The first quarter is lurching to a close, and behind the market’s sedate numbers — the Dow Jones industrial average is up about a percent this year — were some bone-jarring moves. Which funds navigated the market’s choppy waters the best?
Tim Dillon, USA TODAY
Next up: Direxion Daily Japan Bull 3x ETF which uses futures and options to goose the return of the Japanese market. The fund promises to rise or fall each day by three times as much as the Japanese stock market.
On the loser’s deck, we have the VelocityShares 3x Long Crude Oil ETN, which would have done really well if oil had risen in price. Unfortunately, it didn’t, and the fund has plunged 50.2% in the first quarter.
The top loser, surprisingly, is a fund that makes a big bet on Russian stocks falling: The Direxion Daily Russia 3x bear fund (). As the Russian market has recovered, this fund has gotten a face full of borscht. It’s down 58.7%.
All of these are highly specialized and risky funds. What were the best and worst garden-variety U.S. diversified stock funds? Glad you asked. Winners:
* Turner Medical Sciences Long/Short fund (), up 25.5%. The fund borrows a page from hedge funds and can make bets on companies it thinks will rise, and those it thinks will fall. Biggest holding: Horizon Pharmaceuticals (, up 59% this year, according to Morningstar.
* Jacob Small Cap Growth , up 16.6%. The fund is up to a blistering start, but that won’t make up for its wretched performance since its 2009 inception. It has lagged 74% of its peers the past five years.
* Monteagle Informed Investor Growth (, up 14.7%. Another fund with a bad five-year record has a good start this year. It lags 99% of its peers the past five years — a rip-snorting bull market.
Biggest loser:
STAAR Larger Company Stock Fund (, down 10.3%. This fund of funds has some good names in its portfolio, but is off to a miserable start.
