I hear on news all day that today is the fiscal close of mutual funds. 1. would it be Monday, October 31st? 2. Don't they show their portfolio holdings as of 9/30/xx? So why would a mutual fund want to reposition its equity holdings now?
it is all a big game --- the "P&L shuffle" and the dumbest of all is why do they pay themselves management fees when they have a loss to the client at the end of their year??? in a proper CTA fund arrangement the client should never pay any fees unless the CTA returns a profit for the client --- pay on performance. must be nice for the mutuals --- suck in billions {charge clients millions} and then make the client 1.2% for the year {oh sorry, the market was tough this year and you should be darn happy we made you 1.2% -- we were hero's in this market environment -- and btw do you have another 50K you can add to our fund so we can dollar cost average you going into next year?} --- HAHAHAHA! WHAT A SCAM! :eek:
To MacroEvent: I agree with most of what you said but not all. Making 1.2% is much much better than losing money. I know that if you had your money in CD you would make 4% but those mutual funds don't make 1.2% every year. Sometimes they make 40%. If you believe that 1.2% is easy with that bulky money, start a thread called "15% a year guaranteed" and tell us what you would do. I believe when a mutual fund underperforms the index in a year, they should not charge management fee. They should return the management fee back to the shareholders.
what i think they should do is have a method of management fees that is based off their performance --- the more they make for their clients the more they get paid. the mutuals would have higher overall returns for their clients if they stopped the current management fee gouging. in a year that a fund is flat or at a loss, and to still charge their high levels of management fees is pathetic in my opinion. and my last month {and year to date} results would need a heading well above "15% per year guaranteed" if i was to fully show you here at ET what i do.
And sometimes a brand new fund can make 300% when the Nasdaq goes from 2000 to 5000. The mutual fund industry is just another game by Wall Street. There is no common sense in paying someone a management fee if they are just trying to slightly outperfom the averages and can't even do that right. If the market is down for the year, they claim greatness if they are down less than the averages. That is pathetic. The minority of the successful funds are exclusive. The rest are just sheeps skimming investor money.
Good discussion, but my original question was regarding the dates of the "window dressing." Is it 9/30/xx (Quarter end) or 10/31/xx Mutual fund fiscal year end that would lead to the window dressing. I belive mutual funds use annual earnings in their litature. I was assuming the annual returns were based on December 31, xx vs. then fund's fiscal year end. Any thoughts?