What the heck is Janus Contrarian?

When I noted the market was tanking today, I decided to make my hypothetical investment for June in the second fund of the "WylieMoney Slowly" portfolio. In this portfolio I am adding one of the 20 funds I researched each month, starting in May 2007. money

The second fund I originally chose was a Global Equity fund: MDISX. money

Well according to Etrade, this fund is closed to new investors:

But according to Morningstar, this fund is not closed and is available through Etrade: money

Regardless of whether this is a mistake on Etrade's site or not, getting someone to help you is not worth the effort. money

So I decided to pick my original runner up, Janus Contrarian JSVAX. This brings me to the title for this post. money

Back in November of 2006, it was open to new investors and it was categorized as World Stock or Global Equity. But tonight, as I look it up, it is not. Morningstar lists it as Large Blend which means it invests primarily in Large Cap American companies. money

Morningstar also shows that it is a Large Cap Growth fund. Note the red dot.


But more curious to me is the allocation of 37.8% in non-American companies!


Why does this matter? Well funds are compared to their peers. So if your peers are domestic funds and you have been gaining profits from surging international markets, you are going to look great compared to your peers:


But if your peers are World Funds which invest in stocks all over the world, you are not likely to look as stellar:


Well MDISX is 70% invested in international companies so it certainly has more of an international focus now than JSVAX but JSVAX has a 39% turnover ratio so who knows what it looked like last December, much less what it will look like in 6 months. money

Regardless, I'm calling it a Global Equity fund and I added it to the WylieMoney slowly portfolio tonight as of today's closing price. money