This 'Forgotten Fund' Is Exploding Thanks To Gold Stocks

Forbes

In the 1990s, Muhlenkamp Fund’s clever value investing formula made it a star among no load mutual funds. Then the long tech bull market left it in the dust. A new generation is making a comeback.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2025/10/20/gold-stocks-are-supercharging-this-forgotten-fund/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, gold stocks are supercharging this forgotten fund.

00:0620 years ago, Wexford, Pennsylvania-based Mullen Camp Fund was a perennial star on Forbes' annual mutual fund honor roll list.

00:15Year after year, it bested the S&P 500 using a low-risk investment formula seeking large and small-cap companies

00:23whose return on equity surpassed their price-earnings ratios and whose revenue growth was at least 10% a year.

00:31It owned stocks like Ford, Alaska Airlines, and Lockheed Martin.

00:36But in the early 2000s, founder Ron Mullen Camp began loading up on stocks of homebuilders like NVR and Beezer Homes,

00:44which appeared to be great bargains on paper, just as the housing bubble was filling up with irrational exuberance.

00:50Fund assets swelled from around $200 million in the late 1990s to more than $3 billion just prior to the financial crisis.

01:00That's when Mullen Camp and other value stock managers hit a wall.

01:05The fund's assets plummeted to $1 billion by the end of 2009.

01:10Over the next 15 years, an investment in Mullen Camp Fund would have produced less than 9% per year,

01:16while merely owning the increasingly tech-heavy S&P 500 would have produced a 12% annual return.

01:23The family fund continued to lose customers, and by 2023, assets were $350 million.

01:31Enter Ron's son, Jeffrey Mullen Camp, who had spent 20 years in the Army and retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2008,

01:38before joining his father in the business as an analyst.

01:43Jeff, who is 59 years old and who assumed control of his family's namesake fund in 2020, recalls,

01:50quote,

01:50Ron's performance was extraordinary, but he ended up staying in those stocks too long, and the financial crisis hit.

01:58Under Jeff's skillful management, Mullen Camp has emerged as one of the few actively managed mutual funds

02:04to beat the S&P 500 over the past five years, with an average annual return of 17.6% versus the S&P's 16.5%.

02:15Year-to-date, the fund is up 14.6%, outpacing the broader index's 13.6% gain.

02:23And while Jeff insists his investment philosophy is following in his now-81-year-old father's footsteps,

02:29dishing out quotes like,

02:31a good company at a high price is a bad investment.

02:35His stock selection reflects a more pragmatic approach in terms of buying stocks that have the market wins at their back.

02:42Currently, his mutual fund has 19% of its $400 million in assets in gold stocks,

02:48as fears of inflation and geopolitical instability have caused the price of gold to more than double in the last five years.

02:55For Mullen Camp Fund, it began as a small position in the SPDR Gold Shares ETF, parentheses GLD,

03:04which has since evolved into a large allocation to miners such as Newmont, Agnico Eagle, and Royal Gold.

03:12Gold, Mullen Camp argues, has been the better portfolio hedge than Treasuries since COVID.

03:18Central banks, he notes, are buying roughly 1,000 metric tons of gold a year,

03:23nearly a third of global production, while federal deficits keep widening.

03:28He says, quote,

03:30Countries solve debt by devaluing currency.

03:32If you want to hide from that, you own gold.

03:36With gold up more than 40% this year, does Mullen Camp worry about a gold bubble?

03:41Quite the opposite.

03:43Mullen Camp thinks gold's run could continue for years as debt and deficits weigh on the dollar.

03:48He says, quote,

03:51Nobody's buying more gold mines because too many investors got burned by miners last time when prices fell.

03:57He notes that miners tend to trade more volatility than the price of gold.

04:02He laughs recalling Costco's recent foray into selling gold bars online under its Kirkland label,

04:07which only reinforced his bullish conviction.

04:10He says, quote,

04:11Other big momentum-friendly Mullen Camp holdings include Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway, and Apple.

04:21Mullen Camp says he has adapted his father's value approach

04:24and sees his firm firmly in the camp of converted value investors who buy growth stocks, when the math works.

04:32Mullen Camp starts with screening for above-average return on shareholder equity and keeping an eye on inflation.

04:37Jeff Mullen Camp says, quote,

04:40As inflation goes up, people pay for return on equity.

04:44This ROE strategy was a big leg up in the 1970s.

04:48Now it's relevant again.

04:51For full coverage, check out Sergei Klebnikov's piece on Forbes.com.

04:58This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

05:00Thanks for tuning in.

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