[quote=Starka]Edward Jones, at one time, owned a large minority stake in Federated.  When Federated went public, EDJ sold off a sizeable portion of the holding.  That, I believe, was the first loosening of the mooring lines between Jones and Federated.  There was little to gain by pushing Federated funds any longer.[/quote]

Damn I didn't know that--but now I do.  The business is filled with incestuous relationships.

I wonder if incestuous is spelled right--does it really matter?

Here’s a suggestion:  Let’s all chip in and buy Newbie a lifetime supply of blue pills, and PM him a couple free porn sites.  He is obviously a bored man with broken plumbing. Let’s help him move along.

[quote=unsunghero]Here's a suggestion:  Let's all chip in and buy Newbie a lifetime supply of blue pills, and PM him a couple free porn sites.  He is obviously a bored man with broken plumbing. Let's help him move along.[/quote]

Just make sure the dog is boarded at a kennel (and not the missus).

The facts are that if you are going to sell A shares predominately you need fund families that have competitive offerings in all portions of the pyramid. Federated is strong on the fixed income and the niche funds, i.e. Kaufmann ,Market Opportunity and Muni and Stock but really not much of a presence in the LC value arena.

With all due respect Noggin, Federated is second tier in the fixed income arena, and they’re only really strong in one niche fund area, and they bought that.  If Jones was truly interested in strong funds for their clients, their research department could (and in my opinion, should) have chosen far more wisely.  Absent financial gain to the partnership, of course.

[quote=noggin]The facts are that if you are going to sell A shares predominately you need fund families that have competitive offerings in all portions of the pyramid. Federated is strong on the fixed income and the niche funds, i.e. Kaufmann ,Market Opportunity and Muni and Stock but really not much of a presence in the LC value arena. [/quote]

Noggin,

You amuse me.  Why are you back to defending GP decisions that make no sense outside of the Jones paradigm.  I'm with Starka on the Federated fixed income deal and if the Jones money market is an example of Federated's great cash management program there is much left to be desired there also. 

The only families on the "Preferred" list that have maintained a line up of funds that covers the style boxes are Putnam and Federated.  Lord Abbett just recently brought in a foreign team from a competitor, but still doesn't have a respectable large growth fund.  Hartford only has a decent large growth because they bought one a couple of years ago from Fortis.  The venerable American Funds doesn't have any dedicated mid or small cap(domestic) funds and with the cash they hold at times are an allocation nightmare for other reasons as well.

Give me a break with this garbage about needing fund families that have "competitive offerings in all portions of the pyramid".  You finally have Franklin to work with with their 3 families in one story.  That makes sense.  But other than that, you are stuck splitting tickets and missing breakpoints if you are going to "sell A shares predominantly" and still build reasonably allocated portfolios.

Noggin, please get to your 40 million aum or whatever magic number you have these days so you can pack up your crap, move to a real firm and quit using your talent to defend the decisions of the rejects in St Louis.

Those of us in the field who troll this board won't ever know the real reason Jones dropped Federated.  Performance, revenue sharing, too much wholesaler turnover...who knows.  Who cares.  Most of us weren't selling enough of their funds to really matter anyway.  There are probably only a handfull of people who really know.  And they're not telling us.    The interesting part of the story is Jones just added several of Federated's recent MDT purchases to our list of preferred funds.  I guess I can throw away that literature.

BTW it was Hartford we owned a minority stake in.  And it was a conflict of interest so we sold it.  Made some good money too in the process. 

So, now I no longer have Federated to sell.  What other fund family should I look at now?  I think about this one frequently because my clients deserve to know there are things outside the Jones world.  Is there another family similar to a Franklin that would be worth looking into?  

[quote=Starka]With all due respect Noggin, Federated is second tier in the fixed income arena, and they're only really strong in one niche fund area, and they bought that.  If Jones was truly interested in strong funds for their clients, their research department could (and in my opinion, should) have chosen far more wisely.  Absent financial gain to the partnership, of course.[/quote]

I stand corrected. Thanks.

[quote=exdrone]

[quote=noggin]The facts are that if you are going to sell A shares predominately you need fund families that have competitive offerings in all portions of the pyramid. Federated is strong on the fixed income and the niche funds, i.e. Kaufmann ,Market Opportunity and Muni and Stock but really not much of a presence in the LC value arena. [/quote]

Noggin,

You amuse me.  Why are you back to defending GP decisions that make no sense outside of the Jones paradigm.  I'm with Starka on the Federated fixed income deal and if the Jones money market is an example of Federated's great cash management program there is much left to be desired there also. 

The only families on the "Preferred" list that have maintained a line up of funds that covers the style boxes are Putnam and Federated.  Lord Abbett just recently brought in a foreign team from a competitor, but still doesn't have a respectable large growth fund.  Hartford only has a decent large growth because they bought one a couple of years ago from Fortis.  The venerable American Funds doesn't have any dedicated mid or small cap(domestic) funds and with the cash they hold at times are an allocation nightmare for other reasons as well.

Give me a break with this garbage about needing fund families that have "competitive offerings in all portions of the pyramid".  You finally have Franklin to work with with their 3 families in one story.  That makes sense.  But other than that, you are stuck splitting tickets and missing breakpoints if you are going to "sell A shares predominantly" and still build reasonably allocated portfolios.

Noggin, please get to your 40 million aum or whatever magic number you have these days so you can pack up your crap, move to a real firm and quit using your talent to defend the decisions of the rejects in St Louis.

[/quote]

That's quite a compliment, most of the days my wife doesn't even say that I amuse her.  Look again at my wording of the statement for further clues of my own beliefs concerning Federated. Personally, Franklin Templeton is Nr 1 in asset flows at my office and has been for about 2 years now.  I never cared for Hartford, Putnam and Federated other than a couple of niche funds that Federated has and Cap App that Hartford has. Lord Abbett I have to agree with you about Large growth but it is important to remember they are a value shop primarily so it is hard to find a strict growth style box offering from them. I would say that my business now has evolved to about 40% C's and 60% A shares in current flows. I like Davis, Calamos, 1st Eagle as fund families to add some balance to my business. Thanks again for the comments.

Spiff, Jones had a long-standing relationship with Federated dating back to the early days of Ted.  Jones had a significant stake in Federated before it was a publicly traded company.

The Hartford connection was fairly recent, and Hartford was a publicly traded company at the time of the Jones acquisition. 

That would explain why they ever made the short list to begin with.  Thanks for the info. 

I've also used some Calamos.  I like the yields on some of their CEFs.   The open funds I've tried haven't kept up with the ones Jones has on our list of preferred funds. 

So I've heard Davis, Calamos, and 1st Eagle as some other options for funds.   They are all smaller fund families without the breadth of offerings like a Franklin, albeit good returns.  The I've met with the wholesaler from Columbia Funds.  Some good funds, but not enough to get me out of my "preferred funds" comfort zone.  So again, outside of Franklin, where would you folks suggest I look for another fund family to try?   

I don’t do a lot with mutual funds anymore, but with that said, take a look at PIMCO, now part of Allianz.

[quote=Spaceman Spiff]

That would explain why they ever made the short list to begin with.  Thanks for the info. 

I've also used some Calamos.  I like the yields on some of their CEFs.   The open funds I've tried haven't kept up with the ones Jones has on our list of preferred funds. 

So I've heard Davis, Calamos, and 1st Eagle as some other options for funds.   They are all smaller fund families without the breadth of offerings like a Franklin, albeit good returns.  The I've met with the wholesaler from Columbia Funds.  Some good funds, but not enough to get me out of my "preferred funds" comfort zone.  So again, outside of Franklin, where would you folks suggest I look for another fund family to try?   

[/quote]

Spaceman, are you kidding??

I am assuming that you don't know what styleboxes mean or you wouldn't make the statement about Calamos.  By definition a smaller fund family will have less offerings..... it just makes sense.

I wish you well.

Stylebox?  You mean that tic tac toe looking thingy?  I've never heard of that before.   

That's the reason for the question.  I currently use a lot of Franklin Templeton.  However, I don't want to load my book up on one fund family regardless of how good it is.  I've already got a lot of American funds.  So I'm curious to hear from some others about what families they use to hit substantial breakpoints, ie $250k+.  Or are there so many fee based advisors out there now that no one really has to think that way anymore?

All Jones reps use the “significant breakpoint” terminogy. Compliance

obviously force feeds this down your throat. If the average account size at

Jones is $50K, I would be surprised to see how many “significant

breakpoints” you all hit. Open your eyes up a but Spaceman and you will be

surprised what you see.