Fund Research

In the winter of 2015, an almost unheard of situation happened. A mutual fund, normally required to guarantee daily liquidity, blocked its clients from withdrawing money. The Third Ave Focused Credit Fund (TFCIX), citing losses and a lack of liquidity in the high yield bond market, put some of its assets into a trust to be sold over time.

Risk parity strategies hold the promise of smooth sailing through periods of market turbulence, offering consistent performance via risk diversification. However, during Brexit the losses they experienced were very high by historical standards as they came very close to exceeding, or exceeded, the 95% worst outcome as estimated by the historical VaR.

In the world bond fund category, a dramatic change has happened: last year’s worst-performing funds are this year’s best-performing ones.