Comments on Morningstar Articles - All Comments

Re:How to Make Sure a Parent's Assets Last

MHartman — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:00:29 GMT

M*_Analysts:
Bonds represent a happy medium for those looking for safety, upside potential.

Um, duh.

Re:Stock Star Rating Performance Update

Conman — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:01:15 GMT

While our 5-star calls outperformed the S&P 500, losses greater than 30% are still painful on an absolute basis.

That's what you call "good", is it?

Re:Many Top Managers Are Bullish on GE

capecod — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:42:46 GMT

Yes, many managers are bullish on GE. They've been so since the 30's and everybody who wants to own it already does. That's the problem. Untill we get a few months of sell recommendations and some managers / retail give up, this stock is going nowhere.

Re:Investors Flee Foreign Funds

pining4Lenore — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:22:19 GMT

Rather than berate fundholders for fleeing massively UNDER-performing funds, I think M* should reconsider what it means by a "Stewardship Grade". Too many of these "professional money managers" seem to practice a "no fear" approach to investing other people's money. They buy the dip... then buy the next, lower dip. And the next lower dip... etc.etc. They behave less as "stewards" of the holders money, then as casino gamblers.

If you own an actively-managed fund that dropped 50% in 2008, whether domestic or foreign equity, prudent fund holders need to question the "stewardship" of the manager in sheperding your funds. Some of these "no fear" funds are those which M* had in the past ranked very high, such as the D&B family, and Oakmark. These are fund managements which made amateurish gambles on certain companies, and which do not seem to have an organziational "sell discipline" in place -- exposing fundholders to the risk of more, uncontrolled bad bets in the future. Putnam and Janus, among others, had similar issues in the 00-02 bear.

If your actively-managed fund UNDERperformed in a bear market, you SHOULD fire that manager. If he cannot deliver "alpha" when you need it most, than just index.

Re:State of the ETF Industry

gerbil — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:51:17 GMT

Jim Wiandt started the discussion by asking Steve Schoenfeld about his thoughts on where we are in the markets at present. Steve shared that given the turbulence of 2008, many index-style investors have been left challenging many of their long-held beliefs. Asset classes that were supposed to provide diversification in their portfolios--international, commodity-linked equities, and commodities themselves--have failed or performed worst than expected. To that point, Steve recommended that investors re-evaluate their strategies and that they focus on looking for better "beta" exposure in their portfolios before they seek new sources of "alpha." His primary recommendation was that investors think of equities globally (as opposed to just the U.S.) for their core holdings and then look to diversify from there.

Hmmm now who else said this??????????????????????????????????????

Oh yea ME!!!!!!!!!!

Re:Developed-Markets International ETFs Look Cheap

gerbil — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:54:23 GMT

The only country I gave up on is the US this market will NOT recover until very late 2009 at BEST! As for Europe/Asia heck yea I see them pulling out first.

Re:China OKs the Issuing of 3G Licenses

Aalan88 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:04:19 GMT

"The 3G licenses will lead to massive telecom infrastructure investment." With an introduction like that, I was hoping to find leads on the companies that would be getting paid to build up the infrastructure--the lowest-risk place to profit, I would guess. But no such luck.

Re:We Think the Dow Is Trading at a 30% Discount

lele.. — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:13:46 GMT

M*_Analysts:
Our Morningstar fair value estimates imply a Dow value of at least 12,500.

That is what I thought when I was buying this summer. Unfortunately, the rest of the world disagreed with me in September.

Re:How to Make the Most of a Lousy 401(k)

GardenGirl — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:33:20 GMT

In these trying times it feels like if I'm going to fiddle with it I might as well take it out, pay the penalty, and buy gold and minerals.

Or put it in a shoebox under my bed.

Re:The Next Rev of China's Growth Engine

erryl — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:21:45 GMT

I sure hope you are right, because it is the last hope for avoiding a worldwide slowdown of pretty significant magnitude. The US and Europe are definitely weak and getting weaker. The only other consumer market out there is China. If China can pick up the slack, then the recession in the developed countries could still be mild. If not, we are going down (hard)... it has been almost 2 decades since we have seen a really bad economy.

jmho

erryl

Re:Market Vectors Hard Assets Producers ETF Debuts

Aalan88 — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:30:52 GMT

"rather than weighting the fund by market cap[...], this fund is weighted by global consumption."

Apparently, this refers to the consumption of each commodity class; within each class, it's back to the market-cap proportioning of companies. So we get the same XOM-BP-CVX hierarchy that every other index fund has. I don't like all these companies, and I don't need overlap with other funds.

Too bad. I like the concept--wouldn't it be nice if I could stop worrying about all my individual commodity and energy plays, and just let one ETF cover it.

Re:Five of Our Favorite Comeback Candidates

weiwentg — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:35:07 GMT

It's interesting that Bill Nygren, who's on the list, has apparently kept buying more Wamu stock as of 6/30. What the heck is he thinking? Not to mention, why did he have 15% of the OAKLX portfolio in Wamu in early 2007? I think the other stocks in OAKLX's portfolio are OK, but I sure could think of other more attractive ones.

OAKLX is going to rebound, but I don't think it'll make it into the penthouse. Nygren has underperformed for years now, and after the recent debacle, his fund's 5 year return is now in the 98th percentile among large blend funds. His 10 year return may be in the 5th percentile, but that's obviously no help to recent buyers.

I think Nygren should be removed from the ultimate stock picker's list. He's good, but he's not that good.