NEWS
12 Aug 2013 - Optimal Australia Absolute Trust
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Fund Overview | The Fund's bias is likely to be net long under normal market conditions, with the core strategy being to construct a portfolio of listed equity securities priced at levels that do not adequately reflect their underlying value. The Fund will seek to boost returns and limit potential market downside by selective short selling of individual stocks which are priced at levels that are viewed as materially above their underlying value. The Fund will also use certain trading strategies both within its core portfolio (through rebalancing stock weights and overall market exposure in response to price movements) and in certain other situations (typically of a shorter-duration and/or opportunistic nature) with the objective of further increasing returns. |
Manager Comments | The fund's risk statistics are notable. Downside capture ratios are -0.11, -0.12 and -0.22 over the last 12, 24 and 36 months respectively indicating that, on average, the fund has positive returns when the overall market is negative. Specifically, the fund has had positive monthly returns of 0.33%, 0.39% and 0.48% when the market is negative over the previous 12, 24 and 36 months. The Manager comments that it is certainly possible that equities will remain the 'best of a bad lot' from an asset allocation perspective, which may drive additional money flows and further price gains. However, in the Manager's view, equity valuations in Australia are essentially unattractive for a market which will likely follow any progressive, US-led normalisation of long bond rates, but which has vastly less certainty over earnings growth. There will always be opportunities for the fund at a stock level, especially through what appears likely to be a challenging earnings season. From this juncture ― featuring elevated volatility, high valuation, a questionable growth outlook, a risk that yield curve normalisation turns disorderly, and thus significant capital risk ― the Manager continues to favour a low net exposure, hedged approach to managing the fund's capital. |
More Information | » View detailed profile of this fund |
9 Aug 2013 - Morphic Global Opportunities Fund
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Manager Comments | The Fund's top contributors this month were a handful of individual stocks in a variety of countries, a basket trade in US financials, plus gains from the Manager's belief that the Australian dollar would continue to fall and that Australian and US short term interest rates would stay low for considerably longer than the market had been expecting. The main detractors to performance this month were reasonably small. The Manager had eased its way back into shoe manufacturer Crocs this month but exited again after the company made disappointing comments on its short term outlook. The Fund's Japanese home builder basket was also weak as initial results from companies in the sector proved to be lacklustre, and these shares have also now been sold. The Fund is fully invested and overweight in the US and Japan, although the latter overweight has been reduced. The Fund remains un-hedged into Australian dollars and has slowly increased its short position in the currency versus the US dollar and the Euro. |
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9 Aug 2013 - Bennelong Long Short Equity Fund
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Manager Comments | Fund performance was solid with the long portfolio comfortably outperforming the negative impact from the short portfolio. At the sector level, the best positions were in Consumer Discretionary, Energy and Materials which were all strong but partially offset by negative returns in Industrials and Financials. The August reporting season is expected to be patchy as the domestic economy remains weak however market expectations are commensurate with the poor operating conditions. As such there may not be too many surprises when profits are released. |
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7 Aug 2013 - Bennelong Kardinia Absolute Return Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund consists of a concentrated long/short portfolio typically comprising 30 to 40 ASX300 listed stocks, generally with a long bias aligned to the overall market direction. There is a slight bias to large cap stocks in the long side of the portfolio, although in a rising market the portfolio will tend to hold smaller caps, including resource stocks, more frequently. On the short side, the portfolio is particularly concentrated, with stock selection limited by both liquidity and the difficulty of borrowing stock in smaller cap companies. Short positions are only taken when there is a high conviction view on the specific stock. The Fund uses derivatives in a limited way, mainly selling short dated covered call options to generate additional income. These typically have less than 30 days to expiry, and are usually 10 to 15% out of the money. ASX SPI futures and index put options can be used to hedge the portfolio's overall net position. |
Manager Comments | Global equity markets rallied strongly in July with the MSCI World Index up 5.2%. In the US, the Q2 reporting season began well and economic data continued to improve. Despite deteriorating domestic economic news and signs of slowing Chinese growth, the S&P/ASX 300 Accumulation Index rose 5.3%. The Bennelong Kardinia Absolute Return Fund rose 1.3% in July with limited Resources and small cap exposure contributing to a relatively disappointing month. CSL, EBOS, QBE Insurance and BHP Billiton performed strongly, whilst McMillan Shakespeare, Share Price Index futures contracts (hedging long positions) and Treasury Wine Estates were significant detractors from performance. Net equity market exposure (including derivatives) was progressively increased through the month to 50.8% (58.5% long and 7.7% short). |
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6 Aug 2013 - AUI Wingate Global Equity Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund's derivatives strategy primarily involves the selling of cash-backed put options to purchase stocks at a price in Wingate's fair price range but below current market price. The sale of the put option can result in either purchase of the stock at an acceptable price to Wingate, or the Fund receiving income in the form of the option premium. Importantly all option positions are fully backed by cash holdings and the Fund does not borrow to make investments. In addition, covered call options may be used to sell stocks that are held in the portfolio. |
Manager Comments | On a monthly basis for the past 12 months, the portfolio captured 91% of the market's gain when the market was positive but only 54% when the market was negative. The Fund's performance benefited from strong stock selection in the US, offset by a lack of exposure to Japan and an under-weight position to European shares. The Fund's total return was also helped by the weakening US dollar. In a low-growth macro environment the portfolio has increased its exposure to companies returning significant amounts of capital through dividends or share-buy backs. |
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5 Aug 2013 - Allard Investment Fund
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Manager Comments | The Fund was 71.4% invested with 28.6% held in cash and fixed income (allocated 14.8% of NAV in HK dollars, 4.0% of NAV in US dollars and 9.8% of NAV in Australian dollars). In terms of geographic breakdown HK/China was 33.4% of NAV, followed by Singapore at 13.4% and Korea at 11.2%. The Industry break-down was Financial Services 15.0% of NAV, Conglomerates at 12.6% and Telecommunications at 8.5%. The portfolio top five holdings were 38.9% of total NAV with the next five holdings at 16.3%. |
More Information | » View detailed profile of this fund |
2 Aug 2013 - Monash Absolute Investment Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund places a high priority on capital preservation, and have an absolute return focus in accepting market risk. The Manager employs a comprehensive approach to making investment decisions utilising value, growth and discounted cash flow styles. The portfolio is somewhat concentrated and the manager looks to diversify the portfolio across industries and themes rather than staying near an index. The portfolio may at times have a large amount of cash or other protection. |
Manager Comments | The portfolio continued to more than keep up with the broader market this month despite action taken to protect returns by: trimming some holdings; increasing cash, and; adding to the short positions. Many of the Fund's stocks performed strongly this month, even though there were no noteworthy announcements. The main feature of the month was that about half of the long positions returned 10% or more and there were few detractors. |
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1 Aug 2013 - Intelligent Investor Value Fund
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Manager Comments | The most significant contributors to performance were Vision Eye Institute, GBST and QBE while Astro Japan and UXC detracted from performance. The Manager notes that there are more stocks that usual in the Value Fund currently. The Fund has been buying small amounts of a number of mining and mining services business as the investment market for these stocks has capitulated, particularly in the last few weeks of June. Liquidity has been a problem once the Fund started buying share prices have often quickly moved against it and the Fund has no intention of establishing large positions in any of these stocks. But with some trading at significant discounts to net cash or huge discounts to net tangible assets and, in one particular example, less than 1.5 times earnings, the Manager's view is that a basket of them could perform well even if the worst China fears are realised. The number of holdings should remain under 20, but the Fund could end up with quite a few stocks in this space. |
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31 Jul 2013 - Fund Review: BlackRock Australian Equity Market Neutral Fund
BLACKROCK AUSTRALIAN EQUITY MARKET NEUTRAL FUND
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the BlackRock Australian Equity Market Neutral Fund.
We would like to highlight the following aspects of the Fund:
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BlackRock is the world's largest fund management group. Since being established in 1988 it has grown organically and by acquisition to manage US$3.93 trillion as of March 2013.
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Operations cover 27 countries including Australia (where BlackRock has A$48.6 billion in FUM - March 2013) managing a broad range of strategies across a variety of asset classes.
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The BlackRock Australian Equity Market Neutral Fund is managed by a 12 person Sydney based investment team following a systematic global research process investing in ASX listed stocks.
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The Fund's portfolio generally consists of approx. 180 stocks in equally weighted long and short portfolios to maximise potential returns while minimising market volatility.
Research and Database Manager
Australian Fund Monitors
30 Jul 2013 - Fund Review: Aurora Fortitude Absolute Return Fund
- ASX listed Aurora Funds Limited established on the merger of three existing fund management businesses, managing approx. $480m on behalf of more than 2,500 retail and wholesale investors.
- The Aurora Fortitude Absolute Return Fund (AFARF) has a 8 year track record investing in ASX listed equities. CIO John Corr has over 20 years financial market experience with a strong focus on risk.
- 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.
- Strong use of low risk "long" derivatives and option overlays has provided positive returns with low volatility during periods of market dislocation.
- Over 87% of monthly performances have been positive, with no losing months in 2008 and a largest drawdown of -2.09%.
Research and Database Manager
Australian Fund Monitors
