COLLEGE PLANNING | ESTATE PLANNING | INVESTING | PORTFOLIO SPOTLIGHT | REAL ESTATE | RETIREMENT | TAX PLANNING
Davis Financial Fund
TICKER ASSETS
DVFYX $ 758.3 million
PERFORMANCE YTD 1 yr . 3 yr . 5 yr . 10 yr . 15 yr .
Institutional Y-share class -2.50% -4.48% 10.10 % 4.33 % 8.85 % 6.87 %
TOP 5 HOLDINGS Capital One Financial ; JPMorgan Chase ; Julius Baer Group ; Wells Fargo ; Berkshire Hathaway
CONTACT INFO
800.717.3477 • davisfunds . com
TOP INDUSTRIES ( As a % of portfolio )
� � � 4 + A
■ Banks 44.5 %
■ Financial Services 34.7 %
■ Insurance 17.4 %
■ Consumer Discretionary * 3.4 %
* Distribution & Retail . Performance and asset numbers as of 6 / 5 / 23 . Holdings , sector weightings as of 3 / 31 / 23 . Performance figures are for the institutional Y-share class . Sources : Davis Advisors and Morningstar .
Bank On It
Fund manager Chris Davis says the stocks of the largest , best-of-breed banks are primed for upside . By Jeff Schlegel
THE BANKING INDUSTRY IS ONE OF THE FOUNDAtional pieces of any economy . But some might argue it ’ s also one of the most hated and , from an investment standpoint , one of the most misunderstood . Take the sector ’ s recent low stock market valuation .
Fund manager Chris Davis believes that this sentiment is out of line given the solid fundamentals of the largest — and what he considers to be the best-run — businesses in banking . And he posits that a realignment between perception and reality will make these companies fruitful investments for his fund in the coming years .
Davis , a co-portfolio manager of the Davis Financial Fund , joined the family business of Davis Advisors in 1989 . His family has been engaged in the financial services space as far back as the 1940s , when his grandfather , Shelby Cullom Davis , started building what ultimately became an $ 800 million fortune by investing primarily in insurance stocks . In 1969 Chris Davis ’ s father , Shelby M . C . Davis , formed Davis Advisors and began managing his own mutual funds . From his two elders , Chris Davis learned the inner workings of the financial services business . ( Chris also currently serves as an outside director of Berkshire Hathaway , along with its chairman , Warren Buffett .)
Today , Davis Advisors ’ product mix comprises mutual funds , exchange-traded funds , variable annuities and separately managed accounts . Thirty-two years ago the firm launched the Financial Fund , which the company says had produced an average annual return of 10.62 % from inception through this year ’ s first quarter — at the same time the Lipper financial services category average return was 10.10 %. The fund has also outperformed the S & P 500 and S & P 500 financials indexes during that period , the firm says .
Chris Davis , who helped manage the Financial Fund earlier in his career before stepping away to focus on other areas at the firm , returned to the helm nine years ago . He has seen the ebbs and flows of the financial services industry through the years , so
46 | FINANCIAL ADVISOR MAGAZINE | JULY / AUGUST 2023 WWW . FA-MAG . COM