|
|
Please
remember – past performance is no guide to the future.
But if you don't
study history, just what do you plan to study instead?
December 2011 marked the fifth anniversary of the end of Ownit Mortgage Solutions – a small lender in the big
scheme, but "maybe the canary in the coalmine," according to one
mortgage-backed security manager back at the end of 2006.
Let's hope
that MBS manager found a new career quick smart. Because by March 2007,
tittle-tattle claimed that distress was spreading from the subprime collapse
to US and euro-zone hedge funds. Come July, news leaked and then broke of the
collapse of two such funds at Bear Stearns.
Today's permanent emergency had begun.
What fun lay ahead! And with the gold price at just $650 per ounce
too! Silver was knocking around $13 the ounce. Together, that's made for
quite the track record since...
The Top US
Fund Managers: Annualized Returns in Per Cent
1. US Dollar
precious metals prices from the LBMA, periods ending 12/30/2011.
2. Fund count by BullionVault,
using Lipper data via WSJ Online.
3. Single-best fund, best return & average return of all mutual funds
taken from MorningStar.
USAA Precious
Metals & Minerals you probably know. Co-manager Mark Johnson steps down
in March, leaving Dan Denbow to continue running
the single-best performing US mutual of the last 10 years. Other big
precious-metal miner funds pack the list of 11 mutual funds to outperform
silver and the gold price since
the start of 2002, too.
GVPIX you might expect to know as well, what with it delivering 44% returns
in calendar-year 2011. ProFunds US Government Plus
led a bunch of long Treasury-bond portfolios in fact. The old Lehman's TLT
tracker returned 34% – and who needed active management, let alone
risk, when the warm embrace of Uncle Sam's debts was so very much warmer?
But the stand-out fund over both the last three and the last five years?
Don't feel hard done by if you never heard of OSFDX, the only mutual to beat
gold for US investors since the eve of this crisis. With a minimum investment
of $3,000, Oceanstone has apparently got less than
$15 million in assets. Its stellar five- and three-year records include a
ridiculous 264% made in 2009, just from doing what it does – seeking value
in common stocks on the NYSE.
Yes, it can be done. And yes, it could be done too. US investors really could
beat a lump of rare, indestructible, un-indebted gold bullion since the alarm bells
rang out at the turn of 2007. Because out of the 7,500 separate funds
available – with 22,000 shares classes to choose from – one fund
actually managed it. Just like seven funds (go on, count 'em...all
of 'em) managed to beat silver since the turn of
2009, and fully 11 separate US mutual funds managed to beat silver since the
start of 2002.
"The best performers in sector exchange traded funds [ETFs] this year
track industries known for dividends and some insulation from economic
cycles," wrote Global Trends'
Tom Lydon in the last month of 2011. Neither gold nor silver pay any dividend, of course, but they've
clearly offered investors a good rubber-clad insulation from the shocks of
the last half-decade and more.
Both silver and gold bullion
sit within the top 0.2% of US mutual funds over the last 10, five and three years.
No guarantee that performance will continue, of course. But you might want to
ask your favorite mutual-fund manager what he or she is planning to do in 2012
to beat a lump of dumb metal.
|
|
