Monthly Mutuals Analysis
Dateline: 07/14/99
Looking back at our Power Performers for the past six months we find that there were 36 mutual funds that made our list at least once. The year started off with 28 funds in January, then quickly retreated to 10 funds in February as markets slumped. Slowly the numbers have been increasing to 20 for the month ending June 30th.
Only one Canadian equity fund made the list - the Acuity Pooled Canadian Equity Fund - which was Power Performer in January. Aside from three sectoral funds, all the rest were American equity funds.
Of the 36 funds, only six were Power Performers every month - AGF American Growth, Altamira U.S. Larger Company, BPI American Equity Value, Ethical North American Equity, IRIS U.S. Equity, and MD U.S. Equity. These six are the best for consistency of performance and low risk. But even with these six, none of them showed gains for every month. The best record goes to BPI American Equity Value which made gains for four of the last six months and an overall gain for the period of 18.24%. The other five consistent Power Performers gained between 3.96% and 8.87%.
Among the other funds, however, there were some standout performances. The 20/20 Aggressive Growth Fund in both Canadian and U.S. dollars showed six month gains of 57.09% and 64.16% respectively, the best showing of all 36 funds on our list. They each made the Power Performers four times only missing out in the first two months of the year.
The Aggressive Growth funds are managed by Richard Driehaus of Driehaus Capital Management for AGF. Driehaus's focus is to invest in fast growing American companies with a focus on earnings growth momentum. They are heavily invested in the technology sector with considerable exposure to Internet stocks. Top ten holdings include CMGI, CNET, At Home and Broadcom.
Other funds with impressive six month track records include GBC North American Growth which was a Power Performer only once - in June - but gained 32.45% for the period. And two technology funds - Green Line Science & Technology and Spectrum United Global Telecom - which showed gains of 25.52% and 31.36% respectively. I particularly like the Green Line fund which was a Power Performer four times and showed double digit gains for three of those.
All 36 funds that made the list were gainers for the six months except for the AIM Global Health Sciences Fund which lost 9.57%. The Mawer U.S. Equity Fund, which was a Power Performer only in January, made a negligible gain 0.01%.
Looking at the Power Performers for June we find the number of Super Power Performers (funds generating returns of over 25% for each of the 1 year, 2 year, 3 year and 5 year periods) increased from three to eight funds, a record number. And except for two technology funds, all of this month's Power Performers are American equity funds.
Three of the Super Power Performers are AGF funds and two are from the McLean Budden stable, though one of those, is no doubt, out of reach for most investors requiring a $500,000 minimum investment.
Meanwhile, the number of our RRSP Performers went up from three to five in June. While three are U.S. equity funds that qualify as Canadian for RRSPs through the use of derivatives, two are actually Canadian equity funds - the Cundill Canadian Security A Fund and the Transamerica Agent Plan.
Leading Canadian investments for the Transamerica fund include TD Bank, JDS Fitel, Metronet, Celestica and Open Text. Leading Canuck stocks for Cundill are Scotts Restaurants, Okanagan Skeena Group, CSA Management, McMillan Bloedel, Timberwest and Inco.
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Mutual Fund Database of Key Links - Relatively new to this site, our database provides targeted links to GLOBEfund, the Fund Library, Portfolio Analytics, Sedar and, of course, the company's homepage for the over fifty mutual fund companies listed.
Recent Fund Articles - The latest fund articles from the Globe & Mail.
Mutual Fund Links - Our own collection of mutual fund links.
Mutual Fund Companies - An extensive collection of links to mutual fund company homepages.
The Fund Counsel - Levi Folk and Richard Webb are two highly respected mutual fund analysts. Their site is definitely worth checking out.
Marco's Power Performers Index Page
Marco's Power Performers to June 30, 1999
Marco's RRSP Performers to June 30, 1999
Funds Performing Better Than 15% Annual Compounded Rate Over 15 Years
Funds Performing Better Than 15% Annual Compounded Rate Over 10 Years
Marco's Power Performers for 1998
Marco's Power Performers for 1997
07/12/99 - E-commerce
& Convergence
Our weekly Internet Update looks at Microforum and Rogers
Communications as well as listing the movers and shakers among
Internet stocks for the previous week.
07/09/99 - Trading
on Volatility: Case Study # 2 - Microsoft
Our second case study into active trading of a particular stock
gives quite different results than our first one did.
07/07/99 - Trading
on Volatility: Case Study # 1 - Barrick Gold
We try out a method of trading stocks based on their fluctuations
from recent highs and lows to see if it will improve our profits.
07/05/99 - Internet
Update: Recent High Flyers
Ten stocks on our Internet indexes gained over 10% last week. We
profile two of them and take a look at Nortel Networks as well.
07/02/99 - Volatility
Can Be Your Friend
In theory, you can make more money trading
stocks than using a buy and hold strategy. But deciding when to
buy and sell - ah! There's the rub!
Note: The author is a financial journalist and not a professional investment advisor. Information contained here should not be construed as investment advice.
Canadian Mutual Fund Database - 21 more fund companies added to the database bringing the total now to 55 companies.
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