Flexible flyers

I continue to like flexible mutual funds, the ones that can move from commodities to gold and, later, to overseas or domestic equities. They hedge, too. Sometimes Ivy Asset Strategy, for example, is hedged 85% or so. Blackrock Global Allocation is different, but not necessarily less flexible. Invesco Balanced Risk Allocation is another example — it looks at risk, determines how much it wants to digest given current conditions, and then acts accordingly.

The alternates are the funds that are inflexible — a large-cap growth fund has to basically be large-cap growth, except for the normal cash position. Ditto a small-cap value fund.

The nice thing about having a number of funds in the flexible camp is that each is likely to handle things differently — it’s logical to assume that Blackrock Global Allocation will manage its investment strategy differently than Ivy Asset Strategy. The latter, on the other hand, will handle risk differently than Invesco Balanced Risk Allocation.

Did I mention PIMCO Global Multi-Asset? Like Invesco Balanced Risk Allocation, it looks at risk first, but it handles it differently, using ETFs, stocks, fixed income and an interesting hedging strategy.

So long as these new flexible babies do things differently from one another, I think life is good — a basket of flexible flyers, maybe a dash of currency plays and this and that, and, gee, what could be nicer?

Have a wonderful week and enjoy the bounties of late spring — summer is coming, and yet, it’s mostly nice now — not too hot and with “just right” days.