Rather than buying through my brokerage account I have recently elected to go directly to the fund companies and purchase direct. I opened an accounnt with Dodge and Cox and have begun contributing to the International fund.
I have also been looking at Ken Heebners CGM family of funds. Does anyone have any experience with the fund family. Management fees are slightly on the high side but they ahve defeinitely delivered above averge retunrs. Whether they continue to do so is the question. What are other people thoughts.
We’ve had our money with Dodge and Cox for many years. We are in big with the Stock Fund (closed) and International. It was a good idea to establish yourself in International before it closes too. I suggest you keep an eye on the already closed funds. They might just open up for a window of time. Low fees and steady performance are beautiful. Tax friendly as well because they don’t go crazy on the distributions. Can’t beat Dodge and Cox for the long run. Get in and stay.
I own CGM Focus through my 401k. It’s hard to tell what is going on with it at any one point in time because they use shorting strategies as well as long. But it has been kicking some serious behind for several years. My company 401k allowed me to do some crazy things with a portion of my plan a few years ago and I went in with EUROX, TREMX and CGMFX. I believed in the Eastern European story and it has worked well. But CGMFX has been beating them lately. It’s hard to tell how good it’s it’s doing unless you step back and look at the chart because on a day to day basis – it’s a wild ride. It’s called Focus because it’s usually only invested in about 30 stocks at a time – pretty small number as mutual funds go – and turnover is high. All reasons for the higher fees. But I like it for the juice it gives my portfolio.
Also, they drop some pretty heavy distributions on you at the end of the year so keep that in mind for tax purposes. Like I said, I own it through 401k so that doesn’t matter to me.
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