Jaques, thanks, interesting info. I had never heard of Dimensional Fund Advisors, who has by far the largest stake at 900,000 shares, about 3X the next highest. So I looked around a little. It seems that Dimensional is a bunch of academic types who are trying to play fund manager. dfafunds.com
Anyway, I assume VLNC is held in one of Dimensional's two U.S. Small Cap. funds. The following data is from the Wall Street Journal's January 7, 1999 Quarterly Mutual Fund Review.
Dimensional has two U.S. Small Cap. funds. The 1998 return on investment for these funds was negative 7.3% and negative 5.5% respectively. The average return in 1998 for all diversified U.S. stock funds during 1998 was 14.52%, so these funds underperformed the average fund by more than 20%.
However, this comparison is unfair since the average Small Cap. fund did not earn 14.52%. In fact, the average Small Cap. fund lost 0.22% in 1998, so the two Dimensional Small Cap. funds underperformance relative to the average Small Cap. fund was only 5% to 7%. Not quite so bad.
The Wall Street Journal rates both Dimensional Small Cap. funds as D for one-year return, D for 3-year return, and C for 5-year return. The "D" rankings mean these funds have performed worse than 60% to 80% of all Small Cap. funds.
What does this have to do with VLNC's prospects? Nothing. But it is interesting that the one institution which has taken a fairly sizeable stake in VLNC does not seem to have a particularly good track record in picking the Small Cap. winners. |
