fidelity fund results 2012 , indexing lagged alot

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by mathjak107

For all the nay sayers who claim managed funds are out looks like this year was not so hot for indexing. the mad rush to index now has everyone loading up on the same stocks over valuing things. that left the rest of the markets for the fund managers to run wild in and adding alpha..

82% of fidelitys large cap funds beat the s&p 500 index.

out of 28 large cap funds all but 6 beat their index

out of 16 mid-small cap funds all but 6 beat their index

out of 27 international funds all but 5 beat their index

high yield bond had a tie with 4 of the 8 funds beating their index

same in muni bonds dead tie.


in the balanced catagory fidelity balanced fund and puritan failed to beat their indexes.

all the reits and convertable stock funds beat their indexes.


the best funds were:

large cap - fidelity capital appreciation up 22% vs s&p up 16%

remember this is after fees on the fidelity funds are included
but includes no fees on the index funds subtracted out yet.

mid-small cap-fidelity leveraged company up 29% index was 16%

reits - fidelity international real estate up 44%. index 16%

international funds - fidelity emerging market discovery up 36% index 17%

bonds - fidelity corporate bond fund up 10%. index up 4.2%

best fund for risk vs reward -fidelity new market income -up 20% with 55% less volatility then the s&p

I don't own any index funds but I'm not knocking them. Vanguards S&P 500 Index fund (Investor share class...the most expensive one) still beat out 62% of large cap blend funds for 2012.

I still think I can do better by owning good funds with reasonable expenses...but for all I know I might be delusional . My investments in the 401K trailed the S&P 500 this year by 65 basis points and it also trailed the S&P 500 for 2011. The funds I own tend to hold up a lot better in bad markets. I sure as heck hope they do!

[mathjak107]

samw here ,i think indexing is fine but it does have pitfalls.

one thing people who index forget is they need to own the right index .

in other words there are as an example so many ways to index small cap and mid cap. depending what index fund you bought and what it tracks your own performance can be all over the place in comparison..

selecting the right index to track when you buy an index fund can be just as varaible as selecting the right managed fund.

the other issue when comparing is many funds are mis-matched to an index because a proper index does not exist.

a large cap managed fund can buy foreign stuff too, the s&p 500 can not. the foreign stocks did well in 2012 so all a mnaged fund had to do was own some.

a fund like fidelity strategic real return is matched against a bond index because it uses these bond swaps so it can buy the commodities index it needs.

it is so far from a bond fund yet that is it's benchmark.

it is still all about how your portfolio did and the risk level you took to get it.

we got 11% this year from the income model i follow. no big deal until you introduce the fact that we were 3% equities the last 6 months and never higher then 27% the previous 6 months and have a risk level thats 70% LESS THAN THE S&P 500..


how is that reward for that level of risk taken into account in any index ?

the answer is it is not.
the