bookie71 Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StubbleJumper Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Thanks 50cent. I always like to peruse Chou's quarterly reports to see what kind of ideas that he's finding. He truly is a genius and has a big set of balls when it comes to position sizing. I noticed that he's holding about $1m of SinoForest bonds which he probably bought for a fraction of a penny. Anybody have any ideas about what his value proposition is for SinoForest bonds? Surely they are cheap, but maybe deservedly cheap? On the other hand, maybe he knows something that will earn him 5 or 10 bags? SJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay21 Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Thanks, this was short and sweet. I liked this quote: Some prices for non-investment grade bonds do not reflect the risks inherent in these securities. A company can float 10 year non-investment grade bonds with a coupon of 5.5% and investors will buy them at 100 cents on the dollar. Just a few years ago, a similar bond would be trading for 60 cents or less. In fact, there is a good chance that these debt securities may now be overvalued, and that the possibility of a large, permanent loss of capital is extremely high Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hillfronter83 Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 I want to buy some shares for my 401K's brokerage window since it only allows mutual funds. However, this fund is not available with T. Rowe Price. Is it something that Francis is working on? Can I contact the fund to find out? It's been awhile since I've asked, but anyone have any idea when the funds will be available through Fidelity? Thanks. I spoke with Francis a few weeks back on this issue and he told me that it would probably take between 3-6 months. My hope is that it is closer to three! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhdousa Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 I want to buy some shares for my 401K's brokerage window since it only allows mutual funds. However, this fund is not available with T. Rowe Price. Is it something that Francis is working on? Can I contact the fund to find out? It's been awhile since I've asked, but anyone have any idea when the funds will be available through Fidelity? Thanks. You can try but I've found the fund reps are very unhelpful and not at all knowledgeable about this kind of thing. Another option is to directly ask TRP to carry it. I spoke with Francis a few weeks back on this issue and he told me that it would probably take between 3-6 months. My hope is that it is closer to three! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 Don't you guys think the expense ratio is kinda high? I know it is still a small fund but at 1.5%... that's too high for me. Most I am willing to pay is around ~1% top ( sequoia and fairholme). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stahleyp Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 Don't you guys think the expense ratio is kinda high? I know it is still a small fund but at 1.5%... that's too high for me. Most I am willing to pay is around ~1% top ( sequoia and fairholme). I think it'll go down over time. Chou originally had a 12b1 fee on it and the drove it to 1.75% but he eliminated it. The guy has a ton of character from everything I've read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhdousa Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 I don't think so. FAIRX is at 8b in assets. 1% of that is 80m. CHOEX is at 60m in assets. 1.5% of that is 900k. Do you think Bruce Berkowitz works 90 times as hard as Francis Chou? From what I hear, there are a lot of expenses that go into running a US mutual fund. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bookie71 Posted March 13, 2014 Share Posted March 13, 2014 It's the yield after the expenses that is important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fareastwarriors Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 A fund manager who refunds fees? Meet Francis Chou http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/strategy-lab/value-investing/a-fund-manager-who-refunds-fees-meet-francis-chou/article18405672/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stahleyp Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Chou is a class act for sure. Thanks for posting, fareast. Thanks for writing it up, too, Norm! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsad Posted May 2, 2014 Author Share Posted May 2, 2014 Nice article Norm! And yes, Francis is a class-act and fantastic person. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warrior Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Norm, good job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rainman Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 What's the difference between CHOEX and Chou Associates fund? MorningStar gives Chou Associates fund 5 star but only gives CHOEX 2 star. Can I buy Chou Associates fund in US? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stahleyp Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 Chou Associates is for Canadians and Chou Opportunity is for Americans. I don't us Yankees can buy Associates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stahleyp Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 I was just checking this one. It's down 16.63% this year (with 40% cash). That's kinda crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stahleyp Posted January 18, 2018 Share Posted January 18, 2018 Pretty crazy ride. Up almost 20% in the past 3 months (top 1% of peers). Long term performance is still not good though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
investmd Posted January 18, 2018 Share Posted January 18, 2018 Pretty crazy ride. Up almost 20% in the past 3 months (top 1% of peers). Long term performance is still not good though. Chou's flagship Canadian Fund - Chou Associates - with $330M in assets is up some 7.5% over past 3 months - not close to the Chou America. 10 and 15 year returns for Chou Associates are in 5.5%/yr range. I'm disappointed he's not given an explanation as to what he has learned from this underperformance and changes that have been made to avoid similar fate in future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cevian Posted January 18, 2018 Share Posted January 18, 2018 I would guess Overstock was the largest driver of returns for him this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stahleyp Posted January 29, 2018 Share Posted January 29, 2018 Here are some general thoughts about Chou. If anyone could shed light on these, it's much appreciated: I'm looking at the Chou Associates fund on Morningstar. From inception through Friday, a $10,000 investment would have turned into about $218,600 (vs $107,000 for average Global Equity fund vs $252,000 for S&P 500). So, is his performance due to superior ability or because he had a large slice of his investments in US securities? If his fund truly is global equity, then he did quite well for his investors. Though Global Equity is a hard one to put in a box. Let's take a look at his RRSP fund next. If he had superior ability, he should be able to outperform in an area with more inefficiencies: smaller companies - especially foreign. From inception through Friday, his fund turned a $100,000 investment into $161,600 vs $145,800 for average for "Canadian Focused Small/Mid Cap Equity". Not bad but not outstanding either. This is a bit of cherry picking dates, but if we look back as recently as Sept of 2017 he was trailing the average fund since inception. That's 30+ years of under-performance. One last observation. It's been noted that Chou helped Watsa find the subprime trade. If that's the case, why did his funds perform so terribly during that time? Let's take a look. With a start date of 1/1/07, his fund (Associates) turned $10,000 into $5485. The average Global Equity came in at $5,694 (March 6th 2009). So he saw it coming yet still under-performed his peer group. Now, to be fair the S&P 500 at this time came in at $5,059. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippy1 Posted January 29, 2018 Share Posted January 29, 2018 I kind of doubt that a regular mutual fund can buy CDS... I know for a fact that Longleaf funds, being invested in Fairfax, were aware of the CDS trade, but they could not buy any CDS due to their charter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stahleyp Posted January 29, 2018 Share Posted January 29, 2018 Thanks zippy but I'm not even referring to whether a fund could buy the CDS or not. I'm referring to how poorly it performed knowing that the risk was there. He has no problem hold large amounts of cash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
investmd Posted February 1, 2018 Share Posted February 1, 2018 Stahleyp, Both 10 & 15 year results are under 6%/yr. This would qualify as long term and I would suggest this is underperformance for someone so bright and engaged in deep value investing. What I've seen is that the fund manager has the ability to pick equities with 5x & 10x returns, but the benefit gets negated by so many picks that result in >50% losses. So far, he has been able to find winners but unable to avoid the losers. I'm hopeful a turnaround is in the future, but am I wrong to keep the hope? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stahleyp Posted February 2, 2018 Share Posted February 2, 2018 invest, I'm in the same boat. It's been another terrible (relative) start to the year for CHOEX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stahleyp Posted February 6, 2018 Share Posted February 6, 2018 Down over 17% this year...and has lost money over 5 (bottom 100% of funds in category). So during a time when the S&P 500 has earned over 14% annually...this fund has managed to lose over 1.5% per year. Pretty remarkable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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