Our Company

DAL Investment Company has helped investors build and preserve wealth through comprehensive money management services since 1969. Janet Brown serves as President of the Firm, and has been with the company for more than 30 years.

History

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In 1969, native San Franciscan and Stanford University graduate Burt Berry took the bold step of using noload mutual funds instead of individual stocks and bonds to professionally manage assets on behalf of clients.

The concept was virtually unheard of at the time: the mutual fund industry was young, and most funds carried 8.5% loads or sales charges, and were sold by brokers. Only a few dozen noload funds were available and it was almost impossible to obtain useful performance data on them.

Using a spreadsheet and an adding machine, Burt began calculating the returns for all the available noload funds, arranging the data in a tabulated worksheet. He compared funds with similar risk or volatility, and invested in the best performers. He continually tracked performance. When a fund began to lag its peers, he redeemed the shares and directed the proceeds to a better performing alternative.

Janet Brown joined Burt in 1978. She defined the system by developing the Fund*X Score to rank funds by near-term performance, and quantified the risk-classification system still in use today. Over time, the investment strategy known as Upgrading took shape. Burt’s tabulated worksheet became the newsletter NoLoad FundX, and investing with noload mutual funds ultimately became commonplace. In the 1990s, other investment professionals joined DAL, and the firm expanded to answer the needs of a growing roster of clients.

In 1997 Janet acquired DAL, and the senior portfolio managers are all principals and partners. Since then Janet has served as company president, while Burt remains chairman emeritus. Today, DAL has over $1 billion under management.

DAL manages a series of noload mutual funds using the Upgrading strategy. And publishes NoLoad FundX newsletter which brings the Upgrading strategy to over 13,000 subscribers.

All the result of a simple idea that simply works.

Our Team

  • Janet M. Brown, President of DAL and Managing Editor of NoLoad FundX, joined DAL in 1978. Janet has been researching funds and developing successful fund investment strategies for many years. Prior to joining DAL, she worked in Brussels with a financial services company where she specialized in mutual funds. Janet is frequently interviewed by the media on investment and mutual fund issues.
  • Jason W. Browne, Chief Investment Officer, joined DAL in June 2000 and is the newest member of DAL’s investment team. He earned his BA from San Francisco State University in 1994 and received his MBA from St Mary’s College. He has worked for two major brokerage firms as a broker and advisor. Prior to joining DAL, Jason was managing private client accounts for a local money management firm.
  • Martin (Marty) R. DeVault, Portfolio Manager, was editor and publisher of The Mutual Fund Journal. He spent 20 years in academic research with the University of California, Davis. Marty is a graduate of Colorado State University with a BS in microbiology. He holds a certificate in financial planning and came from one of the largest mutual fund and financial services companies in the country.
  • Bernard (Bernie) W. Burke, Portfolio Manager, is a fourth generation San Franciscan. He has over 40 years of investment industry experience, with extensive knowledge of mutual fund companies. Bernie holds a BA degree in economics from Stanford University. He is a member of the San Francisco Society of Security Analysts.
  • Sean McKeon, Portfolio Manager, received his BA from Rutgers University in 1981 and moved from New York to San Francisco in 1986. There, he served as a broker with a major securities firm dealing primarily with mutual funds. He earned his MBA in Finance at San Francisco State University. Sean has been with DAL since 1990, managing hundreds of client portfolios. He has played a key role in developing and implementing the Upgrading system.