One interesting piece of data emerged again during the quarter, and I believe a clear pattern of performance is starting to appear. Listed below is the performance of The Yacktman Funds during the down months since December, 1995. We believe two general observations can be drawn from the above statistics. First, our equity investment strategy seeks to reduce portfolio risk, and we have done comparatively well in recent down periods. The Yacktman Focused Fund was a salmon by going against the current in August with a positive return.
Past performance is admittedly no guarantee of future results.
We believe this beach ball effect explains our highly competitive performance in down markets, including August of this year. While we avoid analyzing and forecasting the overall stock market, we, as bargain hunters, have continued this past quarter to work in a hostile environment. However, we would also rather not take significant risks with investments in what appears to us to be overvalued equities. Our comfort level, therefore, has clearly been greater with our higher commitments to short-term investments, which will, of course, change as we begin to find more reasonably priced stocks for inclusion in our Funds. Yacktman Asset Management Co. The information contained herein is for personal use only.