NEWS
Fund Review: Supervised High Yield Fund April 2015
9 Jun 2015 - Australian Fund Monitors
Fund review on Supervised High Yield Fund, a fixed income fund, is now available.
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9 Jun 2015 - Fund Review: Supervised High Yield Fund April 2015
By: Australian Fund Monitors
SUPERVISED HIGH YIELD FUND
We would like to highlight the following aspects of the Fund:
- The Supervised High Yield Fund (SHYF) has a 6 year track record investing in fixed interest investments. The Investment strategy aims to deliver returns with zero correlation to equity markets by investing in debt securities with minimal default probability and offering a premium return above the risk free rate.
- The Fund is managed by Philip Carden whose experience in debt and capital markets spans 33 years, including time with JB Were's Capel Court Securities and Macquarie Bank, where he was the Executive Director responsible for the Debt Markets Division.
- SHYF is an Alternative Income fund which invests in Global and Australian debt markets, with all foreign currency receivables hedged back to Australian dollars.
- The Fund utilises a top down analysis of the economic environment and market to screen and identify debt market opportunities which it believes offer low risk with high yield. The next stage is the development of a risk matrix and investment strategy, following which detailed research is undertaken on specific investment opportunities which meet the pre-defined criteria established in the investment strategy.
- Prior to approving an investment for the Fund each potential investment is subject to two stress tests. The first of these is for credit and default risk, in which the investment is stress-tested to ensure that in a worst case economic environment it can repay 100% of its principal and interest obligations case scenario for the asset by examining the highest margin over the risk rate that the investment has previously experienced in a crisis situation. Any decline in value under the stress test that exceeds 10% of the Fund's value is avoided The second test examines market risk. In this case Carden looks at the worst case scenario for the asset by examining the highest margin over the risk rate that the investment has previously experienced in a crisis situation. Any decline in value under the stress test that exceeds 10% of the Fund's value is avoided.
Supervised High Yield AFM performance report April 2015Signature Quantitative Fund
5 Jun 2015 - Australian Fund Monitors
Signature Quantitative Fund returned -2.10% for April, to bring the annual performance since inception to 13.11%.
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5 Jun 2015 - Signature Quantitative Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | SQF has been established to profit from anomalies surrounding event driven, behavioural & factor based structural market inefficiencies which generate significant profits and are uncorrelated & persistent over time. Specific strategies such as dividend arbitrage, index addition and deletion, tax year end, capital raisings, among other strategies are used by the Fund. The Fund's initial focus is on investing in Australian and New Zealand markets. |
| Manager Comments | In April, the Capital Raisings and Alpha Capture strategies continued their recent strong performance. The Dividend Arbitrage strategy under-performed, due to an exposure to the banking sector as well as the relative under-performance of dividend yield stocks. Click the link below to view the latest Monthly Report. |
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Insync Global Titans Fund
4 Jun 2015 - Australian Fund Monitors
Insync Global Titans Fund decreased 0.40% in April, bringing the Fund's prior 12 month performance to 19.27%.
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4 Jun 2015 - Insync Global Titans Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | Insync employs four simple screens to narrow the universe of over 40,000 listed companies globally to a focus group of high quality companies that it believes have the potential to consistently grow their profits and dividends. These screens are size of the company, balance sheet performance, valuation and dividend quality. Companies that pass this due diligence process are then valued using dividend discount models, free cash flow yield and proprietary implied growth and expected return models. The end result is a high conviction portfolio of typically 15-30 stocks. The principal investments will be in shares of companies listed on international stock exchanges (including the US, Europe and Asia). The Fund may also hold cash, derivatives (for example futures, options and swaps), currency contracts, American Depository Receipts and Global Depository Receipts. The Fund may also invest in various types of international pooled investment vehicles. At times, Insync may consider holding higher levels of cash if valuations are full and it is difficult to find attractive investment opportunities. When Insync believes markets to be overvalued, it may hold part of its resources in cash, or use derivatives as a way of reducing its equity exposure. Insync may use options, futures and other derivatives to reduce risk or gain exposure to underlying physical investments. The Fund may purchase put options on market indices or specific stocks to hedge against losses caused by declines in the prices of stocks in its portfolio. |
| Manager Comments | The performance was driven by positive contributions from holdings in Microsoft, Publicis, BAT, Reckitt Benckiser and Nestle. The main negative contributors were McDonald's, Zimmer and Medtronic. The Fund continues to have no foreign currency hedging in place as Insync consider the main risks to the Australian dollar to be on the downside Click below to read the latest Fund Manager Report. |
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Supervised High Yield Fund
3 Jun 2015 - Australian Fund Monitors
Supervised High Yield Fund rose 0.52% during April to bring the Fund's annual return since inception to 10.18%. In the same time frame the RBA Cash Rate returned 3.47%.
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3 Jun 2015 - Supervised High Yield Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The fund may also invest in interest rate swaps, options over authorized investments and exchange traded futures contracts. All these will be either listed or traded in a market where they can be independently valued. Fundamental to the investment procedure is the tenet that no debt security will qualify for investment unless it can repay 100% of its principal and interest in a worst case economic scenario. |
| Manager Comments | More than half of the portfolio's composition was in Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) at 60.36%. The rest of the portfolio was divided in the following sectors: US Corporate Loans at 26.67%, Cash at 9.11% and AUD Corporate Loans at 3.86%. Click below to view the latest Fund Manager Report. |
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Cor Capital Fund
2 Jun 2015 - Australian Fund Monitors
Cor Capital was down 0.65% in April to bring annual performance since inception to 5.55% p.a., compared to the RBA cash rate of 2.68% p.a.
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2 Jun 2015 - Cor Capital Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The Cor Capital Fund is a Multi- Asset Fund which combines a pre-determined strategic asset allocation with active but systemised rebalancing to generate returns and manage volatility whilst maintaining transparency and liquidity. The Fund strategy is not reliant on accurate market predictions, forecasts or timing for success. Returns are generated in a number of ways; 1) by maintaining sufficiently large positions in a diverse group of asset classes, 2) via the 'volatility harvesting' consequences of active rebalancing, and 3) from the offsetting behaviour of certain asset classes under specific conditions. The combined portfolio is expected to exhibit relatively low volatility and low turnover. In the interests of avoiding complexity, maintaining liquidity, and minimising reliance on third parties, the Fund strategy does not employ gearing, derivatives or short-selling. |
| Manager Comments | Although market indices for equities, bonds and gold (AUD) were all down by more than 1.0% during the month, the equities component of the Fund posted a positive return (+1.04%) due to its more balanced weighting between financial and resources/energy stocks. The Fund also benefited from its 25% cash weighting. |
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Fund Review: Aurora Fortitude Absolute Return Fund April 2015
2 Jun 2015 - Australian Fund Monitors
Latest fund review now available for the Aurora Fortitude Absolute Return Fund, which has one of the most risk averse Key Performance Statistics of any fund in AFM's database.
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2 Jun 2015 - Fund Review: Aurora Fortitude Absolute Return Fund April 2015
By: Australian Fund Monitors
AURORA FORTITUDE ABSOLUTE RETURN FUND
We would like to highlight the following aspects of the Fund;
- The Aurora Fortitude Absolute Return Fund (AFARF) has a 10 year track record investing in ASX listed equities. A Market Neutral overlay is used across a multi strategy approach which allows for flexible asset allocation to maximise returns and minimise risk under a variety of market conditions and cycles.CIO John Corr has over 20 years financial market experience with a strong focus on risk.
- Significant use of low risk "long" derivatives and option overlays has provided positive returns with low volatility during periods of market dislocation. Risk statistics are impressive and shows the Funds risk philosophy; over 85% of monthly performances have been positive with no losing months in 2008, the Fund's largest drawdown is -2.09% and the Sharpe ratio 1.06.
- ASX listed Aurora Funds Limited was established on the merger of three existing fund management businesses, managing approx. $230m on behalf of more than 2,500 retail and wholesale investors.
Fund Review: Morphic Global Opportunities Fund April 2015
1 Jun 2015 - Australian Fund Monitors
Read the latest Fund Review for Morphic Global Opportunities Fund
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1 Jun 2015 - Fund Review: Morphic Global Opportunities Fund April 2015
By: Australian Fund Monitors
MORPHIC GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES FUND
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the Morphic Global Opportunities Fund.
Key points include:
- The Fund is a global equity long/short manager with a long bias and a macro-economic overlay. The mandate allows the Fund to short sell, use derivatives and invest in assets such as commodities & currencies.
- Morphic's philosophy is that only funds with flexible investment and hedging strategies will be able to deliver acceptable, steady, real, absolute returns over the investment cycle.
- The Fund is an early stage, boutique, Sydney-based fund established in 2012 with experienced CIO's, and an investment team of 6 including a risk manager.
- The Board has a majority of independent members with significant risk and investment experience.
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Australian Fund Monitors
QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund
1 Jun 2015 - Australian Fund Monitors
QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund was down -2.96% in April bringing performance for the last 6 months to 16.93%.
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1 Jun 2015 - QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The fund targets a net market exposure of 0% to hedge broader market risks through 30 S&P/ASX-100 positions (15 long and 15 short equally weighted positions). The turnover is generally averaged around 30% of the total portfolio each month. The process is entirely systematic - stock selection and risk management are all employed in a rules based approach. The Market Neutral Long/Short Fund employs no financial leverage, no derivatives and no financial products to imitate leverage. The Investment Manager's three principal investment goals for the Fund are: 1. Market neutral long/short portfolio management with little correlation to equity markets; 2. Over a 3-5 year period, seeking to target annualised volatility of 15% per annum and annualised returns of 15-30% per annum above the Benchmark; Sharpe Ratio 1.0-2.0 and a negative beta to ASX listed equities; and 3. To provide investors with a co-investment opportunity alongside the founding members' investments in the Investment Manager's strategy. |
| Manager Comments | The Fund lagged the S&P/ASX-100's return in April as a result of intra month volatility, with the Australian market whipsawing throughout the month. The banking sector continued to feel pressure as a result of increased regulatory capital requirements, which led to ongoing capital raising fears. This negatively impacted sentiment and caused these positions in the Fund to underperform the S&P/ASX-100 significantly. The Fund was long in Qantas as it ranked favourably on Qato's fundamental Q-Score analysis due to the business' improving fundamentals. For the calendar year to date Qantas has delivered a 40% return to investors in the Fund and was the Fund's top performing position in April. The Fund was short in Metcash which fell -14.4% and Bluescope which fell -14.3% generating significant alpha. Click the Manager's Report to read the complete review |
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Aurora Fortitude Absolute Return Fund
29 May 2015 - Australian Fund Monitors
Aurora Fortitude Absolute Return Fund rose 0.34% as the market experienced higher volatility over the month of April.
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29 May 2015 - Aurora Fortitude Absolute Return Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The Fund aims to produce positive returns irrespective of the direction of the share market. For each investment the manager considers the risk, the timeline of that risk occurring and then the potential return. Low transaction costs and liquidity are other important factors in the success and implementation of the strategies. |
| Manager Comments | In April, only the Long Short and Mergers & Acquisitions strategies were the positive contributors, with the Long Short Strategy as the best performing (+0.28%). A smaller capitalisation company Triton Minerals (TON.ASX) undertook a discounted capital raising and performed well. All other portfolio strategies were either flat (Convergence & Yield strategies) or only a slight detractor (Options -0.06%). Click below to read the April Fund Manager's Report & AFM Fund Review. |
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Totus Alpha Fund
28 May 2015 - Australian Fund Monitors
Totus Alpha Fund was down 4.5% in April compared to the ASX200 Accumulation Index's -1.70%. However the Fund's annual performance of 24.74% (ASX200 Accumulation Index 14.70% p.a.) has been strong.
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28 May 2015 - Totus Alpha Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The Fund is a long/short investment fund principally investing in listed entities, commodities, futures and options in Australia and internationally. The Fund is not a market neutral fund and accordingly may switch between net long positions and net short positions. The Fund may use short sales and derivatives. Gearing may be used to enhance returns and the Fund may be geared in excess of 100% of the Fund's Net Asset Value. There is a limit to net exposure of 150%. |
| Manager Comments | At the end of April, the fund had a net exposure of 31.0% and a gross exposure of 298.0%. The fund was diversified across a number investment themes and geographies with 124 positions (57 long and 67 short). Top contributors in April were the long positions in Smartgroup +1.23% (Scarce Growth) and Altium +0.67% (Online). The short position in Metcash added +0.71% (Structural Change). Biggest detractors were the short position in LNG -2.10% (Promoter), and long positions in Healthscope -0.55% (Ageing Population) and Ramsay Health -0.55% (Ageing Population). Click below to read the complete Fund Manager's Report & AFM Fund Review. |
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