MutualFundWire.com: Cambiar's Barish Feels Frustrated But Not Lost at Sea

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Monday, May 21, 2012

Cambiar's Barish Feels Frustrated But Not Lost at Sea

Cambiar Opportunity Fund [profile] PM Brian Barish tries to remain hopeful as the fund goes through a performance stumble, writes Amy Feldman forBarron's.

Barish told the reporter:

"One of the more challenging and, frankly, more humbling things is that you can be right about something, and the stocks don't reflect it for a long time. The Opportunity fund [ticker: CAMOX] has had a pretty bad past 12 months. We've had a couple of stocks where we had, I never want to use the words 'bad luck,' but it feels like that."

Morningstar data shows that the fund has an average annualized return of 6.7 percent since it was launched June of 1998 but has fallen 15.8 percent over the past year. Barish's fund, given that it has a concentrated portfolio of about 35 to 45 holdings, performs well when it "does really, really well, and when it doesn't, it can crater," writes Feldman.

During the wait to see if his concentrated bets will pay off, Barish said:

"It's frustrating. Hopefully, I am conveying my emotions. I am frustrated, but I don't feel like we are lost at sea or something. I think a lot of these names, if you closed your eyes and didn't look at them for a year, you'd come out just fine."