22
Aberdeen’s acquisition of the Artio fund group was
completed in late May. Aberdeen acted quickly to
rename the funds and replace the managers at Inter-
national Equity and International Equity
II
. The funds
kept their tickers but are now
Aberdeen Select
International Equity
BJBIX
and
Aberdeen Select
International Equity II
JETAX
. I wouldn’t be
surprised if they merged the two.
The funds are now run by Jamie Cumming, Stephen
Docherty, Samantha Fitzpatrick, Andrew McMenigall,
and Bruce Stout of Aberdeen. That same team has
run
Aberdeen International Equity
GIGAX
since
the beginning of
2009
. So far they’ve produced strong
results at that fund, though the record is fairly brief.
That large-blend fund has shown a fondness for Latin
America, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan and
has much less in the eurozone than its peers. We’re
dropping coverage of the foreign equity funds.
Artio Total Return
BJBGX
changed its name to
Aberdeen Total Return Bond, but it has kept its
management team and we are maintaining our
coverage and the fund’s Bronze rating.
Harding Loevner Fund Joins 500
With a slot opened up, we’re adding
Harding
Loevner Emerging Markets Advisor
HLEMX
. The
no-load fund has a Silver rating and
4
stars. The
fund is run by an experienced trio in Rusty Johnson,
Richard Schmidt, and Craig Shaw.
The fund’s focus on companies with strong competi-
tive advantages and healthy balance sheets gives
it some good defensive characteristics, though defen-
sive for an emerging-markets fund is relative. The
fund lost
17
.
5%
in
2001
, which was about
230
basis
points better than its peers, and it dropped
52
.
3%
in
2008
, which was about
110
less than its average
peer. It has been consistent enough to outperform
four fifths of its peers over the past decade.
Maybe its biggest limitation is its
1
.
47%
expense
ratio, which is second-highest in the Morningstar
500
emerging-markets group. That’s in line with the
category average but still a bit pricey.
A Strong First Half
Eleven funds in the Morningstar
500
finished the
first half in the top percentile of their category. Of
those, three were run by the Primecap team:
Primecap Odyssey Aggressive Growth
POAGX
,
Vanguard Capital Opportunity
VHCOX
, and
Primecap Odyssey Growth
POGRX
.
Fairholme Focused Income
FOCIX
rode
MBIA
to
top-percentile returns, while
Oakmark Interna-
tional
OAKIX
and
Artisan International Value
ARTKX
had winning Japanese stocks provide a boost.
Third Avenue Real Estate Value
TAREX
bene-
fited from some unusual plays like
Lowe’s
LOW
and
Songbird Estates PLC
SBD
.
Vanguard Precious
Metals and Mining
VGPMX
lost money, but its light
weighting in gold meant it lost less than its peers.
Invesco Equity
Income
ACEIX
had big wins from
the banking sector, and
ClearBridge Aggressive
Growth
SHRAX
and
Vanguard Capital Value
VCVLX
had success with health-care and tech stocks.
œ
Summary of Changes
Add
Drop
Harding Loevner Emerging Markets Aberdeen Select Int’l Equity
Rating Change
To
From
Hussman Strategic Total Return
‰ ´
Janus Venture
‰ •
Janus Triton
‰ •
Longleaf Partners
• Œ
Leuthold Asset Allocation
‰ ´
Matthews China
• Œ
T. Rowe Price Media & Telecom.
´ •
Leuthold Core Investment
´ •
T. Rowe Price New America Growth
‰ Œ
Third Avenue Int’l Value
´ •
Artio Funds Are Now Aberdeen
Changes to the 500
|
Russel Kinnel
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