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.

Funds in Registration

By David Snowball

Twenty new no-load retail funds are slated to go live by year’s end; most will first trade on December 30 so they’ll first able to report full-year results for 2017. The most immediately intriguing are Rajiv Jain’s new GQG Partners Emerging Markets Equity Fund and Osterweis Total Return., though Polen International Growth Fund has some pretty solid lineage, too. Read on!

ACR International Quality Return Fund

ACR International Quality Return Fund will seek is “to protect capital from permanent impairment while providing an absolute return above the Fund’s cost of capital and a relative return above the Fund’s benchmark over a full market cycle.” After such a build-up, it’s a letdown to report that it appears just to be a global stock fund. It will hold about 20 names, expects to keep less than a third in emerging markets and might hold some cash. Not much stands out there. The fund will be managed by Continue reading →

Briefly Noted . . .

By David Snowball

Herewith are notes about the month’s announced changes in the fund industry: closings, openings, name changes, liquidations and more.

Thanks, as ever, to the anonymous and indefatigable Shadow for his yeoman’s work in keeping me, and the members of MFO’s discussion board, current on a swarm of comings and goings.

On October 3, 2016, Henderson Group PLC merged with Janus Capital Group, nominally “a merger of equals.” The Henderson funds will be reorganized into Continue reading →

October 1, 2016

By David Snowball

Dear friends,

Welcome to autumn. It’s a season of such russet-gold glory that even Albert Camus (remember him from The Stranger and The Plague?) was forced to surrender: “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” It’s the time of apples and cinnamon, of drives through the Wisconsin countryside, and of gardens turning slowly to their rest.

Open the windows, unpack the flannel, raise high the cup of cider. Summon the children, light the bonfires, deploy the marshmallows! Continue reading →

Emerging markets deserve reconsideration: the case for lollipops

By David Snowball

“I’m not saying it’s lollipops and marshmallows in emerging markets but …”

Andrew Foster, 9/5/2016

Twelve months ago, the headlines were apocalyptic:

“Investors pull $1 trillion from emerging markets in a year” (CNN, 8/24/2105)

“Emerging Market rout gathers speed” (Which Investment Trust, 8/25/2015)

“Investors Race to Escape Risk in Once-Booming Emerging-Market Bonds” (New York Times , 8/22/2015)

“The Bubble of Emerging Markets Pops” (History News Network, 8/27/2015) Continue reading →

Launch Alert 1: RiverNorth Marketplace Lending Corporation (RMPLX)

By David Snowball

RiverNorth Capital Management launched RiverNorth Marketplace Lending Corporation (RMPLX), a closed-end interval fund dedicated to marketplace lending (a/k/a “online lending”) asset class. They’re in pursuit of high current income.

“Marketplace lending” are all of those companies that allow small borrowers to get quick access to loans for unconventional (that is, non-bank) lenders. Lending Club would be a familiar example for most of us. The volume of lending has increased 700% in four years to about $17 billion a year. Continue reading →

Launch Alert 2: RiverPark Commercial Real Estate Fund (RCRIX)

By David Snowball

On Monday, October 3, RiverPark Funds launched RiverPark Commercial Real Estate Fund (RCRIX). Like several of RiverPark’s funds, RCRIX began life as a hedge fund. Unlike any of its predecessors, though, it is being structured as an interval fund.

What does that mean? Morty Schaja explains the investment case:

The Fund’s objective is to seek current income and capital appreciation consistent with the preservation of capital by investing predominantly in the approximately $600 billion commercial mortgage backed securities (“CMBS”) market that is secured by income-producing commercial real estate assets predominantly in the United States.

Continue reading →

Funds in Registration

By David Snowball

Ten new funds are in the queue, ready to launch somewhere between Thanksgiving and New Years. Several high-profile firms are launching new funds, including DoubleLine, Northern, Osterweis and TIAA-CREF. (We also snuck in a small handful of institutional launches from AMG and AQR.)

U.S. Quality ESG strikes me as particularly interesting. Northern Trust has made a major commitment to responsible investing.  This fund will be the latest in a series of launches by Northern Trust, which has offered a global ESG index fund, Global Sustainability Index Fund (NSRIX) and added FlexShares STOXX US ESG Impact Index Fund (ESG) and FlexShares STOXX Global ESG Impact Index Fund (ESGG) on July 14, 2016. Northern’s passive products are consistently Continue reading →

Briefly Noted . . .

By David Snowball

Herewith are notes about the month’s announced changes in the fund industry: closings, openings, name changes, liquidations and more.

Thanks, as ever, to the anonymous and indefatigable Shadow for his yeoman’s work in keeping me, and the members of MFO’s discussion board, current on a swarm of comings and goings.

Effective mid-January, 2017, the AB Wealth Appreciation Strategy (AWAAX) and AB Balanced Wealth Strategy (ABWAX) will no longer invest in other AllianceBernstein funds. Instead, they’ll invest directly in equities. Color me “confused.” The funds currently seem to hold shares of just one AB fund (Multi-manager Alternative Strategies) along with a ton of individual equities. Continue reading →

September 1, 2016

By David Snowball

Dear friends,

It’s fall. We made it!

The leaves are still green and there are still tomatoes to be canned (yes, I do) but I saw one of my students pull on a sweater today. The Steelers announce their final roster this weekend. The sidewalks are littered with acorns. It’s 6:00 p.m. and the sun outside my window is noticeably low in the sky. I hear the distant song of ripening apples. Continue reading →

Certificate in ETF Punditry

By David Snowball

The latest vogue in higher education, an industry rife with voguishness, is stackable certificates. Stackable certificates are academic credentials certifying your ability to complete some specific task. Some of the certifications (Craft Brewing) seem modestly more concrete than others (Dream Tending). Since they’re relatively easy to obtain in relatively short periods, students can accumulate a bunch of them while still earning a conventional degree. That’s the “stackable” part.

In order to shore up the Observer’s finances, we’ve decided to capitalize on the trend and launch our new Certificate in E.T.F. Punditry program. Continue reading →