NEWS
Performance Report: Touchstone Index Unaware Fund
3 Jun 2020 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Touchstone Index Unaware Fund rose +9.94% in April, outperforming the ASX200 Accumulation Index by +1.16% and taking annualised performance since inception in April 2016 to +4.98% with an annualised volatility of 16.21%.
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3 Jun 2020 - Performance Report: Touchstone Index Unaware Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The portfolio is constructed using Touchstone's Quality-At-a-Reasonable-Price ('QARP') investment process. QARP is a fundamental bottom-up process, however, it also incorporates a top-down risk management framework designed to successfully manage the portfolio during varying market conditions and economic cycles. The Touchstone Fund is concentrated, typically holding between 15-20 stocks. No individual stock will ever make up more than 10% of the portfolio at any one time. The Investment Manager may temporarily exceed the exposure limits of the Fund occasionally, particularly during periods of market volatility, to allow for holdings in excess of this 10% limit where the increase in value of the underlying security is due to market movement. The Fund may also hold between 0-50% of the portfolio in cash. The Fund has a high level of associated risk, therefore, the minimum suggested investment time-frame is 5 years. |
| Manager Comments | As at the end of April, the Fund held 21 positions with a median position size of 4.4%. The portfolio's holdings had an average forward year price/earnings of 19.8, forward-year tangible ROE of 11.9% and forward-year dividend yield of 2.8%. The Fund ended the month with a cash weighting of 7.4%. The Fund primarily seeks to select stocks from the ASX300 Index, typically holding between 10-30 stocks. The Fund seeks to invest in reasonably priced, good quality companies with a significant share of expected returns coming from sustainable dividends. |
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Performance Report: Quay Global Real Estate Fund
2 Jun 2020 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Quay Global Real Estate Fund returned -1.3% in April. Since inception in January 2016, the Fund has returned +6.14% p.a. with an annualised volatility of 12.32%. Top contributors during the month included Stag Industrial, Safe Store...
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2 Jun 2020 - Performance Report: Quay Global Real Estate Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The Fund will invest in a number of global listed real estate companies, groups or funds. The investment strategy is to make investments in real estate securities at a price that will deliver a real, after inflation, total return of 5% per annum (before costs and fees), inclusive of distributions over a longer-term period. The Investment Strategy is indifferent to the constraints of any index benchmarks and is relatively concentrated in its number of investments. The Fund is expected to own between 20 and 40 securities, and from time to time up to 20% of the portfolio maybe invested in cash. The Fund is $A un-hedged. |
| Manager Comments | The three largest positive contributors for the month in order were Stag Industrials (US Industrial), Safe Store (UK Storage) and Alexandria Real Estate Equities (US, Life Science Office). Key detractors, excluding currency, were Cube (US Storage), Life Storage (US Storage) and Leg Immobilien (German Apartments). Quay believe tough time are ahead and, as a result, the rate of rent growth across the board will slow. They also expect vacancy levels across the board to rise as those tenants that cannot afford to pay their rent close stores, wind back operations, give back space or go out of business. Quay noted that historically real estate has proven to be defensive in tough economic times. They believe that as we move further away from the initial shock of the changes brought on by COVID-19, the markets' focus will be on the implications of double digit unemployment and the impact of the economic slowdown on industry and business. Quay expect that it will be during this time that the defensive attributes of well selected real estate companies will be valued. |
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Performance Report: DS Capital Growth Fund
1 Jun 2020 - Australian Fund Monitors
The DS Capital Growth Fund rose +14.05% in April, outperforming the ASX200 Accumulation Index by +5.27 and taking annualised performance since inception in December 2012 to +13.05% versus the Index's annualised return of +7.29% over the...
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1 Jun 2020 - Performance Report: DS Capital Growth Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The investment team looks for industrial businesses that are simple to understand; they generally avoid large caps, pure mining, biotech and start-ups. They also look for: - Access to management; - Businesses with a competitive edge; - Profitable companies with good margins, organic growth prospects, strong market position and a track record of healthy dividend growth; - Sectors with structural advantage and barriers to entry; - 15% p.a. pre-tax compound return on each holding; and - A history of stable and predictable cash flows that DS Capital can understand and value. |
| Manager Comments | The Fund's capacity to protect investor capital in falling markets over the long-term is highlighted by the following statistics (since inception): Sortino ratio of 1.38 versus the Index's 0.50, down-capture ratio of 45.22%, and an average negative monthly return of -2.06% versus the Index's -3.12%. |
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Performance Report: Wheelhouse Global Equity Income Fund
29 May 2020 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Wheelhouse Global Equity Income Fund has returned +8.47% p.a. with an annualised volatility of 7.69% since inception in May 2017. By contrast, AFM's Global Equity Index has returned +9.67% p.a. with an annualised volatility of 11.64%...
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29 May 2020 - Performance Report: Wheelhouse Global Equity Income Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | To pursue this objective, the Investment Manager is responsible for actively managing, monitoring and tailoring the integration of derivative contracts alongside the Morningstar Portfolio, while taking into account changing market and stock specific conditions. The Investment Manager is responsible for maximising the structural benefits of short option positions (lowered Volatility, improved capital preservation, higher income generation), whilst mitigating, minimising and monitoring the structural negatives (variable market exposure, option expiries, collateral management and asymmetric return profiles). In addition, long derivatives positions are also used to enhance the capital preservation characteristics of the Fund in more extreme market movements. As a consequence of the integration of Derivatives, returns of the strategy, intra-cycle, are expected to vary from the underlying Morningstar Portfolio due to these characteristics. For example in weak markets, or in extended sideways markets, the Fund is expected to outperform relative to the Morningstar Portfolio. Conversely in strong positive markets the Fund is expected to underperform. |
| Manager Comments | The Fund's capacity to protect investors' capital in falling markets is highlighted by the following statistics (since inception): Sortino ratio of 1.56 versus the Index's 1.02, largest drawdown of -6.64% versus the Index's -13.19% over the same period, and down-capture ratio of 45.32%. The Fund returned -0.19% in April. This return comprised +6.76% from the portfolio (in USD) and a negative return of -6.95% from the strengthening of the Australian dollar versus the US dollar. Top contributors included Veeva Systems, Microchip Technology, ServiceNow, Nabtesco Corp and Compass Minerals. Key detractors included Kao Corp, Airbus, Blackbaud, Kerry Group and Toronto-Dominion Bank. |
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Performance Report: NWQ Fiduciary Fund
28 May 2020 - Australian Fund Monitors
The NWQ Fiduciary Fund rose +1.31% in April, taking annualised performance since inception in May 2013 to +4.54% with an annualised volatility of 5.56%. By contrast, the ASX200 Accumulation Index has returned +5.38% p.a. with an annualised...
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28 May 2020 - Performance Report: NWQ Fiduciary Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The Fund aims to produce returns after management fees and expenses of RBA Cash Rate + 4.0-5.0% p.a. over rolling five-year periods. Furthermore, the Fund aims to achieve these returns with volatility that is a fraction of the Australian equity market, in order to smooth returns for investors. |
| Manager Comments | The Fund has hedged out 65% of the fall in the Australian market for the calendar year (-5.82% for the Fund vs -16.35% for the market) and NWQ believe they are well positioned for a full recovery. They noted this recovery began in April with the Fund's underlying managers profiting from the combination of greater return dispersion around quality factors and selective participation in capital raisings. NWQ expect these tailwinds to continue in the coming months as the Australian economy works its way out of the COVID-19 induced shutdown. |
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Performance Report: Datt Capital Absolute Return Fund
27 May 2020 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Datt Capital Absolute Return Fund rose +12.00% in April, outperforming the ASX200 Accumulation Index by +3.22% and taking annualised performance since inception in August 2018 to +3.31% versus the Index's -2.97%. The Fund has...
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27 May 2020 - Performance Report: Datt Capital Absolute Return Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | Our investment objectives are: 1) To minimise the risk of permanent capital loss 2) Generate a net return of 10% through the economic cycle An unconstrained, concentrated approach focused on superior risk-adjusted returns. The investment strategy: - targets long-term capital growth in a prudent manner, with an emphasis on capital preservation and low volatility in returns - aims to outperform in markets where equities are down - diversifies investments across asset classes and duration to reduce risk while maintaining relatively concentrated exposure to attractive investment opportunities - is an application of the Manager's investment process, that has no institutional constraints and is completely benchmark unaware |
| Manager Comments | Datt Capital noted that, while our social and economic environments have been greatly hamstrung by overzealous government curfews, they are positive that we have seen the worst of it. Datt Capital continue to find opportunities in the market and added that they will remain agile and disciplined in their asset allocation. The Fund's CRE debt portfolio continues to perform in line with Datt Capital's expectations. The Fund continues to benefit from the manager's focus on short duration, low LVR and double-digit yielding deals restricted to the core Australian cities. The Fund's equity portfolio also performed well in April. The Fund recently added Self Wealth to the portfolio, as well as some other new growth opportunities via placements. Datt Capital expect the portfolio to remain fluid in terms of exposures and individual positions going forward. |
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Performance Report: Insync Global Quality Equity Fund
27 May 2020 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Insync Global Quality Equity Fund rose +6.14% in April, outperforming AFM's Global Equity Index by +1.99% and taking annualised performance since October 2009 to +13.26% versus the Index's +10.57%. Over the past 12 months the Fund has...
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27 May 2020 - Performance Report: Insync Global Quality Equity 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 typically of 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. |
| Manager Comments | The Fund's top 10 holdings as at the end of April included Facebook, Adobe, PayPal, Microsoft, Apple, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Domino's Pizza, Accenture and S&P Global. The top three megatrends by weighting in the portfolio at month-end were the 'Age related health solutions' megatrend (16%), the 'Digitisation' megatrend (13%) and the 'Cashless Society' megatrend (9%). |
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Performance Report: Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund
27 May 2020 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund rose +10.78% in April, outperforming the ASX200 Accumulation Index by +2.0% and taking annualised performance since inception in November 2009 to +8.68% versus the Index's +6.21%.
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27 May 2020 - Performance Report: Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The Fund is managed as one portfolio but comprises and combines two separately managed exposures: 1. An investment in the top 20 stocks of the markets, which the Fund achieves by taking an indexed position in the S&P/ASX 20 Index; and 2. An investment in the stocks beyond the S&P/ASX 20 Index. This exposure is managed on an active basis using a fundamental core approach. The Fund may also invest in securities expected to be listed on the ASX, securities listed or expected to be listed on other exchanges where such securities relate to ASX-listed securities.Derivative instruments may be used to replicate underlying positions and hedge market and company specific risks. The companies within the portfolio are primarily selected from, but not limited to, the S&P/ASX 300 Accumulation Index. The Fund typically holds between 40-55 stocks and thus is considered to be highly concentrated. This means that investors should expect to see high short-term volatility. The Fund seeks to achieve growth over the long-term, therefore the minimum suggested investment timeframe is 5 years. |
| Manager Comments | As at the end of April, the portfolio's weightings had been increased in the Discretionary, Industrials, Materials, Communication and Energy sectors, and decreased in the Consumer Staples, Health Care, REIT's and Financials sectors. |
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Performance Report: Ark Global Fund - Class B AUD Hedged
27 May 2020 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Ark Global Fund (Hedged) rose +1.59% in April, taking annualised performance since inception in July 2017 to +9.57% with an annualised volatility of 9.23%. Over the past 12 months, the Fund has returned +6.48% versus AFM's Global...
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27 May 2020 - Performance Report: Ark Global Fund - Class B AUD Hedged
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The investment objective of the Fund is to achieve long-term capital appreciation with low correlation to global equity markets through investment in the Underlying Fund. Fund One is a global macro fund that utilises quantitative research including machine learning techniques and fully automated trading algorithms which will aim to generate positive uncorrelated returns relative to any significant equity benchmark. The traded instruments are either major FX pairs or the most liquid exchange traded stock index, bond, and commodity futures across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. The algorithm backtests over 10 years of tick data and in order to do so effectively requires machine learning to filter noise and identify meaningful signals, which results in statistically significant prediction of price movements. In production this processing is done in real time and the portfolio reacts to asset movements by rebalancing automatically to the desired risk exposure through the market impact optimised execution logic. Risk management layers built into the algorithm have been developed using the experience the team has gained from their decades in highly liquid fast-moving markets in the proprietary High Frequency Trading world. This allows the system to trade autonomously but safely to all trading opportunities and potential system issues, and to alert the team to any behaviour outside of strictly controlled bounds. The Fund is a 'feeder fund' which indirectly gains exposure to the underlying assets by investing all or substantially all of its assets in the Underlying Fund. The Fund may retain a certain amount of cash from the investment in the Fund for the purpose of payment of costs, fees, hedging and expenses. |
| Manager Comments | The best performing assets for the month were: Silver (+0.88% of NAV), Euro Stoxx 50 (+0.87% of NAV) and TOPIX Index (+0.68% of NAV). The worst performing assets were: E-mini Russell 2000 (-0.69% of NAV), Light Sweet Crude Oil (-0.85% of NAV) and Gold (-0.92% of NAV). |
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Performance Report: Bennelong Emerging Companies Fund
26 May 2020 - Australian Fund Monitors
The Bennelong Emerging Companies Fund rose +31.93% in April, outperforming the ASX200 Accumulation Index by +23.15%. Since inception in November 2017, the Fund has returned +19.07% p.a. versus the Index's +1.50%.
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26 May 2020 - Performance Report: Bennelong Emerging Companies Fund
By: Australian Fund Monitors
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| Fund Overview | The Fund may invest in securities expected to be listed on the ASX within 12 months. The Fund may also invest in securities listed, or expected to be listed, on other exchanged where such securities relate to ASX-listed securities |
| Manager Comments | Bennelong have taken the volatility as an opportunity to make changes to the portfolio. The Fund remains reasonably diversified across sector and risk-return drivers. For example, the top holdings include Viva Leisure (in gyms), Mader Group (mining services) and BWX (personal care products). Bennelong noted that, while the month-to-month stock price volatility might be high, they believe the companies in which they have invested are incrementally building value as the months turn over which ultimately they expect will underpin strong performance over time. |
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