Whoa! A super old mutual fund!

[Olav23]

I was fooling around on the closed-end fund website (yeah, I know, how exciting!) and I came across this closed-end fund:

Adams Express Company (ADX) -

Adams Express Company is a diversified, closed-end management company. Its investment objectives are the preservation of capital, the attainment of a reasonable and dependable income from investments and an opportunity for capital appreciation consistent with the above.

The actual inception date of this fund is 10/1/1929.

The chart seems to only go back as far as 1970, but, it certainly doesn't look like a good investment to me (up a whole 50% in 30 years)! Although, i can't see it from 1929

Chart

I wonder what is the oldest fund still in existence.

[73ss454]

I think Wellington started in 1929 also.

[JPatrick]

MITTX started in 1924. I believe it may be the oldest.

[Anansi]

According to CEFA:

"The history of closed-end funds began in 1893, more than 30 years before the first mutual fund was formed in the United States."

but I have no idea if that fund is still around. Probably not.

[justin]

Originally Posted by Olav23

The chart seems to only go back as far as 1970, but, it certainly doesn't look like a good investment to me (up a whole 50% in 30 years)! Although, i can't see it from 1929

Looking at the Yahoo finance chart for ADX, they appear to be up something around 400% since 1985 or so (from $3 to $15), plus dividends. I've considered this as a speculative play, since it was trading at 15% discount to NAV last I checked (update: now at 12.68% disc to NAV). Only .5% exp ratio - not ridiculously bad.

[Olav23]

You're right. That is odd, I guess bigcharts doesn't show the dividend adjusted price or something... I just had no idea that some of these things had been around since pre-depression! Wow!

[BUM]

The original mutual fund concept was started at the turn of the eighteenth century in the "old country" by certain forward thinking individuals with ties to the olive oil business.

[laurence]

This is really funny. My Grandpa was an avid investor, had financial documents and the like all over the house. Grandma says the smartest move he ever made, though, was buying Adams Express about 50 years ago. Says it's growth was beyond their dreams and basically set their retirement.

[REWahoo]

Originally Posted by BUM

The original mutual fund concept was started at the turn of the eighteenth century in the "old country" by certain forward thinking individuals with ties to the olive oil business.

Forward thinking...and very slick!