1. Many investments in the 401(k) accounts don’t have standard symbols, making it almost impossible to use existing tools to look into the asset allocation of a particular fund;
2. All individual stocks were purchased without any asset allocation consideration, therefore, including these stocks will greatly skew the result. So instead, I decide to focus on the part that I have full control.

What I used in the past to determine the asset allocation of our mutual fund investments is a free total from Morningstar.com called Instant X-Ray. To use the tool to do the analysis, all I need to input are the fund’s symbol and its market value at the moment for every fund. Then the X-Ray will display the allocation in an easy-to-read pie chart. Even though each fund has a investment style, such as large-cap value or mid-cap growth, the fund’s style itself can’t be used directly to determine the allocation of a portfolio because each fund contains many, possibly hundreds (for example an index fund that tracks the S&P 500) or even thousands (such as a total market fund), individual stocks that belong to different categories. Therefore, a tool like Instant X-Ray is needed to get a complete view of the asset allocation of the portfolio.

While Instant X-Ray is easy to use, there isn’t much insight of the result such as what I can achieve if I maintain the allocation and the current contribution level or what will happen if I change the allocation to a different target. To get a better understanding of our portfolio, I recently started to play with a premium tool from Morningstar called Asset Allocator.

Create a Portfolio with Asset Allocator

One of the most significant difference between Instant X-Ray and Asset Allocator is how the data is entered. With Instant X-Ray, only the ticker symbol and market value of a fund are needed. With Asset Allocator, a portfolio is actually has to be built with all the transactions, if any, not the overall value. Fortunately, I don’t really have to enter every transaction manually (that would take a long, long time to complete since my first investments started in 2001). The Asset Allocator can import portfolio that was previous built with Excel, Intuit Quicken, MS Money, Money.com, Quicken.com or Yahoo! Finance. In my case, I just exported the transactions from Quicken into a .QIF file first (I have been using Quicken to track our investments from day one), then imported them to Asset Allocator to rebuild a transaction portfolio. Since the Quicken file contains investments that are no longer active at this moment (I have gotten rid of some funds that didn’t fit my investment goal any more), the Asset Allocator allows me to decide which funds I want to import so I don’t include any information that is obsolete.

After the selection, the portfolio can be viewed with only those funds I am investing into right now and the entire transaction history of each fund.

Predictions Based on Current Allocation

The next step is to use the portfolio, with the current asset allocation, to do some analysis (this the feature that isn’t available with Instant X-Ray). Right now, I am setting aside $800 each month for our mutual fund investments, roughly $100 for each fund. If I maintain this level of monthly contribution, which I think I will unless somethings extraordinary happens, and my goal is to have, for example, half a million dollars in this portfolio by the time I retire, can I reach my goal if I keep the allocation intact, which overwhelmingly favors stocks over bonds (43% in foreign stock, 42% in domestic stock, 9% in cash and 6% in bond)? Well, according to the Asset Allocator, I have a 96% chance of reaching my goal in 25 years and a 50% chance of getting close to $2 million at the end of the same time period. The chance of reaching the goal decreased to 70% if I shortened the time span to 15 years from 25.

Though I like my chance of success, there are a few observations from this prediction that make me feel it’s still a tough goal to reach. First, the result seems to be based on the expected annual return at 13.15%, which is pretty high in my opinion. The source of this kind of return is, I guess, my preference of investing in foreign stocks over domestic equities. As the asset allocation at the bottom of the above picture shows, with this portfolio, I currently have 43% invested in foreign stocks with the core holding being Dodge & Cox International Stock (DODFX), along with a couple of other funds which invest a significant portion of their assets in foreign stocks. International stocks have performed very well in the past, but they also took a much harder hit during the financial crisis (thinking about China for instance). Going forward, I will likely reduce our investments in foreign stocks to about 35%, which could have some impact on the expected annual return. Second, as I mentioned before, I don’t have any bond funds in taxable account, though I buy I-Bonds regularly. The one lesson can be learned from the 40% loss of the broad stock market last year is investing conservatively can save the portfolio from being ruined by a severe short-turn downturn. I certainly don’t want to lose half of my investments in one year when I don’t work any more though I can tolerate it now. So, as time goes by, I will need to adjust the allocation to hold more bonds than 6%. This will in turn reduce the expected annual return.

Adjust Portfolio Sector Allocation

And predicting the future result based on current investments isn’t the only function of the Asset Allocator. It also let me change the target allocation of each category and investment style and see different results. It even goes into such details as setting target allocations for sectors as compared to the S&P 500 Index (or any other benchmark).

Obviously, updating the sector allocations involves more than just putting in the numbers because figuring out exactly how much to invest in each sector that makes sense requires, I think, a clear understanding of the sector, its portion in the economy, and the growth potential, etc. So instead of trying something that’s far away from reality, I think it’s better to let the portfolio’s sector allocation resemble the a benchmark such as the S&P 500 or Russell 2000. In my experiment, I decided to use the S&P 500 as a reference. As the above screenshot shows, my current portfolio has too much in the manufacturing sector (particularly more in industrial material and less in utilities) but not enough investments in the information technology. Since the sector allocation of the portfolio comes from all the funds, it’s not straightforward to say which fund holding needs to be adjusted in order to meet the overall sector allocation target.

For now, I am not going to worry about the sector allocation as it seems to be a little bit out of my control. Instead, I will focus more on the overall asset allocation because that’s what will determine the performance of our investments

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Anyway, opening an account and sending the check are the easy job. Next, which is the hard part, is selecting what to invest. Despite the recent performance of bonds, I am not really interested in buying bonds in my account at this moment. Instead, I want to take advantage of the slump of the stock market. So I decided to go with all equity, those that  have been hit very hard such as large-cap and international stocks. I also like small-cap stocks as I always do, but I will leave that part till next time.  As for my investment choices, I can buy individual stocks, ETFs, or mutual funds, from Fidelity or other fund companies. However, the first two options involve commissions and they are not cheap. For example, Fidelity charges $19,95 for trading stocks. That’s a little bit too much even though I expect to make only a few trades if I go with stocks/ETFs. Doesn’t seem to be a good strategy. So I decided to take the traditional approach of buying mutual funds.

After going through funds offered by Fidelity (there are hundreds of funds), I eventually picked two of them as the first set of investment. In the large-cap area, my choice is Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX), which was reopened to new investors at the end of 2008 after being closed for more than two years since 2006. Like many other large-cap funds, FCNTX also suffered a massive loss last year, but the result is inline with the return of the S&P 500 (actually, 0.20% better). The fund has an expense ratio (ER) of 0.94%, not terribly high for an actively managed fund. Morningstar Analyst Research (a feature of Marningsar Premium Membership) has the following comment regarding the fund shortly after Fidelity announced the fund’s reopening:

Given the sharp losses the fund has suffered this year, investors might be leery to jump in. We think that’s a mistake. Yes, its 39% loss isn’t pretty. And yes, manager Will Danoff has made some mistakes this year, especially in energy, where he thought oil and gas prices would remain high and earnings would continue to improve. But Danoff rightly shifted his portfolio into health-care and consumer staples names like Genentech DNA (which is actually up nicely for the year) and Procter & Gamble PG (which is down but much less than the overall market). He also avoided the big casualties of the credit crisis, such as American International Group AIG, and many of his picks in financials, like Wells Fargo WFC, have worked out well. So, despite the fund’s steep slide, it’s still beaten 75% of its large-growth rivals.

The other fund I chose is Fidelity International Discovery (FIGRX), a foreign large-cap blend fund. My first choice is actually Fidelity Spartan International Index (FSIIX), which tries to match the performance of the MCSI EAFE Index. With an ER of only 0.10%, even Vanguard funds can’t beat FSIIX in terms of cost. Unfortunately, the fund’s initial investment requirement of $10,000 is a little bit hard to reach for me. So I have to settle with FIGRX, which has a much higher ER of 1.05%.  Despite the higher cost, the fund does have similar weights on countries and sectors as the MCSI EAFE index and focus a little more on small-cap stocks and emerging markets. The fund’s 2008 return of -44.3% is slightly worse than that of the MCSI EAFE index, but I hope when the current economic slowdown is over, the fund will provide some good returns.

As for asset allocation, I put 70% in FCNTX and 30% in FIGRX in my first investment. Since I have no plan to hold bonds in this account (at least not now), I’d like to see an allocation of 50% large-cap, 20% small-cap, and 30% international after I purchase a small-cap oriented fund later.

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I have mentioned a few times in the past that even though I use all index funds in my retirement savings accounts, I have nothing but actively managed funds in taxable accounts. The reason isn’t that I don’t like index funds (otherwise, I would use no index funds at all). It is mainly because that was where I started seven years. Then later as I keep making purchases into those funds every month, I think that it doesn’t make too much sense to start all over again with index funds. So I decide to stick to what I have. Plus, I have been quite satisfied with how my funds performed , until last year

Obviously, I am alone in the actively managed fund arena. In fact, index funds are not as popular among investors as you may think, despite that experts have been urging for years to use passive funds to keep costs down. As you can see from the following chart, which shows the percentage of index fund assets as total assets in equity mutual funds from 1985 to 2007. Clearly, the growth in index fund assets had a nice run in the last decade, but stalled in recent years. Since 2002, the ratio hovers around 11%, which isn’t a great number, considering the benefits of investing in index funds, such as low-cost and tax efficient.

So why do people love actively managed funds over passive funds?

The main reason is the illusion that actively managed funds, which require the fund manager to do researches to identify companies to invest (that causes higher fees BTW), can outperform index funds if the fund manager buys the right stocks at the right time (I admit that was one of the reasons I started with actively managed funds myself). Investors want better than average returns, which are what they get when investing in index funds. But is that the reality?

Not really. Not even in a horrible year like 2008.

According to a MarketWatch article which cited study from S&P early this week, 70% of large-cap stock funds that use the S&P 500 index as the benchmark failed to beat the index, which was down some 38% last year. And domestic equity funds aren’t the only one that lagged the benchmark. 80% of actively managed bond funds  underperformed their respective benchmarks across all categories, while nearly 90% of actively managed emerging market funds were beaten by the S&P/IFC Emerging Markets Index. But that’s not the whole picture. There are still active funds that beat the S&P 500. And Morningstar’s study found that

the average fund beat all but one of its category Russell and Morningstar indexes over 10 years. It also beat the S&P indexes in five of the nine categories.

The article points out that investing in actively managed funds aren’t really about picking with funds to invest. It’s rather about picking the fund manager with proven recorders. That’s not an easy job of course. Even seasoned managers like Bill Miller failed.

My actively managed funds didn’t perform well last year and, as I found, costs of some of my funds have increased a little bit comparing to the year before. But I have no plan to make any dramatic swift now.

*Data source: ICI 2008 Investment Company Fact Book

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As I discussed early when I looked at target-date funds from Vanguard, Fidelity, and T. R. Price, target-date funds’ allocations to bonds and stocks are different, even though they have the same target retirement date. In some cases, the difference is rather significant. Following what I did two years ago, I checked performances of fifteen 2010 target-date funds from some largest mutual fund companies and found that some funds are still heavily investing in stocks, despite only a couple of years away from reaching the target date.

The worst performer is Oppenheimer Transition 2010 A (OTTAX) fund, which have lost more than 41% last year and another 7.5% this year, according to Morningstar data. The result, however, didn’t really surprise me because the fund, as of November 30, 2008, still have 65.5% invested in stocks, the highest among funds listed above. On the other hand, the fund in the group with the best return last year, DWS Target 2010 (KRFAX), has more than 85% of its assets invested in bonds. That strategy paid off as KRFAX only lost 3.6% in 2008.

Over the long term, stocks have been proven to delivery superior performance than bonds. However, when the stock market went donw some 40% in a year, it could take much longer time to recover from the deep loss. If you have 20 or 30 years to retirement, then you can just wait for the stock market to bounce back, which eventually will happen. But for people near retirement, time is what they don’t have on their side. Even though allocating a portion of investments to stocks during retirement can maintain growth of the overall portfolio, the ultimate goal is preserving capital, not seeking aggressive growth. With many 2010 target-date funds having 50% or more invested in stocks, they obviously did poorly in helping investors reaching that goal.

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The Treasury Department last week announced that the program will be extended to September 18, 2009, maintaining coverage to shareholders up to the amount held in participating money market funds. However, investors shold not assume that the funds they invest in are automatically covered by the guarantee program because participation in the program is not mandatory. Therefore, if you invest in a money market mutual fund, you need to contact the fund company to see whether it is covered by the Treasury plan or not.

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Last week, an article on Morningstar.com says the fund company which has been known for its rock-bottom pricing is increasing expense ratios on many of it offerings this year. Accord to the article,

So far this year, prospectuses for more than 30 of the family’s roughly 110 distinct funds have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the expense ratios of 29 of the investor share classes of those funds have gone up. The sizes of the increases vary from fund to fund and depending on whether you compare the fees in the current prospectuses with those in the previous ones or with the charges disclosed in the funds’ annual reports.

And the increase in fees isn’t really small percentage wise even though Vanguard still beats its peers as far as the cost of owning a mutual fund is concerned. For example, Morningstar found that following five Vanguard municipal bond funds have increased their expense ratios (ERs) by a third this year, from 0.15% to 0.20%:

• Vanguard High-Yield Tax-Exempt (VWAHX)
• Vanguard Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt (VWITX)
• Vanguard Long-Term Tax-Exempt (VWLTX)
• Vanguard Short-Term Tax-Exempt (VWSTX)
• Vanguard Limited-Term Tax-Exempt (VMLTX)

Remember these are only a quarter of Vanguard’s total fund offerings. For those funds that haven’t issued their prospectuses, it’s not clear yet what will happen to their ERs, but it’s likely they will increase  as well. And if Vanguard is increasing its funds’ costs, you know the same thing will happen to funds from other families, especially those actively managed funds.

That’s like adding salt to the wound, isn’t it?

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Despite the dismal performance, I sent a check of $1,000 yesterday to buy more TAREX shares. I don’t know exactly when the housing market will recover, some say not until the second half of this year, other say 2010 the earliest, but it will eventually bounce back, so I want to prepare myself now.

TAREX is the only real estate fund in my taxable investments, but it isn’t really a REIT fund. It’s rather a fund that focus on REOCs (real estate operation company). Therefore, unlike a REIT company that passes along its earnings are dividend, REOC reinvests the money it makes. As an result, TAREX doesn’t pay a hefty dividend as other REIT funds do, making it a good choice in an taxable account.

Third Avenue Estate Value Fund is an analyst pick at Morningstar.com, which has the comment about the fund (the full report is available to Morningstar Premium members)

This Analyst Pick has been buying the bonds of real estate firms. While there are now real estate income funds that buy bonds as a matter of routine, this fund is unique in its ability to make those purchases opportunistically, when manager Michael Winer and his talented team think they’re cheap enough to offer equity like returns.

Now is arguably such a moment in the real estate markets, and Winer has pounced. First, Winer owns the bankrupt bonds of LandSource, which sought to develop homes in Southern California. Winer expects to own the valuable land at a price significantly less than a recent appraisal. Additionally, Winer has purchased senior loans of the embattled retail landlord General Growth Properties GGP and of the suburban office landlord Brandywine BDN. Winer figures that if General Growth enters bankruptcy, there will be excellent recovery value. Brandywine is in low-barrier-to-entry markets, but it has maintained decent cash flows.

To be sure, there are dicey situations in this portfolio, too, where Winer doesn’t have the protection of being a bondholder. For example, Forest City is a multiuse development company that has taken on a lot of debt, but Winer and his team continue to think shares are undervalued. Also, the market has been skeptical of industrial landlord ProLogis’ PLD development-oriented business model. Still, the firm has been able to sell property and shore up its balance sheet. On the positive side, many of the fund’s Asian development firms, such as Hang Lung and Henderson Land Development, are well-financed.

Overall, we think few real estate managers match Winer’s experience and ability to navigate the current market, with all its distress. This fund’s emphasis on development won’t necessarily provide for a smooth ride in the immediate future, but it should provide long-term investors with healthy returns.

Now that the fund has lost so much of its value, the new investment could give my position in the fund a significant boost

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• Alpine Dynamic Dividend (ADVDX) vs. Vanguard Mid Capitalization Index (VIMSX)
• Buffalo Small Cap (BUFSX) vs. Vanguard Small Cap Growth Index (VISGX)
• CGM Focus (CGMFX) vs. Vanguard PRIMECAP (VPMCX)
• Dodge & Cox Stock (DODGX) vs. Vanguard Value Index (VIVAX)
• Dodge & Cox International Stock (DODFX) vs. Vanguard International Value (VTRIX)
• Oakmark Equity & Income (OAKBX) vs. Vanguard STAR (VGSTX)
• T. Rowe Price Small-Cap Value (PRSVX) vs. Vanguard Small Cap Value Index (VISVX)
• T. Rowe Price New Era (PRNEX) vs. Vanguard Energy (VGENX)
• Third Avenue Real Estate Value (TAREX) vs. Vanguard REIT Index (VGSIX)
• Tocqueville Gold (TGLDX) vs. Vanguard Precious Metals and Mining (VGPMX)

Why am I using actively managed funds in taxable account instead of index funds? I am not against using index funds. In fact, I am using index funds in IRA, 401(k), and 529 accounts. The main reason for me to buy actively managed funds is that when I started investing years ago, I didn’t have much money to buy Vanguard funds which usually need a $3,000 minimum to start, but I still wanted different asset classes in my portfolio. So instead of waiting to accumulate enough money to buy Vanguard funds, I started to invest in active funds with low minimum and have been buying these funds monthly with automatic investment plans. Now after all these years, I think it doesn’t too much sense to dump these funds and started all over again. So, yes, I’ll stick with them.

Now let’s see how my funds did last year (all data from Morningstar.com)

If using S&P 500 as the benchmark, which lost some 38% in 2008, then there’s not much for me to cheer about, really. Except, OAKBX, which invests one third of its assets in bonds, all other funds returned miserably last year. Given the portion of fixed income investments in OAKBX, the performance of the fund came as no surprise. The same has happened to one of the Lazy Portfolios I discussed before.

Among my funds, those hit the hardest were 1) funds invested in energy/oil, such as CGMFX and PRNEX, after what happened to oil prices in the second half of 2008; 2) funds have big exposure in foreign markets, such as ADVDX and DODFX. Even though ADVDX isn’t categorized as a foreign fund, it does have a quarter of its assets invested in foreign stocks. The real surprise came from the two small-cap funds I own, BUFSX and PRSVX, both beat their Vanguard counterparts easily. For 2008, the small-cap Russell 200o index returned -35%, a little better than the S&P 500. If the economy recovers this year, will small-cap continue to outperform large-cap?

One thing I noticed other than the performance difference while compiling the list is that some of my funds actually incresed their expense ratiso (ER), but Vangurad funds kept cutting costs each year. Another reason to buy index funds?

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As I mentioned in the past, all our mutual fund investments are actively managed funds, in the large-, mid- and small-cap categories that covers both domestic and foreign equities, as well as precious and real estate. Among my fund holdings, CGM Focus Fund (CGMFX), which I talked about yesterday, Dodge & Cox Stock Fund (DODGX) and International Fund (DODFX) are the largest I own and all have done very poorly last year. But they are not alone in the large-cap category. In fact, 20 largest stock funds, which include both DODGX and DODFX, all finished the year deeply in red, with a majority giving up all the gains of the past five years, as you can from the following table.

Comparing to the S&P 500 Index, most of the funds above underperformed in 2008, except Vanguard Wellington (VWELX) which has a third of it assets invested in Treasuries, like what we already saw from one of the Lazy Portfolios.  If you want to find safe heaven, then Treasury bonds are your options. Vanguard Long-Term U.S. Treasury (VUSTX) finished 2008 with a 22.5% gain and Vanguard Total Bond Market Index (VBMFX) added 5.1% last year, just like what happened in last recession after the dot com burst.

*All data from Morningstar

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In September 2007, I looked at the fund, which I owned since 2002, and declared it as the performance leader of my mutual fund holdings. Back then, the performance of the fund was just astonishing: more than 70% return in the first nine months of the year. Overall in 2007, CGMFX returned 80% and fund manager Ken Heenber was one of the five nominees for Morningstar’s Domestic-Stock Fund Manager of The Year award. The fund’s extraordinary performance in 2007 largely due to its heavy investment in oil and oil service related industries, having more than two-third of its assets in energy, commodity, and mining stocks.

But that was then. 2008 was a totally different story, a disaster year for the fund as prices of oil and other commodities crushed amid global financial crisis. The fund, which had returned in double digits every year since 2001 except a negative 2002, suffered a 48.2% loss in 2008.

However Heenber didn’t wait till oil prices dropped to $40 to reshuffle the fund’s holding by getting rid of those energy and commodity stocks. According to Moringstar, the fund has shifted it investments to financial stocks as early as the third quarter of 2008. Now the fund has 40.44% in Financial Services and only 9.57% in Energy as of September 30, 2008, and the fund’s top three holdings are:

• Wells Fargo (WFC)
• Citigroup (C)
• Bank of America (BAC)

along with other consumer stocks such as Abbott Lab (ABT), Wal-Mart (WMT), and MaDonald’s (MCD). But the shift didn’t serve the fund very well as financial companies continue to struggle and stocks like Citi kept falling.

With some 300% annual turnover ratio, CGMFX is a volatile, high risk fund. Despite that and the recent performance, I plan to hang around.

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When stocks suffer, so do mutual funds that hold them. And for mutual funds that have been closed for some time due to repaid inflow of money when they were hot, one way to cope with loss of capital after investors withdraw their money because of poor performance recently is to reopen the funds to new investors. We have already seen good mutual funds from Vangard, Oakmark, and Dodge & Cox reopened their doors. Now Fidelity also put two of its largest funds, Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX) and Fidelity Low-Priced Stock Fund (FLPSX), back on the market, starting December 16th, after reopening its Magellan Fund early this year. FCNTX has been closed since 2006 and FLPSX since 2003. Both have suffered significant losses in net assets.

Contrafund (FCNTX) is categorized as large-cap growth fund by Morningstar. It currently has a total net assets of $47 billion, down nearly 42% so  far in 2008. The fund has a 0.89% expense ratio (ER) and a yield of 0.89%. FCNTX has more than 91% of its assets invested in domestic stocks with Berkshire Hathaway A as its largest holding and Google, Apple, and P&G among the top 5. From 2003 to 2007, FCNTX returned double-digit annually every year with an average annual return of 18.12%. In 2007, the fund manager of FCNTX, William Danoff who has been managing the fund since 1990, won the Domestic Equity Fund Manager of The Year reward from Morningstar.

Low-Price Stock Fund (FLPSX), on the other hand, primarily invests in small to mid-size companies both domestically and around the world. FLPSX, which my wife owns in her 401(k) account, has a 0.96% ER and 0.93% yield. The fund had a good run from 2003 to 2006, but saw its NAV dropped more than 40% YTD and that puts its 5-year average return into negative territory. As of July 31, 2008, FLPSX invests 88.7% its assets in stocks and 9.9% in cash. Brazilian Petroleum Corp ADR is its largest holding, followed by UnitedHealth and Bed, Bath & Beyond.

If you want to invest in either of these two funds, you will need a minimum of $2,500 to open an account.

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When the fund’s assets drop to the level that hampers the fund manager’s ability to make the investments he/she wants because of short of cash, the fund manager usually reopens the fund in order to get additional inflow of cash, as the Dodge & Cox Stock Fund (DODGX) did early this year. Recently, there are a few funds from Vanguard and Oakmark reopen to new investors (Morningstar):

• Oakmark Equity and Income Fund (OAKBX): I have owned this fund for many year. Unlike other funds I own, OAKBX has been very consistant over the years, no huge ups or downs in returns (the fund has half of its assets invested in bonds and cash). So far this year, the fund is down 15%, much less than most of its peers. The fund has a 0.83% expense ratio (ER) and 2.45% yield. You need at least $1,000 to investment in OAKBX.
• Vanguard International Explorer (VINEX): This fund has some pretty nice runs in the past few years, like most funds investing in emerging and developed markets. However, it looks like this year is going to be a disaster for VINEX as the fund has dropped nearly 50% as of now. At an ER of just 0.35%, you can be assured that the cost of owning the fund is low, like many other Vanguard fund. The fund has a yield of 4.98%, but you will have to have a minimum of $3,500 $25,000 to open an account.
• Vanguard Precious Metals and Mining (VGPMX): I did a comparison between the actively managed funds I own and those low-cost, index funds from Vanguard early this year, and VGPMX is one of the Vanguard fund that I compared with my Tocqueville Gold Fund (TGLDX) in the precious metal fund category. 2008 is shaping up to be a very bad year for precious metal funds and funds like VGPMX and TGLDX are suffering huge losses. So far VGPMX has lost 64% of its value, compared to TGLDX’s 55%. Is it a good time to load up precious metal funds? I don’t know, but if you want to get your hands on VGPMX, now it’s time except you will have a deep pocket to buy this VGPMX because it requires $10,000 minimum. The ER is 0.28% and yield 4.78%.

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But all of these were then. Now the funds are falling fast in performance ranking. Actually, it didn’t happen just now. Things started to go bad since last year, when DODGX lagged not only the benchmark S&P 500 index by a significant amount, but also many of its peers. And 2008 is even worse for DODGX. It seems that all the sudden fund managers at D&C lost their touch on picking up the right stocks to invest. Instead, they were betting on all the wrong ones: AIG, Wachovia, Fannie Mae. All the troubled compaines were added to DODGX’s holding list. That’s more like my investments (I bought AIG, Freddie Mac and the vanished Washington Mutual), not the choices of an investment team who have managed the fund for years. The result is massive outflow of cash as investors run to the exit as fast as they rushed early this decade when the fund was the darling for investors.

So what went wrong with D & C?

A 2-yr performance comparison between S&P and DODGX, DODFX and DODBX

Early this week, Morningstar published an article that may provide some clue on what went wrong at D & C, mainly failed to expect the worst case scenario, which turned out to be much worse than anybody could imagine, when making the picks of trouble financial firms:

Dodge & Cox knew AIG would need a lot of cash, but not $85 billion (a sum that reportedly stunned even former CEO Hank Greenberg). It knew the housing crisis would get worse before it got better and companies like Fannie Mae and Wachovia would struggle, but it did not assign a high enough probability to the chaotic unraveling we witnessed and the government’s aggressive, uncompromising response to it.

Indeed, what happened to D & C are pretty bad, as the above performance chart shows, and as an investor, I am very happy with how the fund managers have run the fund so far. At the same time, however, I have no plan to abandon my investments in all three D & C funds that I own. I didn’t get in when the fund was hot and I won’t get out when the fund goes cold. I still have my faith in the the fund and I hope it can soon recover. As the article says:

There’s no guarantee Dodge & Cox funds will snap back like they did in the past. Sure, you could switch to another manager who hasn’t yet hit the skids or to an index fund. But Dodge & Cox retains many simple, enduring long-term advantages besides experience and a long memory. Its process is consistent and has been tested and found worthy in previous crises. Its expense ratios are among the lowest offered by active managers; and the firm’s culture remains trustworthy due to its focus on investing and its investors rather than marketing. These are all traits that we at Morningstar and others have found to correlate with long-term success.

Do you own Dodge & Cox funds? Are you plan to hold them?

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While savers can get their FDIC insured deposits back ($100,000 for single accounts and $200,000 for joint accounts, more details on how to protect against bank failure), investors who own WaMu stock won’t be as lucky because the stock is worthless now and the investments are not insured by anybody (check out whether my investments are safe if my broker fails for more). Even for those who don’t own the stock directly, they may still feel the pain if the mutual funds or ETFs they own in their 401(k), IRA, 529, or regular investment accounts invest heavily in WaMu. On September 26th, I received an email from Oakmark Funds regarding one of the impact of WaMu’s failure on one of their funds.

From Morningstar data, the top 20 funds with the largest share of WaMu are (% of the fund’s assets on WM):

• Oakmark Select (OAKLX): 4.85%
• Touchstone JSAM Institutional Lg Cp Val (CIJLX): 3.76%
• Touchstone JSAM Institutional Value (CIJVX): 3.46%
• Touchstone Large Cap Value (TLCAX): 3.37%
• Transamerica Partners Instl Val (DIVLX): 3.32%
• Transamerica Partners Value (DVVLX): 3.32%
• Oakmark Global Select (OAKWX): 2.78%
• Dreman Contrarian Large Cap Value (DRLVX): 2.69%
• DWS Dreman Concentrated Value (LOPEX): 2.65%
• Fidelity Select Home Finance (FSVLX): 2.55%
• DWS Dreman High Return Eq (KDHAX): 2.37%
• ING Large Cap Value (IVLAX): 2.24%
• Oppenheimer Quest Balanced (QVGIX): 2.19%
• AIM Financial Services (FSXSX): 2.00%
• Dreman Quantitative Large Cap Value (DRQLX): 1.92%
• Diamond Hill Financial Long-Short (BANCX): 1.78%
• Columbia Global Value (NGLBX): 1.65%
• Schwab Financial Services (SWFFX): 1.62%
• Monetta Mid-Cap Equity (MMCEX): 1.31%
• Rydex Banking (RYKIX): 1.29%

Fortunately, I don’t own any of the above funds in any account.

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This morning, NYT has a report that the U.S. Treasury is to guarantee the full value of money-market funds:

Seeking to deal with a severe financial crisis, the department said Friday that for the next year the U.S. Treasury will insure the holdings of eligible money market mutual funds.

The money to insure the mutual funds will come from the Treasury Department’s Exchange Stabilization Fund which was created in 1934 to provide support for the dollar.

Though no word on what will happen for the remainder of this year, but the move could ease investors’ nerve on their money. If money-market fund investors start to run on the fund, it could have catastrophic consequences.

The fund that guarantees money-market funds will have $50 billion cash, similar to the size of the fund FDIC uses to insure deposits.

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Why is this a big deal?

Because money-market funds, one of the most conservative investments, are supposed to be rock-solid safe and liquid, as good as cash. If I put $1 in the fund, but only get 97 cent back, of course it’s a big deal. The whole reason for investing in money-market fund is to not lose money. If I want to receive bigger rewards, I would have to put my money in riskier investments such as stocks or a mutual fund (though money-market funds are mutual funds). The money-market funds, on the other hand, are for safety, which is determined by what the funds can invest. According to SEC, money-market funds are required by law “to invest in low-risk securities.”

Money market funds typically invest in government securities, certificates of deposits, commercial paper of companies, and other highly liquid and low-risk securities. They attempt to keep their net asset value (NAV) at a constant $1.00 per share — only the yield goes up and down. But a money market’s per share NAV may fall below $1.00 if the investments perform poorly.

But low-risk comes with different kinds of flavors. Among those investment options mentioned above, there truly low-risk investments, such as government securities and there are investments carrying a relative larger degree of risk, such as commercial paper. When looking carefully into the funds’ holdings, you will find that different money-market funds have different investments with different risk levels. For example, the Reserve Primary Fund has the following investments in the fund as of May 31, 2008 (fund annual report, PDF file):

• Commercial Paper: 53.9%
• Negotiable Bank Certificates of Deposit: 16.4%
• Floating Rate Notes: 14.9%
• Repurchase Agreements: 9.0%
• Euro Time Deposit: 2.2%
• Medium-Term Notes: 1.1%
• US Agency Bonds: 0.8%
• Promissory Notes: 0.8%
• US Corporate Notes/Bonds: 0.7%

The largest investment RFIXX has is commercial paper (more than half of its assets), of which $535 million is issued by Lehman Brothers. The true safe heaven, US government bonds, is less than 1% in the fund’s total assets.

Now, let’s look at another example, Vanguard Primary Money Market Fund (VMMXX). As of February 29, 2008, the fund has:

• US Government and Agency Obligations: 45.2%
• Certificates of Deposit: 26.9%
• Commercial Paper: 12.5%
• Eurodollar Certificates of Deposit: 10.6%
• Repurchase Agreements: 3.1%

It’s quite clear that the two funds are taking two opposite approaches in seeking low-risk investments with Vanguard emphasizing on government securities.

In the past when the market was calm, those commercial paper issued by companies like Lehman Brothers could indeed be a low-risk, safe investment. But now, after what happened on the Wall Street recently, it’s a entirely different game. Actually, the fact that investors are now pulling their money out of money-market funds also underscores how nervous people have become about their savings. The safety of our money is the most important thing right now.

And always read the prospectus before investing in a fund, even it’s a money-market fund

BTW, check out what others have to see on this latest development:

• Money Market Fund Breaks The Buck: What’s Safe Now?? at My Money Blog
• Even Money Market Funds Have Downside Risk at My Wealth Builder

*Photo from nielsimons.nl

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Now, the financial market is still in a turmoil and the overall situation now is not better than one year ago. But small-cap funds have made a strong comeback lately, especially in the last three months, outperforming large-cap by a wide margin, as you can see from the comparison between Russell 2000 Index (^RUT) and S&P 500 Index (^GSPC) in the following chart.

An article from The Wall Street Journal yesterday summarized what have happened so far this year:

Year to date, the Russell 2000 has declined 6.2% and the Standard & Poor’s Small-Cap 600 index is down 4.5%. (There is no single definition of a small stock; one gauge is total stock market value or “capitalization” below $2 billion.)

By contrast, the Dow average and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, two large-stock measures, are both down 15%. Since July 15, the Russell 2000 has surged 8.5%, compared with the Dow average’s 2.4% advance, as some investors have apparently started to position themselves for an eventual economic recovery.

According to the article, large-cap stocks generally perform better than small- and mid-size stocks leading to or in the early stage of the economic recovery. But the economy recovers, small stocks usually outperform large stocks: “in the 12-month periods following the end of the last nine recessions, small stocks on average provided a 24% gain, compared with 17.6% for the S&P 500.”

The performance of the Russell 2000 in the past six months is very impressive, but the question for investors are whether the recovery is indeed underway and whether it’s now time to add small-caps into portfolio to anticipate a strong return later. For one, the economy doesn’t seem to be in the recovery mode right now because the credit crunch shows no sign of easing and the housing market is yet to bottom. So it’s probably too early to load up small-cap stocks. If the financial crisis continues or become worse, small companies will suffer more than larger companies. But still, investors can use a diversified mutual fund portfolio with exposures in small-cap funds to explore the small stock opportunity. As suggested by the article:

For a relatively smooth ride, Morningstar analyst Marta Norton suggests looking at “small value” funds, which tend to be less volatile than “small growth” funds. The category’s 5% loss for the year to date, through Thursday, is better than any other diversified stock-fund category.

In addition to the traditional mutual funds, you can also find exchange-traded funds (ETFs) specializing in small-cap value investment (funds with YTD return):

• iShares Russell 2000 Value Index (IWN): 1.31%
• iShares S&P SmallCap 600 Index (IJR): -1.36%
• Vanguard Small Cap Value ETF (VBR): -1.73%
• iShares S&P SmallCap 600 Value Index (IJS): -1.03%
• PowerShares Dynamic Small Cap Value (PWY): -0.25%

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Then, all the sudden, after getting close to $150 a barrel in early July, the price of crude oil has started to fall and has fallen hard since the peak. Now you can get a barrel of crude oil for under $110 (chart from tradingcharts.com).

And as the oil price went down, so did the price of gold. Gold, and other precious metals, lost their appeal as a hedge against inflation (chart from goldprice.org).

Not just oil and gold, though they are two major components, commodity prices in general have come quite a bit recently. At the same time, the U.S. dollar has reversed course against the Euro, rising to a six-month high at $1.45 per Euro as the economy in the Euro zone shows more signs of sliding into a recession than the U.S. economy does.

During the commodity boom in the past year, many investments that bet heavily on natural resources had given investors stunning returns. For example, one of my mutual fund investments, CGM Focus Fund [[CGMFX]], returned nearly 80% in 2007. It was the best performing investment in my portfolio last year.

Not so lucky so far this year though. The decline in oil price has brought down CGMFX a lot since July.

Yesterday, hedge fund manager, Ospraie Management LLC, announced that it’s closing its flagship Ospraie Fund after the fund lost 27% in August alone and 38% YTD from investments in “energy, mining and natural resources equity holdings” (Reuters). The fund, which had $2.8 billion invested at the beginning of August, had an average annual return of 15% through the end of 2007 (Bloomberg). Past performance indeed doesn’t guarantee future returns.

Do you have any investments in commodities? How are they doing now?

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Last week, Morningstar, the fund research firm, published a list of 10 mutual funds with highest net inflows in the first half of 2008. Given how much the stocks have been down since the credit crunch began last summer, it’s pretty amazing that some funds can still take billions of dollars from investor seeking returns of their money. However, a hot fund isn’t necessarily a safe fund (in terms of return of course), as noted in the article. Indeed, among the 10 hottest funds, all 8 equity funds are losing money in 2008 with 6 of them having negative double-digit return so far. The other two funds, both bond funds, barely stay above the water.

The following is the list of the funds together with some key stats:

1. PIMCO Total Return Institutional [[PTTRX]]: Net inflows of $14 billion, YTD Return 1.89%, Yield 5.12%, Expense Ratio 0.43%
2. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index [[VTSMX]]: Net inflows of $9 billion, YTD Return -12.99%, Yield 2.00%, Expense Ratio 0.15%
3. Ivy Asset Strategy A [[WASAX]]: Inflows $6.8 billion, YTD Return -4.76%, Yield 0.43%, Expense Ratio 1.12%, Front Load 5.75%
4. Vanguard Total Bond Index [[VBMFX]]: Inflows of $6.2 billion, YTD Return 0.77%, Yield 4.91%, Expense Ratio 0.19%
5. BlackRock Global Allocation [[MDLOX]]: Inflows of $6.2 billion, YTD Return -5.97%, Yield 2.83%, Expense Ratio 1.18%, Front Load 5.25%
6. American Funds: Inflows between $4 billion and $4.9 billion. Capital World Growth & Income (CWGIX), YTD Return -13.39%, Yield 2.75%, Expense Ratio 0.69%, Front Load 5.75%
7. American Funds Growth Fund of America [[AGTHX]], YTD Return -11.58%, Yield 1.06%, Expense Ratio 0.61%, Front Load 5.75%
8. American Funds Fundamental Investors [[ANCFX]], YTD Return -12.52%, Yield 2.31%, Expense Ratio 0.58%, Front Load 5.75%
9. American Funds Capital Income Builder [[CAIBX]], YTD Return -10.71%, Yield 4.42%, Expense Ratio 0.58%, Front Load 5.75%
10. Harbor International [[HAINX]]: Inflows of $3.9 billion, YTD Return -13.54%, Yield 1.53%, Expense Ratio 0.83%

When looking at this list, what really surprises me isn’t the performance, but half of the funds that made to the list are actually load funds! Well, I never bought any load fund myself and somehow find it’s hard to understand the reason of buying fund with 5.75% frond load. For me, when it comes to buying mutual funds, the cheaper (low ER), the better (check out how I use Morningstar to research mutual funds). And when a load fund is losing money at the same magnitude as, for example, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund is, it’s hard to justify the front load it charges!

Are you a load fund investor?

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ShareBuilder today announced that it now allows investors to buy mutual funds through it’s automatic investment plans. ShareBuilder is one of the popular discount brokers which offers investors to buy stocks at dollar amount rather than share amount at $4.00 commission. The new service makes 20 funds from ING available to investors:

• ING Strategic Allocation Conservative Fund (IDSIX)
• ING Strategic Allocation Moderate Fund (IDSLX)
• ING Strategic Allocation Growth Fund IDSGX)
• ING Intermediate Bond Fund (IDBOX)
• ING Mid Cap Opportunities (NMCOX)
• ING Small Company (ISCOX)
• ING Value Choice (PAVOX)
• ING Index Plus Large Cap Fund (IDLOX)
• ING Index Plus Mid Cap Fund (IDMOX)
• ING Index Plus Small Cap Fund (IDSOX)
• ING Global Bond (IGBOX)
• ING Global Equity Dividend Fund (IDGEX)
• ING Global Real Estate Fund (IDGTX)
• ING Global Science and Technology Fund (IDTOX)
• ING Index Plus International Equity Fund (IDIOX)
• ING Diversified International (IFFOX)
• ING Greater China (IFCOX)
• ING International Small Cap Multi-manager (NAPOX)
• ING Real Estate Fund (IDROX)
• ING Financial Services Fund (IDFOX)

According to ShareBuilder, there’s no load of any of these funds and investors will not pay transaction fees for investing in these funds. However, there’s a early redemption fee of $19.95 if the fund is held for less than 90 days.

Though the number funds available small and all are limited to ING funds, it’s a positive development. Since now the offering isn’t just stocks, investors use ShareBuilder to build a portfolio for long-term investment.

I am not familiar with ING family of funds, so I can’t comment on whether the funds listed above make good choice. The only one fund from ING I know is ING Corporate Leaders Trust B (LEXCX), one fund that beats the S&P 500 index in the past 10 years. Digging a little deeper, maybe I can find a good fund

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T. Rowe Price recently also announced that its Small-Cap Value Fund (PRSVX) reopened to new investors on May 1, 2008. The fund had some great runs in the early part of this decade and was closed in May 2002. PRSVX mainly invests in small companies with market capital within or below those in the Russell 2000 index. Morningstar data shows that PRSVX has a 3-year return 10.83%, 5-year 15.13%, and 10-year 9.58%.

The minimum initial investment of PRSVX is $1,000, which will be waived if an automatic investment plan with at least $50 a month is set up at the time when an account is opened. PRSVX’s ER is 0.81%, which is quite low for a small-cap fund. The fund also has a yield of 0.69%.

I have owned PRSVX since April 2002, shortly before it was closed and currently I invest $100 into the fund every month.

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According to Morningstar, WAIOX has a 3-year annual return of 18.58% and a yield of 4.66%, both quite impressive. However, the fund’s 2.25% expense ratio (ER) is rather formidable. WAMVX’s ER is also at 2.25% with 13.94% 3-year return.

Both funds require a minimum initial investment of $2,000. However, for automatic investment plan, the initial minimum is reduced to $1,000.

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Prior to introduction of this new fund, Vanguard already has funds that cover the U.S. stock market (Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, VTSMX) and stock markets outside the U.S. (Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US Index Fund, VFWIX). Now investors will have the chance to own the entire global stock markets with a single fund.

Like Vanguard founder John Bogle said before, the best way to invest for small investors is own the entire stock market, then forget about it. That will soon become true. Now I just hope that someone comes up with a global bond fund to make investing really, really simple: a global equity fund and a global fixed income fund and that’s it

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According to a statement released yesterday, Dodge & Cox will reopen its flagship Stock fund and Balanced fund next Monday, February 4th. The two funds were closed to new investors since 2004, though existing shareholders can still invest in both of them.

In the statement, the company cited the lackluster return of both funds in 2007, which caused investors redemption, as the main reason for the reopening. Indeed, in 2007, the Stock fund (DODGX) returned a meager 0.1%, trailing the S&P index by 5.4%, while the Balanced fund (DODBX) had a negative gain of 3.1%. However, both funds have beaten their peers easily in the past 10 years. DODGX has a 10-year annualized return of 10.87% and DODBX gained 9.5% on average during the same period, according to Morningstar.com.

We own both the funds plus the International fund (DODFX) and they have been our core investments for many years. Despite the dismal performance last year, I have no plan to shift to any other funds. And if you are interested in buying these two funds that have been great for investors for many years, the opportunity to get them is now.

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Why do funds close and reopen?

The main reason for a fund to close to new investors has a lot to do with the fund’s past performance. It is one way to prevent the fund’s assets from growing too big, which could force the fund manager to invest the extra cash in companies that don’t fit in the fund’s investment style. This is particularly true for mid- and small-cap funds, which have seen some good time in the past few years (for example, the small-cap dominated Russell 2000 Index has a 5-year return of 16.25%). As investors chase hot funds with big returns, billions of dollars from new investors were poured into small-cap funds, specialty funds, and foreign funds. While the pace of a fund’s growth can serve as an indicator of whether the fund manager is *successful* or not, the problem with too much cash on hand is that the fund manage may end up buying something that he/she doesn’t really want to buy. And that could push the fund out of its original investment style and hinder its performance. To prevent such a dilemma, funds seeing rapid growth in assets can choose to close them to new investors to limit the cash inflow.

If a fund’s close indicates too much cash than the fund’s manager can handle, a fund’s reopen usually means the opposite: the lack of fresh money to invest. Fidelity’s Magellan is an example of how redemption and short of cash flow have become an obstacle for the fund manager to invest in the areas where he sees opportunity.

Closed fund -> Better return?

Not necessarily.

Though the impression investors get when a fund manager closes a fund is the manager is taking measures to maintain the fund’s performance. However, many times a closure is not really a *prevention*, but a *cure* because by the time a fund closes, its assets may have already become a burden. Plus, closing a fund won’t stop the growth of its assets as in most cases existing investors can still invest in a closed fund, keeping it growing.

Among the 10 actively managed funds I own, two are closed to new investors: Dodge & Cox Stock (DODGX) and Buffalo Small-Cap (BUFSX). For DODGX, the fund had $29B in assets when it was closed in January 2004. Currently the fund’s assets is $63 billion, more than doubled in three years, and show no sign of slowing down as existing shareholders continue to add money to the fund. How did DODGX perform since its closure? The fund’s returns against the S&P 500 index in the past four years are: 2004: +8.3%, 2005: +4.5%, 2006: +2.7%, and 2007: -5.4%. Not a very good example to show the effectiveness of the closure. In contrary, I see this as a perfect case of what bloated assets could do to a great fund.

Past performance doesn’t guarantee future return, whether the fund is open or closed.

Recently reopened funds

According to Morningstar, the following funds recently reopened to new investors. Do you see any interesting ones that you want to invest in?

Third Avenue International Value (TAVIX)

• Fund category: Foreign small/mid-cap value
• ER: 1.45%
• Yield: 3.57%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $10,000
• 3-year return: 10.88%, 5-year return: 20.86%

Longleaf Partners (LLPFX)

• Fund category: Large-cap blend
• ER: 0.90%
• Yield: 0.20%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $10,000
• 3-year return: 4.94%, 5-year return: 10.08%

Tweedy, Browne Global Value (TBGVX)

• Fund category: Foreign small/mid-cap value
• ER: 1.37%
• Yield: 1.45%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $2,500
• 3-year return: 10.33%, 5-year return: 15.83%

First Eagle Overseas (SGOVX)

• Fund category: Foreign small/mid-cap value
• ER: 1.37%
• Yield: 1.45%
• Front load: 5.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $2,500
• 3-year return: 14.24%, 5-year return: 19.70%

First Eagle Global (SGENX)

• Fund category: World allocation
• ER: 1.13%
• Yield: 2.16%
• Front load: 5.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $2,500
• 3-year return: 13.81%, 5-year return: 18.29%

Oakmark International Small Cap (OAKEX)

• Fund category: Foreign small/mid-cap value
• ER: 1.37%
• Yield: 0.87%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $1,000
• 3-year return: 9.48%, 5-year return: 21.01%

Oakmark International (OAKIX)

• Fund category: World allocation
• ER: 1.05%
• Yield: 0.69%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $1,000
• 3-year return: 11.25%, 5-year return: 17.45%

Westport Select Cap (WPSRX)

• Fund category: Mid-cap blend
• ER: 1.32%
• Yield: 0.53%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $1,000
• 3-year return: 6.97%, 5-year return: 11.55%

Royce Low-Priced Stock (RYLPX)

• Fund category: Small-cap blend
• ER: 1.46%
• Yield: 2.48%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $2,000
• 3-year return: 9.19%, 5-year return: 15.00%

Royce Micro-Cap (RYOTX)

• Fund category: Small-cap blend
• ER: 1.43%
• Yield: 2.48%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $2,000
• 3-year return: 12.05%, 5-year return: 19.18%

Royce Opportunity (RYOFX)

• Fund category: Small-cap value
• ER: 1.29%
• Yield: 0.38%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $2,000
• 3-year return: 5.31%, 5-year return: 16.90%

Fidelity Magellan (FMAGX)

• Fund category: Large-cap growth
• ER: 0.53%
• Yield: 0.42%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $2,500
• 3-year return: 7.23%, 5-year return: 10.41%

FPA Crescent (FPACX)

• Fund category: Large-cap growth
• ER: 1.25%
• Yield: 2.73%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $1,500
• 3-year return: 8.58%, 5-year return: 12.24%

T. Rowe Price High-Yield (PRHYX)

• Fund category: High yield bond
• ER: 0.77%
• Yield: 7.74%
• Front load: 0.0%
• Minimum initial investment: $2,500
• 3-year return: 4.65%, 5-year return: 8.60%

BTW, also check out these recently reopened funds:

• Fidelity to Reopen Contrafund and Low–Priced Stock Fund
• Vanguard and Oakmark Reopen Good Funds
• Dodge & Cox Reopens Stock and Balanced Funds
• Oakmark, T. Rowe Price Reopen Funds
• Wasatch Reopens Two Micro-Cap Funds

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