Skip to Content
Morningstar

A Promising, Concentrated Fund That Requires Patience

A Promising, Concentrated Fund That Requires Patience

Alec Lucas: Bronze-rated Poplar Forest Partners has promise but requires patience. Manager J. Dale Harvey builds a roughly 30-stock portfolio using a contrarian and benchmark-agnostic approach. Heightened volatility comes from his proclivity to invest early in out-of-favor stocks like top-10 holding Signet Jewelers.

When Harvey first bought Signet in late 2016, its share price had already been cut in half. Following disappointing sales and scandal, its stock fell about a third more in 2017's first half. Harvey remains committed, however, as he believes its brick-and-mortar jewelry business will survive, and the firm's normalized earnings power makes it a bargain.

Harvey won't get every call right, but his background breeds confidence. Before founding Poplar Forest Capital in 2007, Harvey spent 16 years at Capital Group, contributing initially as an analyst and then as a portfolio manager. This strategy has subjected investors to big ups and downs, but it has a competitive record as a mutual fund and even more impressive results dating from its separate-account origins. This large-value fund worth a look.

More in Stocks

About the Author

Alec Lucas

Director of Manager Research
More from Author

Alec Lucas is director of manager research, active funds research, for Morningstar Research Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. He is a voting member of the Morningstar Medalist Ratings Committee for U.S. and international fixed-income strategies, covers fixed-income strategies from asset managers such as Baird and American Funds.

Lucas is also active in parent research. He is a voting member of the U.S. parent ratings committee and previously served as the lead analyst for Franklin Templeton, Capital Group, and Vanguard, among other firms.

Lucas was a strategist on Morningstar's equity strategies team prior to assuming his current role in June 2022. He covered equity strategies from asset managers such as Primecap and American Funds and received the 2019 Citywire Professional Buyer Rising Star Award.

Before joining Morningstar in 2013, Lucas worked as a minister as well as a professor for Loyola University Chicago, among other institutions. From 2010 to 2011, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Heidelberg.

Lucas holds bachelor's degrees in philosophy and classics from the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he graduated summa cum laude and with departmental honors, and a Master of Divinity, summa cum laude, from Trinity International University. He also holds a doctorate in theology, with distinction, from Loyola University Chicago and has published several articles and one book within that field.

Sponsor Center