mid-cap stocks. We feel that as an investment strategy, these types of securities will allow the Ivy fund to not only outperform in pure growth areas but with its generous dividend it will also generate some decent income.

One of our reasons for liking the Ivy fund is that its underlying securities stand to benefit handsomely from a housing recovery, something we have already started to see according to a recent post over at Reuters about Homebuilder Confidence.

So why Ivy Small Cap Value and not something like the Fidelity Real Estate Income fund? After all, some of these real estate funds produce fairly substantial gains and income — Fidelity’s sure is one of them with a nice 4.8% yield and high returns compared to its peers, along with its “low” risk rating. But comparing Fidelity’s fund to Ivy’s is not a proper comparison. You cannot compare the two.

You cannot compare a real estate income fund to a small cap value fund.

For starters, funds like Fidelity’s are part of the income class. They invest in income-producing securities with roughly 50% of their total holdings in bonds. Of the 20% they hold in  stock, guess what 91% consists of? (Hint, we talk about about them a lot and suggest the difference between “good” and “bad” financial services firms to hold. Somewhat surprisingly, they seem to be holding the “bad” ones).

In comparison, the Ivy fund is equity driven. They have a purpose, with roughly 40% of their portfolio invested in the type of securities that will benefit from the same recovery from which a pure real estate fund (equity based) should.

So while the Fidelity Real Estate Income fund exists to produce income, Ivy Small Cap Value exists to generate long-term gains with income being a nice bonus. For people who are bullish on real estate, Ivy still makes better sense as an equity play because it stands to profit from the recovery. For the Fidelity fund to remain attractive, rates would have to continue dropping, which is still possible given how fixed mortgage rates continue to drop).

Ivy, however, does not need a housing recovery to remain a top-performing small cap stock fund. Why? Because the majority of its securities are already profitable. Remember, there is a difference between good and bad financial stocks; Ivy knows the difference because they hold the good ones. And those firms will only see their revenues increase when housing makes its come-back.This of course is one of the benefits to holding small cap stocks in a portfolio in the first place.

Would we recommend the Fidelity fund as an income play? Not now (besides, we prefer the Janus High Yield Fund as our preferred income fund for the year. Does that mean the Fidelity Real Estate Income fund is a bad one? Definitely not; it just does not make much sense as an investment strategy right now. And we feel our statement is fully backed up by the yield curve.

As an investment strategy, putting $12,000 into a mutual fund today versus spreading that $12,000 over the course of twelve months (or $1,000 per month) is statistically not such a smart move… well, unless of course you invest $12,000 per month or at some kind of regular interval. This has nothing to do with the mutual fund in question. Instead, investing regularly has its share of perks, in fact enough of them that investors would be silly not to take advantage of them from Day 1.

To illustrate just how powerful regular investments can be versus single, lump-sum investments, consider that even if a security value drops, you can still come out with a gain if you make your investment purchases on a regular basis.

To add credibility to our little illustration, we will look at S&P 500 values for 2009. Our first investor will invest $12,000 on the first business day of January while our second will invest $1,000 every month on the first business day of that month. By December 2nd, they will have both invested at total of $12,000.

As we can see from the chart below, the investor who invests every penny at once will be ahead by 19% on December while the investor who puts $1,000 aside every month is only marginally ahead of that investor at 20.57%. The difference of $200.10 hardly seems worth it in the end… or does it? Putting yourself in the shoes of the two investors might tell us a different story as we work our way from month to month.

Take look at the Investor #1 who goes “all-in” on January 2, 2009. How would this investor feel one month later on the first business day of February when that $12,000 investment is down 11.41%, a loss of nearly three thousand dollars. Would Investor #1 be getting sick to her stomach on the first business day of March when that investment is down 24.79% or a heart-stopping $2,974.63?

In comparison, after that first business day purchase in March 2009, Investor #2 would have put $3,000 away and lost just 13.3% or $398.86. In absolute terms, Investor #2 would probably feel a lot better than Investor #1 at this point. And any sinking feeling of loss would be gone for the rest of the year for Investor #2 by the time the first business day in April rolls around and he see his investments roughly at a break-even point (a 0.26% gain actually) while Investor #1 is still not eating or sleeping because they are still down nearly 13% or $1,554.67.

In fact, while Investor #2 watches his investment gain throughout the rest of the year (except in July, when they slip from being “up” 12.27% in June down to being “up” only 8.53% in July), Investor #1 has to wait two extra months before they break even again… and that victory is really short-lived because in July they will have seen their investment swing back into the red again. Talk about an emotional roller-coaster ride for Investor #1 — while Investor #2 recorded just 2 “down” periods for the year Investor #1 was in the red for 5 of the 12 periods, a little more than 40% of the time!

And what if either Investor had lost part or all of their regular income and needed to draw on their investment after 3 months? At that point, only Investor #2 showed a gain of any type meaning Investor #1 would have been cashing in at the absolute worst time possible.

Of course, in the end, Investor #2 actually ends up being $200.10 ahead of Investor #1, thanks entirely to their regular contributions allowing them to purchase more units. After understanding the probable emotional turbulence that Investor #1 experiences, the extra $200.10 seems like only a single piece of what is really much-larger bonuses — these being the reduced stress levels, the added units and the lower dollar-value losses when things turn South.

This is not magic. You can run the figures yourself using S&P 500 closing prices found at Yahoo! Finance. But remember: investing regularly in mutual funds really can make a big difference.

Illustration A (S&P 500 values; Invest One-Time vs. Invest Monthly)

Illustration A

Over the last month or so, the Mutual Fund Site has had a lot to say about the financial services industry, whether we were bragging about our top small cap fund pick for 2010 (for those who have not read the post, the fund in question is the Ivy Small Cap Value fund), talking about the importance of dividend funds in building a profitable portfolio, or tooting our own horn about how we did a great job applauding Dryden’s approach with financials.

To tie these areas together, let’s consider that our 34% of our small cap fund pick for 2010 consists of regional financial services companies, many of which contribute heavily to the fund’s average dividend yield of 2.8%; many dividend funds will rely heavily on financial services companies whose stocks have become devalued to the point that the dividend yield alone makes them attractive assets to own; and Dryden’s Financial Services fund owns a substantial amount of high-dividend paying Canadian bank stocks.

The point above may not be obvious.

What we have here is something of a reverse-engineering problem. Consider that Canadian banks have been touted as the most solid in the world and they pay healthy dividends. Consider that dividend paying stocks are instrumental in ensuring healthy returns, whether inside or outside of a mutual fund investment. And consider, lastly, that Canadian banks are heavily involved in the retail banking segment of their  country, just like the regional banks held in the Ivy Small Cap Value fund are. In fact, those financial services firms in the Ivy fund are doing exactly what Canadian banks are doing – lending responsibly to Joe Public so he can go and buy himself a home, car, boat, whatever and get the economy turned around.

The point above might make a little more sense when you consider that regional banks are an important party in the economic recovery efforts that are being promoted by US officials like Barack Obama, Timothy Geithner, and a host of others who have taken a hard-nose approach with the “big” banks who are often blamed for bringing an end of the last economic boom and practically killing the global economy. In fact, a lot of these officials are trying to convince these big banks into behaving the way these smaller banks are behaving.

So what might that mean for the regional banks?

Well, it could be acquisition for one thing. Canadian banks, who conduct business in a similar manner as these regional banks, have been acquiring some of these regional banks for some time (and now with the US dollar as low as it has been, the Canadian Banks’ purchase power has increased) such as TD Bank purchasing Commerce Bancorp, an award-winning regional bank based out of Cherry Hill, NJ, in 2007.

More likely, however, is that these smaller banks, which pay bigger dividends (based on dividend yield) than their big bank counterparts like Citi and Wells Fargo, will have the support and encouragement of government. They are already operating the way the government would like to see them operate; they already understand responsible lending practices, they are already profitable and fiscally strong (one in particular has increased its equity value by more than 50% over the past two years alone!). The government should love these players.

And, most importantly, when the economy turns around and people start waiting in line for mortgage approvals, credit card approvals and other types of credit or credit-related services, these regional banks will see their income increase exponentially. Why? Well, they are already profitable and the economy is just slowly finding its feet.

It’s a perfect situation for mutual funds like the Ivy Small Cap Value fund (we went so far as to call buying this small cap fund a no-brainer). And for the strong-willed investor with the right risk tolerance, time horizon and investment objectives, it becomes and easy lesson in investment strategy, one that requires very little advanced research. It’s almost the best-kept secret in the mutual fund space (except we exposed it, and we are always proud to help out). And if you are not sure how to get your hands on these stocks, just head on over to Ivy and let them do the number crunching and trading for you.

One of the most e-mailed op-ed columns in the NY Times was published on February 1, 2010… a few days after the Mutual Fund Site released its write-up on the Dryden Financial Services Fund, a mutual fund that has a strong reputation for its investment management prowess and stunned investors with staggering returns in 2009.

Why is this important and why should you care?

Let’s take a look at the column in question. In it, Nobe Prize winner, Paul Krugman describes how the Canadian banking system, which was coincidentally modeled after the first American secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, is remarkably the soundest system in the world (versus the US system at 40th). More specifically, Krugman points out that the banking reform currently pushing its way through the system will substantially Canadian-ize the domestic banking system.

In addition to the obvious statements by Paul Volcker (who advocated in early 2009 that his vision for the banking system “looks more like the Canadian system…”) and those by President Obama (let’s not get started), it seems that the US banking system may some day soon resemble Canadian system.

This is key, and also brings us to the importance of the publication dates for these two pieces. Less than a week prior to Krugman’s op-ed column, the Mutual Fund Site gave “top marks” to the Dryden Financial Services fund. And guess what makes up their core holdings. That’s right, Canadian banking stocks.

More than 11% of their meager $162 million under management is invested in Canadian banks. In fact, three of their top 25 holdings are Canadian banks, all of which have among the lowest P/E ratios in the fund’s top 25. What makes this interesting is that the Dryden Financial Services mutual fund has outperformed, by a long-shot, the S&P 500 as well as its peers in the last year, proving that their investment management strategy and, most importantly, their attention to detail has really paid off. Some of this might have to do with the Canadian banks’ ability to maintain dividends and, in many cases, increase those dividends. If bought at the right time, some of those yields would have exceeded 8%. Still, even with an 8% dividend yield, another 60% in return had to come from somewhere…

Does Krugman’s popular piece provide support for investing in a mutual fund like Dryden’s? Not necessarily, although it certainly provides some credibility to why we, at the Mutual Fund Site, gave Top Marks to the Dryden mutual fund. More importantly, given the amount of attention the New York Times piece has attracted, it seems that, if governments start modeling their financial services firms after the Canadian system, and it seems they will, Dryden could see some good, long-term growth provided their investment management team and strategy remains intact.

Choosing the right growth funds for 2010 is not an easy task. Normally, this might not pose such a problem because growth funds tend to perform over the long-term, unlike some other mutual funds which perform better at certain times in the year or economic cycle. But after a fairly remarkable 2009 to follow up the turbulent credit-crisis-inspired 2008 and 2007 years, 2010 has provided something of a wake-up call to most investors.

2010 has provided something of a wake-up call.

In fact, most growth funds opened the year with an average return of -2.55% (that’s right, a negative!). And most of the best-ranked funds have returned even less.

What this tells a lot of investors is that growth funds not only have to be held for roughly 5 years in order to realize the type of returns one has come to expect of such funds. But that’s not all. In fact, the stuttering start to the year has led even the highest paid and most respected portfolio managers to wonder whether there is more bad news to come. In an interview with Morningstar, Rudoph-Riad Younes of Artio International Equity claims that by bailing out the banks and not letting them fail, government have simply delayed the inevitable. In that same piece, Oliver Kratz of DWS Global Thematic commented that his fund has taken a less aggressive position globally, investing as little as 10% in one of the hottest economies of the world, China.

One of the only growth funds we could find that outperformed the average, the Monetta Young Investors Fund (MYIFX) which has been managed by Robert S Bacarella since the fund’s inception in 2006, holds a five-star rating from Morningstar. In digging deeper into its portfolio, it seems that Mr. Bacarella has taken to domestic securities as well. Where has he invested? Consumer Goods and Consumer Services with Apple Inc. Wal-Mart, Proctor & Gamble and McDonald’s ranking among their Top 25 holdings (they actually only hold 25 securities). Many of these are the same securities that Younes and Kratz cite in the Morningstar article, hold in their respective funds or they belong to sectors where these two managers invest heavily.

What does this tell investors looking at growth funds this year?

It could be that funds investing in domestic, large-cap securities are part of a growing crowd of institutional investors who believe that there are plenty of risks that are expected to materialize outside of the domestic, North American markets. Does that put global growth funds in the penalty box? It certainly seems that is the message for 2010.

So where should investors put their money? What growth funds are expected to perform in 2010?

Unfortunately, that will be a topic for another day, but the underlying message here is this: even growth funds have a tough time deciding where to invest. So if you have the courage to pull the trigger on investing, remember a couple of things:

• Invest regularly if you can — ten monthly contributions of $1,000 each will average out your $10,000 investment.
• Stay the course — stay invested for a period of 3-5 years (preferably 5 years as the performance on nearly all of these growth funds really starts to shine after 5 years).
• Choose funds that you believe in. Right now, you might believe in a high concentration of domestic securities (the big mutual fund managers seem to as well) but don’t pick a fund that must, by virtue of its Investment Objective/Statement stay invested this way.

This is certainly one area that needs further exploration and we will get into what we believe will be characteristics of the top growth funds in 2010 within the next 30 days.

There are times when, as an individual investor, I have to shake my head at some of the bonehead positions that even the world’s best mutual fund managers take. Whether it is an equity fund, a bond fund or balanced fund, evne those people who are known as the world’s “greatest” mutual fund managers make trade decisions that would make even the world’s “most novice” investor look like Warren Buffett.

But here’s the thing. Bond funds demand full (or close to full) investment in income-producing securities. A Bond Fund manager cannot sit on the sidelines and not take a position. The same goes for the biggest growth funds (and perhaps it is more-true for these growth fund managers than any other type of mutual fund manager) because sitting on the sidelines often means missing out on growth… even in times of economic uncertainty.

Tactical In Nature

This leads us to the topic of this post: Balanced Mutual Funds. As a balanced fund junkie, I am always amazed at how many different configurations these balanced mutual funds take. Unlike other funds, balanced funds are almost always tactical in nature. Their ever churning asset allocation reminds me of the ocean waves. When the tide comes in, so do the returns. Then they dump their overbought holdings and move into something with greater opportunity, whether that is income in nature or something else with a great P/E ratio or some other promising technical or fundamental indicator. Rinse and repeat (Note: Hedge funds will actually take aggressive short positions, something mutual funds will not do).

Dynamic Response To Market Events

Balanced mutual funds admittedly have one advantage over straight growth and bond funds; they can respond dynamically to market events. This means that periods of high interest rates allow balanced fund managers to dump low-dividend yield stock and get in deep with bonds that they feel will increase in value as rates drop and will consequently provide higher regular income over the duration of their holdings. Hussman’s Strategic Total Return fund is a fine example of how some balanced funds can defy gravity… and with just 31 holdings (as of January 19, 2010) it just comes to prove my next pont!

In fact, the way balanced funds can respond to markets is such an exciting benefit that balanced funds have over other classes of mutual funds that it makes one wonder why everyone does not have a least 25% of their portfolio invested in balanced funds.

Top Level Management… At Cheap Prices

In the case of the Hussman fund noted above, you will pay just 0.75% according to the Prospectus to employ John Hussman as the manager of your investment. And your minimum investment in this case is just $1,000. Of course, Hussman is just an example. Most fund companies empower only their best and brightest (or teams of the best and brightest) to manage their balanced funds, and all at rates comparable to those seen at Hussman (many are even cheaper). Last I checked, it costs more to refinance a mortgage and let the bank make some real money.

As evidenced here, there are some great benefits to investing in balanced funds. In no way is this list even complete. In fact, it deals exclusively with tactical balanced funds… and these days, there has been a growing interest and investments in these strategic funds, many of which offer specific “target dates.” Well, that’s food for thought on another day because those balanced funds are equally attractive.

Why invest 10,000 dollars? Why not spend it? Why not update the house, take the family on a nice vacation, pay off some debt? These are all great investment management question, even though few of them deal with investments, much less mutual funds or bond funds in particular. In reality, the best way to invest 10,000 dollars will depend largely on your risk appetite.

Low Rates?

Then you are looking at high yield investments, bond funds. High yield bond funds, specifically. Why? Because over the next decade, your investment will perform fairly well. Right now, spreads between corporate bonds and government bonds is rather wide. That means that corporations are paying a lot more to borrow on the market compared to governments. Now, it will always be this way (or it should), but the disparity between the two became unnaturally wide during the credit crisis. This makes sense because lenders wanted to be compensated extremely well for the perceived risks involved with lending to companies.

Of course, those perceived risks slowly began to disappear as the investment world realized that, lo and behold, not all companies were going to fall off the face of the earth. Additionally, inflation is beginning to creep into the system. What this means for bond funds is that the money corporations pay will start to come down (the risks just aren’t there like they used to be) and governments will start to pay more (inflation pressures push for higher yields and this should coincide with an improving economy). Therefore the spreads will narrow.

As corporate bond rates drop, those bond prices will rise. The holders of those bonds will happily take those gains while simultaneously enjoying the income generated from those previously negotiated higher rates.

High Risk?

Higher risk appetites demand higher risk investments. This does not mean getting crazy with highly speculative investments. For the hands-off, sophisticated investors this probably means large- or giant-cap equity funds. Preferably dividend-paying stock will be held within these portfolios, further reducing some of the risks associated with equity funds. Why equities?

Simple. A strong fund with a history of performance, a history of high risk-adjusted rates of return.

Can this be achieved? Yes, and it is probably easier achieved with equity funds than it is with high yield bond funds. After all, even companies that are virtually guaranteed to be around tomorrow and for years to follow are still considered under-valued thanks to the fears of those investing in the markets. Why? Because there are so many mid and small-cap investments that remain poised for failure.

But consider the big oil companies. Industrial materials companies that are directly benefiting from the government stimulus? Financial services companies who have all but promised to repay government loans as of well, yesterday? Are these the types of companies that will further cripple the economy? For the time being, no. (We will have to wait a good five to seven years to know for sure).

So, Where Can I invest 10,000 And Walk Away With 20,000?

We think that if you have three to five years, either high yield bond funds or large-/giant-cap equity funds are the place to be (preferably value-based equity funds) with minimal risk. Will you double your investment in this short period of time? Well, it has been proven by many of these funds that it is not only possible and not only likely, but a matter of history. Just make sure that a 100% is sufficient for your needs. See investment management is not only about knowing when to get in, but when to get out. Whether you want 100% returns or 50%, stick to your objective and get out, regardless of what the markets promise in the months to come. This is particularly important for that first investment, when you are looking at how to invest 10,000 dollars the smartest, most efficient way possible.

The idea of tactical asset allocation when it comes to your mutual fund investments can mean a couple of things. Either way, it will involve some risk taking on your part as the investor. However, in saying as much, remember that the nature of mutual fund investments is to diversify out the risks by holding several properly-qualified securities in the first place, so the risks are not so much in the security selection as they are in the strategy itself. Let’s take a closer look at the two types of mutual fund investments…

Tactical Asset Allocation Means Making A Call On Asset Classes

In the most basic sense of the word, tactical asset allocation involves taking an overweight-underweight approach to specific asset classes. For example, if you have noticed that equity markets are starting to come off their lows and have surpassed a safe margin (say 20% above their lowest 52-week trading range) you might decide to adjust your equity position accordingly. A tactical asset allocation program might go overweight on equities if the program calls for such action (which would be determined far-ahead of time, not arbitrarily).

For many people, the above example would be a natural call to increase equity weightings. However, contrarian strategies would advocate taking an underweight position in equities and an overweight position in fixed income. Whatever decision you make if you choose to undertake a tactical asset allocation program should be determined well ahead of time, and not at the time that the market records such milestone increases (or decreases) from its highs/lows.

The risks here are that you choose the wrong funds as well as the wrong asset class weighting.

Tactical Asset Allocation Can Also Mean Active Security Management

Tactical asset allocation need not be solely undertaken by the individual investor. In fact, most balanced funds use tactical asset allocation to manage their returns, beat the index and keep investors happy. This is nothing new for most balanced funds, as many of them will invest more heavily in income investments when yields suggest opportunities exist to easily out-perform the index and will invest more heavily in equities when prices are considered undervalued. (There are many different ways of describing this type teeter-totter relationship between income and equities; bond-strong fund managers may manage solely based on yield curve or other bond-specific measurements whereas equity-strong managers may manage based on P/E ratios, dividend payouts, as well as a long list of other equity-specific measurements).

The risks involved with balanced mutual funds that make tactical asset allocation a part of how the fund operates lies with the fund manager. All it takes is one bad decision and reversing those misfortunes can be a devastatingly slow and painful process. Consider for example a balanced mutual fund that manages $5 billion worth of money where the fund manager decided to move 80% of the assets into bonds. If the timing was wrong or if the call itself was wrong and the manager needs to reverse this decision, he or she will need to trade upwards of $4 billion in assets, a truly substantial figure that would not go unnoticed by other traders.

The point is simply that a balanced fund manager’s goal is to outperform an index, whether it is the S&P 500 or some other index or a combination of several, the goal is just that: to outperform. In fact, their pay is often determined by how well they outperform the index or other standard, which is why tactical asset allocation involves accepting only the necessary risk to achieve above-standard returns.

Tactical asset allocation involves accepting only the necessary risk to achieve above-standard returns

With the above in mind, remember that returns are always risk-adjusted. It makes little sense to arbitrarily manage your personal portfolio using tactical asset allocation if it “might” mean a healthy return in one period, but five consecutive poor returns that follow. Incorporating tactical asset allocation programs up front is another matter; it becomes part of your asset allocation model, or your investment plan. This means that, right from the start, you will be investing in mutual funds (or other vehicles) that allow you to achieve your investment objective.

So you have spent a good hour or so with your trusted Financial Planner discussing risk, objective, time horizon and so forth. You may have had a bathroom break to give the discussion and question more thought, but ultimately the question will come: Where To Invest?

Deciding where to invest is not an easy question to answer. Unfortunately, most people rely quite heavily on recommendations from their planner. However, keep in mind  that like you, your planner will have certain biases about where to invest your money. Some planners like China, others do not. Some like mutual funds, others recommend Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). But one thing that will not change is that you are the one who ultimately decides where to invest your funds.

With that in mind, some of the different things to consider when the question comes up is:

Asset Allocation: Deciding where to invest should be a question of asset allocation. After all, when building your asset allocation model you will likely come up with an appropriate investment plan. You will have an idea on the types of investments you need to incorporate into your portfolio.

Type of investment: While mutual funds are a natural starting point for many investors, finding one that meets your requirements is another matter. For others, specific securities will more adequately meet their guidelines. Ideally, finding the right type of investment should be a first step. Of course, you want to make sure there is little overlap in investment so that you are not being over-exposed to any given security or asset class.

Geography: Finding where a specific investment is based, either corporately or where it primarily operates is another starting point. Again, making sure that the potential investment meets your asset allocation objective is ideal in ensuring you are not over-exposing your investments to particular geographic regions or areas.

Industry/Sector: Understanding the where the potential investment earns a dime is important. For whatever reason, you may be biased for or against certain industries or sectors. Some investors with a manufacturing background might be more or less inclined to invest in specific manufacturing sectors based on their experience with their own employer. Again your asset allocation will take such things into account.

Currency Exposure. While some investments do not allow foreign currency securities, allowing yourself to be properly diversified in terms of currency risk should also be part of your asset allocation model. Companies that operate in foreign countries will present specific foreign currency risks (and diversification) based on the conversion needed to complete domestic financial statement data. While this is less of a concern for a single security within a large pool of funds, it is certainly a factor when building your own portfolio of individual securities. You can achieve currency balance through all types of investments, however, including mutual funds, bonds, specific securities, as well as forex-based ETF and other securities.

Deciding where to invest should take the above into account. Sitting down with your financial planner is normally the easiest because your planner will (or should) understand such intricacies. However, when it comes to planning out your own individual investments, you would be served by starting a spreadsheet that can be categorized and color-coded to ensure you are not just looking at where places to invest but the right places to invest.