Author Archives: David Snowball

About David Snowball

David Snowball, PhD (Massachusetts). Cofounder, lead writer. David is a Professor of Communication Studies at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, a nationally-recognized college of the liberal arts and sciences, founded in 1860. For a quarter century, David competed in academic debate and coached college debate teams to over 1500 individual victories and 50 tournament championships. When he retired from that research-intensive endeavor, his interest turned to researching fund investing and fund communication strategies. He served as the closing moderator of Brill’s Mutual Funds Interactive (a Forbes “Best of the Web” site), was the Senior Fund Analyst at FundAlarm and author of over 120 fund profiles.

Matthews Asia Credit Opportunities (MCRDX/MICPX), July 2017

By David Snowball

*Matthews Asia liquidated their two fixed-income funds in March, 2023. Manager Teresa Kong subsequently left the firm. In consequence, the information for Marathon Value should be read for archival purposes only.*

Objective and strategy

The managers seek total return over the long term. They invest in debt issued by Asian corporations, governments and supranatural institutions. The managers invest, primarily, in high-yield, dollar-denominated debt though they define that term broadly enough to incorporate both high-yield bonds and debt-related instruments such as convertible bonds, hybrids and derivatives with fixed income characteristics.  Around 20-25% of the portfolio has been in convertible bonds since inception, and that percentage is been pretty stable from year to year. 

Adviser

Matthews International Capital Management, LLC, the Investment Advisor to the Matthews Asia Funds, was founded Continue reading →

Launch Alert: Artisan Thematic Fund (ARTTX)

By David Snowball

On April 24, 2017, Artisan Partners launched Artisan Thematic Fund (ARTTX). The managers seek to identify secular themes that will have an enduring impact on business, ideally identifying those themes sooner and more clearly than their competitors. There’s a point at which a development transitions from being geeky-cool to being a driver of corporate profits; Artisan refers to that as Continue reading →

Funds in Registration

By David Snowball

Before fund companies are allowed to offer mutual funds to the public, they need to submit them to SEC review. The SEC has 75 days to ponder the fate of the newly-registered funds before allowing them to proceed. The registration period is also called “the quiet period” because fund companies are not allowed to talk about their funds in registration. This month’s good news is that most of the mutual funds in registration are sensible strategies from respected shops: Artisan, AQR, Brown Advisory, T. Rowe Price and others. The other part of the news is that the ETF industry continues to crank out a freakish mishmash. That includes the Quincy Jones Streaming Music, Media & Entertainment ETF, the Republican Policies Fund (GOP), the Democratic Policies Fund (DEMS) and the European Union Breakup Fund (EUXT). Continue reading →

June 1, 2017

By David Snowball

Dear friends,

“And they’re off!” signals both the start of a horse race and the end of a class’s years at college.

Augustana just launched 485 more grads in your direction. It’s our 157th assault on adult life, and one of our largest. I’m pleased that Mike Daniels was the student selected to speak at commencement but he’s so durn Augie. Mike’s a defensive lineman, but also a jazz musician. He’s an accountant, but also a first team NCAA Academic All-American. He’s been to Italy (with the football team), but also managed to sneak in three internships on his way to working for Deloitte & Touche. He’s a good man who overtly rejects “good enough” as a goal; that is not, he said, Continue reading →

The Dry Powder Gang, updated

By David Snowball

“Put your trust in God but keep your powder dry.”

Oliver Cromwell, 1650, to the soldiers of the New Model Army as they prepared to forge an Irish river and head into battle.

Cromwell was a dour, humorless (or “humourless”) religious fanatic charged with squashing every Catholic and every independent thought in the British Isles because, well, that’s what God demanded. Famine, plague, deportations, mass death and deportations followed.

But even Cromwell knew that the key to victory was Continue reading →

Time to put on your big-boy pants and check your investments

By David Snowball

As I noted in my publishers letter this month, this article, originally published in May, contained a substantial and utterly boneheaded mathematical error. After we published it, two things happened: first, readers took the article seriously enough to find the error and report it; second, our colleague Charles, substantially revised the method for calculating the maximum drawdown for funds in my portfolio which haven’t been around for a full market cycle. Because those changes were material, we decided to re-present this article as a public service.

Sorry, I don’t have a really gender-neutral alternatives to “big-boy pants.”

In all likelihood, you might expect to experience considerable ugliness in financial markets in the months ahead. That’s not a timing call, it’s a statement of the obvious.

What’s behind it?

The bull market in stocks is Continue reading →

Funds in Registration

By David Snowball

Before fund companies are allowed to offer mutual funds to the public, they need to submit them to SEC review. The SEC has 75 days to ponder the fate of the newly-registered funds before allowing them to proceed. The registration period is also called “the quiet period” because fund companies are not allowed to talk about their funds in registration. Happily, we are! The once-steady flow of 20-30 new funds a month has dwindled to a half dozen, many of which are simply converted versions of hedge funds or separately managed accounts. The former are more common this month, with five hedge funds morphing into two new mutual funds, including an unprecedented four-for-one merger and conversion offered up by Driehaus. Continue reading →

Briefly noted

By David Snowball

It’s been an unusually busy month in the industry, with nearly three dozen funds liquidated or slated for liquidation, as well as a surprising number of open funds closing to new investors and closed funds opening to them. And, as ever, the “smoke and marketing” crowd has re-branded a bunch of funds; most, not surprisingly, aren’t very good. Continue reading →

May 1, 2017

By David Snowball

Dear friends,

The theory says that our academic year ends in two weeks. As I gazed this morning across rows of slightly-stunned faces, I realized that the college’s schedule and the students’ don’t always align.

With the weather turning toward summer, the lawn calling and the campus in bloom, I’m intensely sympathetic. Continue reading →