NEWS
30 Jun 2016 - Fund Review: QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund May 2016
QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund.
We would like to highlight the following aspects of the Fund;
- Qato Capital is a Melbourne-based boutique fund manager backed by single family office, Larkfield Funds Management.
- Qato has a systematic, market-neutral strategy which invests exclusively in S&P/ASX 100 stocks.
- The QATO Capital's Q-score process captures and quantifies six broad fundamental factors, which assess multiple underlying sub-categories. Those companies with the top score (quality companies) are included in the "long" portfolio, those with the lowest score are sold short.
- The Fund seeks to preserve capital and maximise absolute returns through active and constant risk management, targeting monthly a net market exposure of 0% to hedge broader market risks through 30 S&P/ASX-100 positions (15 long & 15 short equally-weighted positions).
- Qato Capital's process is entirely systematic - stock selection and risk management are employed in a rules based approach. The Fund employs no financial leverage/gearing to purchase securities, no derivatives and no financial products to imitate leverage.
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
29 Jun 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 | Click below to read the latest monthly Fund Report. |
More Information |
28 Jun 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 Microsoft, Medtronic, Zimmer Holdings, Comcast and Reckitt Benckiser. A small negative contribution came from the holding in Mead Johnson Nutrition. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager Report. |
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27 Jun 2016 - Fund Review: Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund May 2016
BENNELONG TWENTY20 AUSTRALIAN EQUITIES FUND
Attached is our most recently updated Fund Review on the Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund.
- The Bennelong Twenty20 Fund invests in ASX listed stocks, combining an indexed position in the Top 20 stocks with an actively managed portfolio of stocks outside the Top 20. Construction of the ex-top 20 portfolio is fundamental, bottom-up, core investment style, biased to quality stocks, with a structured risk management approach.
- Mark East, the Fund's Chief Investment Officer, and Keith Kwang, Director of Quantitative Research have over 50 years combined market experience. Bennelong Funds Management (BFM) provides the investment manager, Bennelong Australian Equity Partners (BAEP) with infrastructure, operational, compliance and distribution services.
For further details on the Fund, please do not hesitate to contact us.
27 Jun 2016 - Pengana PanAgora Absolute Return Global Equities Fund
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Fund Overview | PanAgora believes the best way to find opportunities in the global markets is to combine fundamental analysis with robust quantitative techniques in order to filter the investment universe and select the investments. The Fund invests primarily in listed equity securities from a global universe of developed markets and a select group of emerging market countries. The Fund's objective is to seek absolute returns by identifying and exploiting multiple inefficiencies that may exist in global equity markets. These inefficiencies are primarily exploited through the use of a long/short equity strategy which aims to construct a portfolio that is generally neutral to market movements. As such the performance of the investment strategy is largely independent of the market's performance. The Fund seeks to achieve its objective by using a diversified set of strategies that have low correlation to one another. In addition, because many of these strategies are designed to generate profit under different market conditions, their combination is expected to result in more stable returns over time than any individual strategy in and of itself. |
Manager Comments | The Fund's performance was due to the short-term portfolio which recouped losses suffered last month. Profits were primarily generated in the Financials, IT, and Consumer Discretionary sectors. The performance was dragged down by both long and short positions with notable losses incurred in Penn West Petroleum, Noble Corp and Ensco Plc which were down 40%, 26%, and 17% respectively. Click below to read the latest Fund Manager's Report. |
More Information |
25 Jun 2016 - Hedge Clippings
Be careful of what you wish for....
I suppose it's always gratifying to be able to say "I told you so", or "don't tell me you weren't warned", but last week's Hedge Clippings was entitled "Lookout for the unknown unknowns", and went on as follows:
"I don't know if it is just me, boredom with the election campaign both here and in the US, or a case of going grey, getting old (and grumpy) but I get the feeling that something significant is going to shake the world's major economies and their current low growth, low inflation trends."
And even though we noted that Brexit was a "known unknown", all the smart money, if that's how one describes the bookies and various UK fund managers, were backing the REMAIN vote, and presumably putting their money where their mouths were. Sadly (for them) and for the stability of financial markets for the foreseeable future, based on current indications they got it badly wrong.
Of course in last week's Clippings we did go on to say that we didn't know what the event might be, when all the time it was right there in front of us. However, sometimes you just have trust your gut feeling, combined with a reasonable understanding of the peculiar vagaries of the psychology of the English, and the peculiarity of a voting system that relies on the weather to determine a nation's future.
So what happens now is anyone's guess, but what is certain is that volatility will be back with a capital V. Markets hate uncertainty, and that's now what they've got, and here in Australia we will not be immune to it.
Affluence Investment Fund rose 1.87% to take annualised return since inception to 11.8% p.a.
NWQ Fiduciary Fund rose 2.86% in May bringing the net performance for the trailing 12 months to 9.50%.
Bennelong Twenty20 Australian Equities Fund returned +4.48%, outperforming the ASX200 Accumulation Index by 1.39%.
Signature Quantitative Fund generated a positive return of 0.40% in May to take annualised return since inception to 7.18% p.a.
APN AREIT Fund returned +1.58% in May to take annualised return since inception to 18.46% p.a.
QATO Capital Market Neutral Long/Short Fund returned 2.19% in May. The Fund is negatively correlated to the S&P/ASX-100 Index (beta of -0.33).
FUND REVIEWS released this week: Bennelong Kardinia Absolute Return Fund; Pengana Absolute Return Asia Pacific Fund; APN Asian REIT;
And on that note, try to have a great weekend working out the ways of the World.
Regards,
Chris
CEO, AUSTRALIAN FUND MONITORS
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24 Jun 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 | The first half of the calendar year 2016 will be characterised as one of the largest junk rallies since 2009, where the worst performing companies from 2015 became desirable. In addition, speculative trading of commodities in China caused commodity prices globally to rally aggressively. Fast forward to today and the commodities rally has fizzled and prices of major commodities are significantly below their April highs. This change suggests that the demand for risk (beta) has started to diminish and a reversion towards fundamentals is underway - producing a much more favourable environment for QATO's negative beta strategy. |
More Information |
23 Jun 2016 - APN AREIT Fund
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Fund Overview | The senior management of APN FM all have significant experience in their fields. They include CEO Real Estate Securities, Michael Doble who has 25 years'experience having held various senior roles specialising in real estate valuation, consultancy and funds management. Immediately prior to joining APN in 2003 he was Head of Property at ANZ Funds Management. He is a fellow of the Australian Property Institute and FINSIA as well as holding a Bachelor of Business (Property). 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 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 suited to medium to long term investors seeking a relatively high monthly income and some capital growth over the long term. |
Manager Comments | Click below to read the complete Fund Manager's Report. |
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22 Jun 2016 - Signature Quantitative Fund
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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 | The Index Rebalance Effect significantly underperformed due to stock-specific news. Alpha Capture was a slight contributor with the market rewarding earnings led fundamentals and SQF's market exposure also contributed to performance. Dividend Arbitrage and Capital Raisings were flat for the month. Click the link below to view the latest Monthly Report. |
More Information |
22 Jun 2016 - Fund Review: APN Asian REIT Fund May 2016
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 sustainable rental income streams.
- The Fund has delivered an annalised return of 17.09% p.a., since inception in July 2011 with a standard deviation of 9.57% p.a. The Sharpe and Sortino ratios are 1.41 and 2.63 respectively.