Oakmark is the mutual fund family launched in 1991 by Harris Associates, the Chicago deep-value firm founded in 1976 (about $105bn AUM). Bill Nygren runs the flagship Oakmark Fund and David Herro the Oakmark International Fund, buying businesses at large discounts to intrinsic value and holding them like owners — publishing quarterly fund commentaries, market commentaries and insight articles.
This report covers Oakmark Fund's performance in early 2020, when COVID-19 crashed global markets. The fund lost 30% in three months, but since its 1991 launch, it has averaged nearly 11% annual returns. For regular investors, the key takeaway is: don't panic over short-term losses—check long-term history and low fees (0.88% expense ratio). Still, its 5-year return is only 1.33%, showing growth challenges. Worth reading because it shows the real trade-off between holding steady and weathering market storms.
Oakmark Fund - Investor Class report as of March 31, 2020 shows an average annual total return of 10.95% since inception on August 5, 1991, but recent performance has been significantly impacted by market shocks: a 1-year return of -21.69% and a 3-month return of -30.42%. The core view is that the f
This section focuses on the performance of the Oakmark Fund (Investor Class) as of March 31, 2020, showcasing the fund's long-term returns since its inception in 1991 alongside the sharp drawdowns triggered by recent market shocks. The backdrop is the extreme market volatility in the first quarter of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which significantly deteriorated the fund's short-term performance.
The report's core investment argument is that the Oakmark Fund has delivered robust long-term performance but exhibits severe short-term volatility, reflecting risk exposure under extreme market conditions. The counterintuitive insight is that, despite negative 1-year and 3-month returns, the annualized return since inception remains in double digits (10.95%), suggesting that long-term holding value may outweigh short-term drawdowns.
| Time Period | Annualized Total Return |
|---|---|
| Since Inception (1991/08/05) | 10.95% |
| 10-Year | 7.78% |
| 5-Year | 1.33% |
| 1-Year | -21.69% |
| 3-Month | -30.42% |
This section does not mention specific companies or assets, focusing solely on the fund's overall performance metrics.
For investors, the extreme short-term drawdown (-30.42%) should not be interpreted in isolation but rather evaluated in conjunction with the fund's long-term annualized return (10.95%) and low expense structure (net expense ratio of 0.88%). The author's implicit insight is that during market panics, holding a low-cost fund with stable long-term performance may be more effective than chasing short-term gains. However, caution is warranted regarding the mid-term growth bottleneck implied by the 5-year return of only 1.33%.