Decade of Daddy Mirror Fund bi-weekly report
Things have been rocky in market land since we kicked off the Decade of Daddy Mirror Fund™, but I can report that our notional fund is surviving (see prior report “Decade of Daddy Mirror Fund part 2/3” July 11-08).
In the black column, we’ve made money in:
BMO (+15.5%), Bristol Myers (+5.8%), BNS (+7.1%), CIBC (+9.2%), JP Morgan (+22.8%), Eli Lilly (+2.5%) and MKS (+5.6%).
In the red column:
We’ve taken a terrible pasting in CDN Oil Sands Trust (-10.3%), we’re down a snick on Duke Energy (-0.4%), got caught on Merck’s bad news (-14.9%); Spectra Energy (-6.8%) and Teranet (-1.4%) have also cost us a bit.
On the whole, we are up 2.9% since the portfolio was launched on July 2nd. During the same period, the Dow Jones Index is down 0.3%. Of the $40 million we set aside, $11.4 million remains in cash.
MRM
I’m researching Kevin’s fund (which amusingly he kept misnaming on his latest BNN special – you should really know the ticker of your own fund Kevin – it’s OGE.UN) and came across your site.
I appreciate the mirror fund but wanted to comment on your general take.
The thing I like about kevin’s fund is it allows me to invest in foreign dividend stocks relatively easily. For example, I’ve wanted to invest in COSCO for a while, but the barriers to that investment were too great for a small fish like myself.
The returns on Kevin’s fund are really nothing to be proud of (5 measly percent?) and I really can’t find anything definitive about how any excess gains will be distributed but, and it’s a big but, Kevin’s fund allows me easy diversification in stocks I am interested in but find difficult to buy.
Your mirror portfolio is great – I actually have similar investments that I will maintain should I decide to purchase OGE.UN – but it’s apples and oranges. It’s easy for me to invest on my own in the TSX and NYSE and I will do that myself.
If this were really a mirror, it would offer global dividend exposure, not NA dividend exposure.
David
Your point is well taken about non-North American stocks. I find it hard to believe that a Canadian-based talk show host can find a unique European or sub-continent dividend story, and that’s why I haven’t spent any time trying to pick Portugal Telecom vs. a Spanish one vs one in India.
How can an uber-busy local TV host stay on top of the competitive dynamic in a foreign telecom climate. Look how many analyst folks here at home missed the $10/share impact that the wireless spectrum auction would have on Rogers shares, for example.
The currency risks of extra-N.A. choices are so obvious, to start with. With the CDN$ already at parity with the US$, much of that risk has aready been removed for cross-border stock pickers.
I’m not trying to mirror the precise strategy as much as mirror the outcome. KO plans to put up to 20% of the $40 million into private companies, for example, something that I think is downright crazy.
At the end of the day, his fund should wildly outperform what I’ve started to do with the Mirror Fund (up 5.2% so far). If not, then the point will have been proven, now won’t it?
MRM