Daniel Pfund's home page

This web site is dedicated to one of my passions: investing.

Investing

I have several virtual funds I manage on the excellent Marketocracy web site. These funds are invested in US listed stocks only (including ADRs). The main ones that are worth of consideration are the Cornerstone Growth fund (DPCG), the Value Screen fund (DPVS), the Monthly Rebalance fund (DPMR), and the S&P 500 exploder (DP500).

Fund performances as measured by Marketocracy. These performances are net of all fees (2% annual management fee, 5 cents per share transaction costs). Below the table you can find real-time daily updated graphs of each fund, click on the graph if you want more data (like sector breakdowns, size breakdowns, alpha, beta, ... ).

Fund Inception Date Description 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
DPMO 13.9.00 Market Opportunistic -12.6% -2.6% -5.9% 55.3% -5.9% -3.3% 15.8% 18.0% -44.6%
DPCG 9.12.02 Cornerstone Growth - - -2.4% 44.4% 16.8% 15.4% 11.1% 10.1% -38.5%
DPVS 24.1.03 Value Screen - - - 68.3% 17.1% 5.1% 36.4% 2.8% -21.5%
DP50 17.7.03 50 top stocks - - - 11.5% 18.9% 14.5% 12.2% -0.2% -39.2%
DPHM 27.10.03 High Momentum - - - 3.4% 4.6% 8.6% 15.1% 10.4% -45.4%
DPMR 19.04.04 Monthly Rebalance - - - - 23.5% 18.3% 22.3% 12.3% -55.1%
DP500 04.11.04 S&P 500 exploder - - - - 14.7% 6.0% 17.6% 13.6% -44.2%
DPBH 02.05.05 Bear Hug (short) - - - - - -22.6% -11.9% 25.1% 42.7%
SPX TR - S&P 500 Total Return (with dividends) -9.1% -11.9% -22.1% 28.7% 10.9% 4.9% 15.8% 5.5% -37.0%

means beat the market (measured as the S&P 500 TR) that year.
means did not beat the market (measured as the S&P 500 TR) that year.

Details of funds with NAV at 31.12.05

Please click on the fund graphs (since inception) to see a live NAV with much more details of each fund

graph of fund vs. market indexes The Market Opportunistic fund was the first one I launched back in 2000, but it had a long period of non-compliance due to the high cash levels held during most of the bear market. The philosophy of this fund was one of opportunistic investing, where I bought what I thought was a good idea. After 5 years of so-so performance, I am refocussing the fund to a quantitative highly concentrated high-risk/reward fund (September 2005). I have definitively stopped following my instincts; for me this is the wrong way to invest. All my funds are now totally model based and there is no more place for "opportunistic" ideas.

NAV at beginning of 2009: $8.56. Click on graph for current NAV calculation by Marketocracy.

DPMO m100 S&P 500 DJIA Nasdaq
graph of fund vs. market indexes The Cornerstone Growth fund invests in growth stocks with a reasonable valuation. I like to call it MARP for Momentum At a Reasonable Price. I am now re-balancing the fund more often than before because of the high rotation in sectors with stocks going up.

NAV at beginning of 2009: $14.31. Click on graph for current NAV calculation by Marketocracy.

DPCG m100 S&P 500 DJIA Nasdaq
graph of fund vs. market indexes The Value Screen fund was started by a deep value stock screen. I have since added momentum considerations into the stock picks to make it a bit more "market" sensible. Stocks are checked monthly if they still qualify for the fund's criterias. Over time I have become much more value conscious. I must say that this is one of my favorite funds.

NAV at beginning of 2009: $22.83. Click on graph for current NAV calculation by Marketocracy.

DPVS m100 S&P 500 DJIA Nasdaq
graph of fund vs. market indexes The DP50 fund holds the top 50 stock ideas from moneycentral, equally weighted. The fund invests in all sectors/capitalizations/styles. The fund is rebalanced twice a year. Interestingly, the performance of the fund proves that their system is very valid. Anybody can follow their advice and if you have no stock picking capabilities, you can still get a decent return by investing in their 50 stocks.

NAV at beginning of 2009: $10.67. Click on graph for current NAV calculation by Marketocracy.

DP50 m100 S&P 500 DJIA Nasdaq
graph of fund vs. market indexes The High Momentum fund holds stocks that are acting particularly well. In other words, it buys 52 week highs based on the hope that they will continue to perform well. The fund is too recent to have an idea of its real merits. I am rebalancing this fund more often (monthly) as the market is not very trending right now and the stocks that are working now seem to work for short periods of time only.

NAV at beginning of 2009: $8.15. Click on graph for current NAV calculation by Marketocracy.

DPHM m100 S&P 500 DJIA Nasdaq
graph of fund vs. market indexes The Monthly Rebalance fund is a new concept based on several criterias (fundamental and technical, mainly GARP oriented), rebalanced monthly. The fund holds the best ranked stocks at all times and is likely to be quite volatile. Based on back testing, the drawdown should be limited to 30%. This fund certainly looks very promising and I look forward to its positive evolution in all market conditions.

NAV at beginning of 2009: $9.01. Click on graph for current NAV calculation by Marketocracy.

DPMR m100 S&P 500 DJIA Nasdaq
graph of fund vs. market indexes The S&P 500 exploder fund is a systematic fund that seeks to invest in 25 temporarily undervalued stocks. The fund has a very defined methodology to pick out those stocks and rebalance them regularly. Most notably, it will sell the stocks that have appeciated the most and reinvest that amount into the currently most undervalued stocks. However, this does not mean that the fund will only invest in "value" stocks, as even "growth" stocks can be temporarily undervalued. The fund's outperformance should come both from the stock picking as the rigorous investing method. The fund contains only S&P500 index member stocks. This is an interesting experiment to prove it's possible to regularly beat the S&P500 with only stocks included in that index. It goes against all those academic researchers who believe that you can't beat the market and you should only invest in an index fund.

NAV at beginning of 2009: $9.06. Click on graph for current NAV calculation by Marketocracy.

DP500 m100 S&P 500 DJIA Nasdaq
graph of fund vs. market indexes The Bear Hug fund is a short fund. This means that it will go up when the market goes down. It is a pure short fund, so don't expect it to go up in a bull market. A new experiment to test my shorting capabilities. Shorting is probably the most challenging investment strategy you can try yourself at. It is also not very rewarding as the most you can profit from is 100% if a stock goes bankrupt (0$), and you can loose infinite amounts of money in theory. The risk/reward is not very compelling in my opinion. Nevertheles, it is really interesting to search for good short candidates!

NAV at beginning of 2009: $12.17. Click on graph for current NAV calculation by Marketocracy.

DPBH m100 S&P 500 DJIA Nasdaq

Please note that I am not disclosing individual holdings of these funds (unless they are dislosed on the Marketocracy public pages).

About Me

I live and work in Geneva (Switzerland) as a financial analyst and portfolio manager. I have studied economics, with a master in finance. I am also a Certified European Financial Analyst (CEFA), administered by the AZEK-CFPI. I am absolutely fascinated by the great game of investing. I think investing is a never ending learning game, and I am totally dedicated to doing everything that is necessary to be amongst the best investors in the world. I really wish to thank Marketocracy for having given me the opportunity to try out different strategies in real time and gain meaningful insight into what works and what doesn't in the investment world over the years.

You can reach me by email at this address: