Fidelity Contrafund sharp drop after Christmas 2006

[Sam]

Anyone here follows FCNTX? I was perusing its chart for last year. There was a sharp drop. Close price was 70.68 on Dec 21, last trading day before xmas. Close price on next trading day, Dec 26 was 64.95, or 8% drop! No wonder it ended 2006 below SP500.

Any idea?

 

[MasterBlaster]

Well, it's worth asking...

Was there a capital gains distribution on Dec 21 ??

 

[MasterBlaster]

So I looked it up...

Fidelity Contrafund paid a $5.21 per share capital gains distribution on 12/22/06.

There was also a $0.39 income distribution.

Since the share price was around $70.34 a share before the distribution, I calculate that the income and capital gains account for 7.96% of the share price

here's a link to their distribution history:

http://personal.fidelity.com/products/funds/mfl_frame.shtml?316071109

 

[Sam]

Thanks MasterBlaster. I should have thought of that.

 

[d]

your first thought on seeing an out-of-synch price drop should always be: possible distribution.

 

[Animorph]

The only free site I know of that has nice comparison charts with data that includes distributions (most of the time):

http://stockcharts.com/charts/performance/perf.html?FCNTX

It takes a while for new distributions to make their way into the data, but FCNTX looks good.

A price-only chart seems less than worthless. It's amazing how hard it is to get good data.

Dan

 

[DRiP Guy]

Got me too when one of my funds had a distribution that I overlooked. My face was so red when I figured out what happened...

Hey, at least it shows we are checking balances from time to time, right?

 

[CaptCurmudgeon]

Did the same thing (distribution) happen to Wellington?

 

[Peaceful_Warrior]

I've got some of my 401k in Fidelity Contrafund and have been very pleased with that. I don't pay attention to the daily stuff so much as watching the numbers increase over time.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Did the same thing (distribution) happen to Wellington?

Wellington paid income, as well as short term and long term capital gains distributions on Dec 22nd.

here's a link to the info...

Since the funds are listed alphabetically, Wellington is towards the bottom of the page

https://flagship.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/FundsByName?View=DI&Sc=0&type=PIWANTTO2