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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 | Ever cautious, and in spite of the Fund returning close to 8% over the past 12 months and significantly outperforming the ASX, the Manager considers that equity markets remain difficult to read, citing persistent earnings downgrades, growing concern about China's growth and heightened political uncertainty. Optimal note that equity market bulls continue to argue that local valuations are undemanding in absolute and relative terms, but consider this to be the case only if the forecast earnings supporting the valuations materialise. However, the Manager points out that industrial earnings have declined in aggregate for four successive years as a result of consumer de-leveraging and as the high AUD has cut manufacturing margins. Optimal's caution and risk aversion is apparent in their performance, having only succumbed to negative monthly return on three occasions since launching the Fund in September 2008. |
| More Information | » View detailed profile of this fund |
