Investment Products

[ValueBuff]

I know this thread is generally for investors buying individual companies.  However, I think there is a market for folks who wish to buy value oriented structured products, ETFs, Mutual funds.

 

I think the Chou funds offer a good value compared to canadian mutual funds as there MERs are all below 2% and they do not take a performance fee.  I find the mutual fund industry to moving to a mini hedge fund style of 2 and 10%, and I dont think the benefits the investor.

 

I have looked at the Brandes lineup and they are all much more expensive in MERs, about 2.50%.  The thing that bother me about brandes is that they are always invested.  I disagree with this is they use a relative value basis not an absolute value.

 

Does anyone have any opinion of good quality ETF or Funds?

 

 

[Guest deepValue]

I have looked at the Brandes lineup and they are all much more expensive in MERs, about 2.50%.  The thing that bother me about brandes is that they are always invested.  I disagree with this is they use a relative value basis not an absolute value.

 

Many mutual funds assume that their clients want to be invested, otherwise the client wouldn't own the fund. Mutual funds are for asset allocators -- investors who want exposure to some segment of the market but don't know which individual securities to buy.

 

In my opinion, you're better off becoming an expert in security analysis than an expert in mutual fund selection.

[fareastwarriors]

Canadian products? Nope.

 

 

There are more good choices for US investors, I think.

[writser]

As far as ETF's go, just buy the liquid stuff, physical replication, lowest fees. Most Vanguard products, SPY, etc. Dollar cost averaging into these is probably a strategy that beats the majority of retail investors. These funds have a expense ratio of 10 - 20 basis points, hard to beat. If you don't want to put any effort into investing I'd say that this is your best bet.

 

The problem with most (actively managed) funds is that they charge big fees (like 10x the ETF fees) so you have to be pretty sure they will outperform. And how do you do that?  Now, instead of selecting securities you have to judge the outperformance of portfolio managers. I'm no good at that. Also, you will probably do fine with a fund from Berkowitz or Chou, but why bother paying a management fee if you can just look up what holdings they have and buy them yourself?

[Stone19]

Have you looked at MPIC.I'm happy to pay the bonus every month if I can because I know Sanjeev is outperforming the market.

[Parsad]

I know this thread is generally for investors buying individual companies.  However, I think there is a market for folks who wish to buy value oriented structured products, ETFs, Mutual funds.

 

I think the Chou funds offer a good value compared to canadian mutual funds as there MERs are all below 2% and they do not take a performance fee.  I find the mutual fund industry to moving to a mini hedge fund style of 2 and 10%, and I dont think the benefits the investor.

 

I have looked at the Brandes lineup and they are all much more expensive in MERs, about 2.50%.  The thing that bother me about brandes is that they are always invested.  I disagree with this is they use a relative value basis not an absolute value.

 

Does anyone have any opinion of good quality ETF or Funds?

 

 

 

Wrong section!  If you don't have a ticker and name, it goes in General Discussions.  Cheers!

[no_free_lunch]

How about the morningstar wide moat focus (WMW) ETF?  It is chosen by combining a list of high-moat stocks with the most reasonable valuations.  It makes sense to me that high-moat stocks will do well over time and you have a whole range of analysts at morningstar defining high-moat.  More importantly it has beaten the market by about 50% over past 5 years. 

[Drokos]

I agree, the Wide Moat ETF is a quality product for a passive investor, ticker is MOAT. I think the ticker you mentioned is the ETN that was launched first, but they have now launched an ETF, which is a better product for investors because it has a lower fee and no credit risk from the company that issues the note.

[ericd1]

Here's a new eft with an interesting spin.  There more about it on in in an ebook $5 on this website. Faber wrote the Ivy Portfolio and has a ton of interesting links on his site.

 

http://www.mebanefaber.com/

 

http://etfdailynews.com/2013/05/14/cambria-etf-trust-launches-shareholder-yield-etf-syld/

[no_free_lunch]

Drokos, thanks for the update. 

 

If nothing else, it is worth looking at the ETF's holdings just to get a few ideas. 

[wachtwoord]

I agree, the Wide Moat ETF is a quality product for a passive investor, ticker is MOAT. I think the ticker you mentioned is the ETN that was launched first, but they have now launched an ETF, which is a better product for investors because it has a lower fee and no credit risk from the company that issues the note.

 

I always use that for investment ideas! I love the Morningstar moat ratings and hold quite a few companies in that ETF.

 

The reason I don't hold the ETF outright is that I find it hard to determine when an ETF is under/over-valued. If I would buy it I would dollar-cost average into it to try and mitigate the risk of buying to high.

[no_free_lunch]

Another idea might be an equal weighted index fund.  This might sound too simplistic at first but look at the returns.  There is an equal weighted S&P500 fund RSP available.

 

A study done by Srikant Dash and Keith Loggie of Standard & Poor's in 2008 analyzed the performance of the S&P 500 and the S&P 500 EWI. Since 1990, the EWI has outperformed by 1.5% per year but not consistently. It lagged the S&P 500 for six consecutive years from 1994 to 1999, but outperformed the S&P 500 for seven years through 2006. The study suggested that the EWI appeared to underperform the S&P 500 during strong markets, but held up better during bear markets. The result also suggests that when value stocks outperform growth stocks, the EWI will outperform the S&P 500.

 

Given my feeling that a bear is more likely than a bull this might not be a bad place to have some equity.