Seeking information on two INTL funds

[KevinNJ25]

Hello,

I'm writing this post on behalf of my father who has asked me to assist him. His financial advisor is wanting him to reallocate some investments he has and gave him two funds to look into. Those funds are the Henderson International Oppertunity Fund and the Natixis Oakmark International Fund. I have some filmilarity with the financial sector with US Stocks and Bonds but am pretty unfilmilar with International funds. Quick research shows that Henderson has a bigger diversity of investments, focusing mostly on financial and industrial which seems to be a hot ticket. More allocations in EU than Natixis which gives me a little sense of worry.
I would appriciate any further infromation that is available out there from any one who has knowdlege on these two funds.

Thank you.

[feh]

Hello,

I'm writing this post on behalf of my father who has asked me to assist him. His financial advisor is wanting him to reallocate some investments he has and gave him two funds to look into. Those funds are the Henderson International Oppertunity Fund and the Natixis Oakmark International Fund. I have some filmilarity with the financial sector with US Stocks and Bonds but am pretty unfilmilar with International funds. Quick research shows that Henderson has a bigger diversity of investments, focusing mostly on financial and industrial which seems to be a hot ticket. More allocations in EU than Natixis which gives me a little sense of worry.
I would appriciate any further infromation that is available out there from any one who has knowdlege on these two funds.

Thank you.

I'm not familiar with either fund. If he wants to have some exposure to international equities, I suggest he just buy an index fund. It's best to keep expenses low.

Some possibilities: FSGDX FSIVX VFWIX

[Petunia 100]

Here is the Morningstar snapshot for Henderson: http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/hfoax/f?t=HFOAX, and here is the one for Natixis http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/f?region=USA&t=NOIAX

Both funds have done well in their category, beating their index, despite their fees, which are high. Will they continue to outperform, or will the fees eventually take their toll? We will only know in hindsight.

Myself, I prefer to have the odds in my favor, so I buy the index.

Which of the two funds is better? I would say it comes down to which fund manager you believe is the better stock-picker. David Herro, manager of the Natixis fund has a fine track record, but has been with this fund only since 2010. Stephen Peak, manager of the Henderson fund, also has a fine record and has been with this fund since 2001.

Why not Google both Herro and Peak, and see what sort of info you can find.

[KevinNJ25]

Thanks for the response and I will be looking into the managers track records. I really appriciate it.

[KevinNJ25]

One other question. YOu make note of high fees for these funds. Can I find this info on the Morningstar links?

[kv968]

One other question. YOu make note of high fees for these funds. Can I find this info on the Morningstar links?

If you look to the right of the price area on the Morningstar link that Petunia provided you'll see where it says "Fee Level". That's where it'll tell you if Morningstar considers them to be high, average, or low as compared to the sector's average.

I personally don't pay attention to their rating since I have an idea of what a fund should cost or at least what I'm willing to pay for it. If you don't know that you could always use their rating as a gauge or just look at other funds in the same category to get an idea.

One other thing to watch with Morningstar's ratings is I don't think they really take into consideration load fees which are fees you pay just to get into and/or out of a fund.

For example, the Oakmark Fund has an expense ratio of 1.46% (which I consider a little high but Morningstar pegs as average), however there's a 5.75% front end load on the "A" shares. Which means for every $100 you put into the fund only $94.25 is actually getting invested and the other $5.75 (5.75%) is paid out as fees.

I like to call these types of funds the "alphabet soup" of investing. These funds are normally recommended by advisors since that's how some get paid. If you see a fund or fund family that has different share classes (i.e. A, B, C, etc...), my general observation is that those usually have a higher expense ratio and/or front or back-end load on them.

I'm not saying that you should totally choose your investments by cost. Some of the funds perform great but just know that those high expenses are a drag on performance and can be tough for the manager of the fund to overcome. Just something to keep in mind.