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Strategies & Market Trends : Closed End Global and Country Funds -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LTK007 who wrote (130)	12/27/1997 2:46:00 PM
From: Tommaso	Respond to of 289

No --i don't really know anything about the management, except for its results. At once point I put $25 each into a broad assortment of closed-end funds in order to get all their annual reports (did this through a Merrill Lynch "sharebuilder" prorgam). The $25 in TY is now worth about $175 (after maybe 15-20 years) with all dividends/cap gains reinvested. I think it's the best performer of all. I'm not sure it's even worth while to worry about bear market performance, since all stock funds decline. A managment could change course and hedge, but from what I can tell none really do. I realize that I am flouting the now almost universally accepted buy-and-hold wisdom, but as many other people are saying, with Warren Buffet and Joh Templeton buying bonds, a stock market yield under 1.5%, average P/Es in the mid-twenties, and excess confidence built into the market, a bear market is already long overdue. Let me send another message with the BEARX site.

To: LTK007 who wrote (130)	12/27/1997 2:56:00 PM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 289

Here it is: tice.com When you check this out you will find that, naturally, Prudent Bear has done very poorly for the last eighteen months, in comparison with other funds. It also has a high expense ration(though it is no-load) because it has a very high turnover of short positions. But I lalready have a ten percent gain on my own holdings; I first began getting in maybe two months ago. By maintaining short positions in 60-80 different overvalued stocks, the fund avoids the risk of the average short seller who can be ruined if a stock runs away with him and he doesn't cover the position soon enough. It's the diversification of the ordinary fund in reverse. I am very excited about BEARX because it is really the only thing of its kind. When the market declines it usually goes up more than the decline--and often when the market rises it loses less than the rise. And it is really quite straightforward. I have close to 20% of our family's entire net worth in the fund. But I am also starting to look at the Far eastern closed end funds because they have been hit so bad. Korea Fund is down something like 80% from its peak but still selling at a premium to NAV. See Article on the "Tigers" by Malkiel in NY Times Business section last Sunday--and also I just bought his book on the subject, which I have been studying today.