NEWS
1 Feb 2016 - Fund Review: Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund December 2015
Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund
We would like to highlight the following aspects of the Fund;
- Jamieson Coote Bonds is a Melbourne-based Boutique Manager launched in December 2014.
- The Founders, Charles Jamieson and Angus Coote bring over 30 years of international experience dealing with central banks, hedge funds and real money managers.
- The Jamieson Coote Active Bond Fund is a long-only macroeconomic investment fund, investing in Australian Dollar denominated bonds backed by AAA and AA+ rated Government, Semi (State) Government and Supranational agencies.
- The Fund Objective is to out-perform the Bloomberg Australian Government Bond Index through active management in a sound risk-framework and usually holds around 20 bond securities of varying maturities.
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30 Jan 2016 - Hedge Clippings
Welcome back - but not to a great start to the New Year!
Not a great start to the New Year is probably an understatement in anyone's language. Whether it is equity prices across the globe, commodity prices, a refugee crisis in Europe threatening widespread economic, security and social problems, or the Chinese authorities hamfisted approach to stablising markets, the news has been dismal to say the least - unless you're a motorist filling the car at a nearby petrol station, or taking advantage of lower airline prices.
At the current time the ASX200 is down around 5.5% since the start of the year, for a fall of around 12.5% over the past 12 months, having at one stage during the month looked even worse. Ugly to say the least, and while not wishing to forcast more gloom and doom, it does seem that volatility will remain entrenched across the globe for some time to come. To what extent the US rate rise late last year has had anything to do with equity market weakness in difficult to fathom given it has been clouded, or at least overshadowed by the exteme volatility and weakness in Chinese markets.
So if we can't (or don't want to) forcast the future beyond the obvious, let's look back at the previous year, as we usually do at this time: Over the 12 months to December 2015 the ASX200 absolute return struggled to gain 2.56%, while excluding dividends the ASX200 recorded a loss of -2.13%. Probably the only reason it performed as well as it did was the unquenchable thirst for yield that those two statistics indicate.
Over the other side of the Pacific the S&P500 fell -1.58% or on an accumulation basis it rose a paltry 1.38%.
Not unsurpisingly the Equity based hedge and absolute return fund sector out-performed underlying markets significantly - with the average performance of all funds in AFM's database (unweighted for size) up 12.49%. Non equity funds, including credit, fixed income, commodites and FX for example, fared less well, but still managed a return of just over 4% for the year. Almost 80% of all funds - equity and non equity - outperformed the ASX200, and only 12% finished the year in negative territory.
As usual the spread of performances was dramatic, and after stripping out the top and bottom 1% of funds, ranged from -10% to +55%. From a strategy perspective equity based funds such as Market Neutral (+14.82%), Active Long Only (+14.2%), Long/Short (+13.22%), and 130/30 (+10.34%) all performed well, while at the other end of the scale, only two strategies, Commodities/CTA and Managed Futures, averaged negative returns.
Some highlights are shown below, or for full details follow the link to www.fundmonitors.com
Performance updates and reviews received this over the past couple of weeks included the following PERFORMANCE UPDATES:
Bennelong Long Short Equity Fund rose 6.22% in December, to bring latest 12-month return to 37.14%.
For the month of December, the Meme Australian Share Fund gained 4.40% compared to the ASX200 Accumulation Index's return of 2.73%, an outperformance of 1.67%.
Optimal Australia Absolute Trust recorded net return of -0.1% to bring the year 2015's return to +8.05%.
The Paragon Fund returned 0.3% for the month of December, to take latest 12 month return to 16.44%.
Bennelong Kardinia Absolute Return Fund rose 1.74% in December, to bring annualised performance since inception 12.74% p.a.
Totus Alpha Fund rose 4.5% net of fees in December taking the latest 12 month return to 53.40%.
NWQ Fiduciary Fund returned +2.22% for the month of December, to bring latest 12 month return to 17.18%.
Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund rose 0.72% for the month, outperforming the HFR Event Driven Index which closed down -0.9%, by 1.62%.
Signature Quantitative Fund rose 2.50% for the month of December, to bring annualised performance since inception to 10.40% p.a.
Morphic Global Opportunities Fund returned -2.48% in December to bring latest 12 month return to 9.08%.
APN Asian REIT Fund returned -0.48% in December. Since inception, the Fund has an annualised return of 15.97% p.a.
Freehold Absolute Return Fund delivered a positive 1.95% for the month of December.
Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund rose 0.25% in December.
APN AREIT Fund rose 4.67% in December to bring annualised return since inception to 17.73% p.a.
Laminar Credit Opportunities Fund returned +0.66% for the month of December.
Qato Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund rose 2.70%, compared to the S&P/ASX 100 Price Index, which returned 2.40%.
Supervised High Yield Fund produced a return of +0.37% for the month of December, to bring annualised performance since inception to 9.68% p.a.
Insync Global Titans Fund returned -1.90% for the month of December, to take the latest 24 months to 18.72%.
KIS Asia Long Short Fund rose 2.90% for December, outperforming the AFM Asia Pacific ex-Japan Index by 4.32%
FUND REVIEWS released this week: Meme Australian Share Fund; Bennelong Long Short Equity Fund; Optimal Australia Absolute Trust; Bennelong Kardinia Absolute Return Fund; Totus Alpha Fund; Morphic Global Opportunities Fund; Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund; APN Asian REIT Fund
And on that happy note it's good to be back, and as always I trust you have a safe and enjoyable week-end.
Regards,
Chris
CEO, AUSTRALIAN FUND MONITORS
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29 Jan 2016 - KIS Asia Long Short Fund
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Fund Overview | Whilst the Fund's primary strategy is focused on long/short equities, the ability to retain discretionary powers to allocate across a number of other investment strategies is reserved. These strategies may include, but not be limited to: convertible bond investments, portfolio hedging, equity related arbitrage, special situations (e.g. merger arbitrage, rights offerings, participation in international public offerings and placements, etc.). The Fund's geographic focus is Asia excluding Japan, but including Australia). The Fund may invest outside of this region to the extent that: 1. The investment decision is driven from the Asian region or; 2. The exposure is intended to mitigate risk or enhance return from factors external to the Asian region. |
Manager Comments | The Long Short strategy generated a profit of 220bp. The month's return were quite evenly split across both their long and short ideas with longs contributing 45% and shorts contributing 55% of this return. A good stock selection within the Consumer Discretionary sector which contributed 61bp, Industrials 86bp and Information Technology 83bp. Other strategies such as Special Situations contributed 60bp, while Portfolio Hedge did not make a significant contribution to the month's return. To read more, click below for Fund's Monthly performance report. |
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29 Jan 2016 - Supervised High Yield Fund
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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 | Investments in Australian corporate debts performed well over the month; whilst in the US Corporate Debt market, values of corporate loans generally fell offsetting the Australian gains. The Fund is now positioned to collect the benefits of any increase in Floating or Fixed rates in both Australia and the US. More than half of the portfolio's composition (as a percentage of NAV) was invested in Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) 61.88%. The rest of the portfolio composition was in USD Corporate Loans at 22.11%, Cash at 11.36% and AUD Corporate Loans at 4.65%. Click below to view the latest Fund Manager Report. |
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29 Jan 2016 - Insync Global Titans Fund
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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 the holdings in Medtronic, Microsoft, McDonald's and Roche. The main negative contributors were Oracle, Time Warner and Comcast. 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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28 Jan 2016 - Laminar Credit Opportunities Fund
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Fund Overview | The Fund may also invest in derivatives for hedging purposes. The portfolio of the Fund comprises primarily Investment Grade holding of 75% of the Fund's assets. Benchmark allocations are Australasia 50% to 100%, North America 0% to 50% and Europe 0% to 50%. Currency hedging may take place depending on benefits to the Fund. |
Manager Comments | Since inception, the Fund has an annualised return of 17.80% p.a (RBA Cash Rate Index 3.35% p.a), to give notable Sharpe and Sortino Ratio of 1.90 and 18.90 respectively. The Fund has delivered positive returns for over 95% of the months since inception. For December majority of the Fund's portfolio composition was in Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS) at 54%, followed by Short-dated loans at 21%. Click on the link below to read the latest Fund Manager's Report. |
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28 Jan 2016 - Fund Review: APN Asian REIT Fund December 2015
APN Asian REIT Fund
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the APN Asian REIT Fund.
We would like to highlight the following aspects of the Fund;
- APN is an ASX-listed fund manager specialising in property investment, with an investment team of six. Established in 1996, APN now has FUM of $A2.1bn including four REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) funds.
- The APN Asian REIT Fund (Fund) is a property securities fund that invests in a quality portfolio of Asian REITs, listed on the securities exchanges of the Asian Region, with the ability to hold some cash and fixed interest investments.
- The Fund aims to deliver a competitive yield with lower risk than the market. The underlying stocks are selected based on a highly disciplined investment approach that focuses on the fundamentals and number of valuation approaches. The universe can include new IPO's, other corporate actions take place and / or corporate governance improvements at country or REIT level bring new stocks into focus.
- The Fund provides access to a wide spread of property-based revenue streams that are specifically analysed, selected and weighted with the aim of delivering strong and sustainable income returns. The Fund is an unhedged product.
- APN's Asian REIT Fund invests in a portfolio of 25-40 listed Asian REITs with a core philosophy of investing in properties with a sustainable rental income streams.
- The Fund has delivered an annalised return of 15.97% p.a., since inception in July 2011 with standard deviation of 9.37% p.a. The Sharpe and Sortino ratios are 1.32 and 2.39 respectively.
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28 Jan 2016 - QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund
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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 | Qantas was the highest conviction stock for the month, ranking 1st overall on Qato's Q-Score. Qantas returned +16.87% in December, generating +14.47% of alpha. The Q-Score selected four positions from the worst ten S&P/ASX-100 positions in December, producing significant alpha for the Fund. The average net monthly exposure of the portfolio was 3.82%. Click below to the read the latest Fund Manager's Report. |
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27 Jan 2016 - Jamieson Coote Bonds Active Fund
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Fund Overview | JCBAF seeks to establish a mid to long term core portfolio using both domestic and global macroeconomic analysis. This is overlaid with a number of valuation indicators and international market intelligence from a global network of market moving investors, including central bankers and hedge funds, to construct an optimal indexed portfolio allocation at any given time. The Fund recognises short term oscillations driven by technical factors and supply dynamics create opportunities within short term pricing cycles, which can generate significant alpha when managed within a risk adjusted framework. The Fund aims to outperform its index using duration and curve management at appropriate times in the pricing cycle whilst retaining a core long. The JCB Active Fund gives direct access to the management team whilst providing portfolio balance with increased capital stability and a fixed income streams with both income and principle repayment secured by the Australian or State Governments. |
Manager Comments | The portfolio was positioned cautiously through early December, to navigate the first FOMC rate hike in almost 10 years. After the FOMC, the Fund added position to the portfolio to capture roll and carry over the Christmas holiday period by increasing basis positions to maximise carry. Click below to read the Fund's monthly performance and Fund Managers market outlook. |
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27 Jan 2016 - Fund Review Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund December 2015
PENGANA ABSOLUTE RETURN ASIA PACIFIC FUND
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund.
- The Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund ("PARAP") was established in 2008 by portfolio managers Antonio Meroni and Vikas Kumra. The Fund is a feeder fund into a Cayman Islands AUD share class fund.
- The Fund invests both long and short in Asia Pacific equities, including in Australian and New Zealand, after a stock specific "event" has either occurred or been announced and the portfolio aims to be uncorrelated to the underlying equity markets. A combination of the Manager's experience, thorough research and continuous back- testing identify the most attractive of these events.
- Risk controls include limits on individual positions as well as gross and net exposure. Limits are in place for option exposure and cash borrowing, with stop loss limits on individual positions. Overall the manager is looking to derive returns from the event strategies as opposed to any currency or market exposures.
- Since inception, the Fund has an annualised return of 10.12% p.a., compared to the AFM's Asia Pacific Index of 5.47%. The Fund has achieved this with lower volatility of 6.13% (Index 11.95%).
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.