"Superinvestor Arnold Van Den Berg Delivers His Annual Client Review"

[KinAlberta]

I've been reading Arnold's comments for years (maybe 20 yrs now).  However never closely investigated his performance so that is interesting.  The thing is, I recall reading that he's always had a large share in cash (something in the order of 20%) and still managed to do very well. 

 

Personally, my view (and this would include Hussman) is that if I were invested with them I wouldn't mind them not beating the S&P during fairly long periods if I felt they were being conservative and acting in a fiduciary manner. eg. Hussman had it right prior to the 2008 collapse but then adopted a highly protective stance afterwards.  Exactly what you'd ask for of a manager looking after say your grandmother's money.

 

So, I can always stick with index funds if I want to ride along with the market and I know how exceedingly rare it is for any mutual fund to beat the market (in this case the S&P 500). I can also buy into leverage closed end funds, etc. if I want goosed up returns (with commensurate risk).  Otherwise, the odds of me beating an index like the S&P 500, or picking a fund manager that will constantly beat it, are extremely small so it's very hard to be hyper critical of any manager that fails to do so for a period of time.

[Guest]

I'm back to bashing him again. It just kinda makes me a little angry when someone speaks with confidence and their results are horrendous (I even listed his institutional shares...even worse with retail). Keep in mind (at least as of today), he's about 90% invested. This is the performance even without "cash drag"...assuming he's been more or less invested the whole time.

 

 

http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/f?t=CMAFX&region=usa&culture=en-US

 

10 year - bottom 99

 

5 year - bottom 99

 

3 year - bottom 99

 

1 year - bottom 99

 

YTD - bottom 99

 

Not only do you have to deal with abysmal performance, his fund lost only a few percent less than the S&P 500 during 2008! Hussman's numbers are also terrible...but at least he helped avoid most of 2008.

 

Very interesting, thanks for the info.

 

He was listed in the book: The World´s 99 Greatest Investors: The Secret of Success

with good returns: 14.4% vs. 12.2% of the S&P 500 over 39 years.

 

Do you think this long term record is right and the last 10 years were not good or the long term record does not sound right?

 

???

 

I think Packer is right about EMH and I also think he plays more in the small/mid cap arena. If you factor his playground into the figure, I don't think his record is that outstanding.