NEWS
9 Dec 2009 - Performance Report: Regal Tasman Market Neutral Fund
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Manager Comments | Stocks experiencing corporate actions were the biggest winners on the long side. These included Sino Gold which is in the process of being taken over by El Dorado, Village which completed a large buyback, and the mining company Indophil which has been in takeover talks. On the short side the best performers were overvalued cyclicals such as Bluescope Steel and Brambles. Profit was also made on fund managers Perpetual and Platinum whose share prices may have increased too much and too quickly. The main loss in the month was BBI which had been a big winner for the fund in October, but fell when preference shares were converted to ordinary shares as part of a recapitalisation process. |
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9 Dec 2009 - Performance Report: Bennelong Securities Long Short Equity Fund
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Manager Comments | Looking ahead, Bennelong expects that equity markets will mark time over the holiday period as investors assess 2010 investment themes. |
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3 Dec 2009 - November absolute return and hedge fund review
Australian Fund Monitors has just released the November Absolute Return and Hedge Fund Review. Results for October were generally flat, but this still represents outperformance of around 2% when compared with equity markets.
This month we've taken a look at the "best of the best" equity funds to come up with a Model Portfolio. The results show an impressive performance: A portfolio of 10 locally managed and domiciled equity funds with an annualised return of 14.43%, a standard deviation of just 5.53%, a Sharpe ratio of 1.45 and a maximum drawdown of -5.65%.
Over the same three year period the ASX200 returned a negative -3.32%, a drawdown of over 50% at one stage, a negative Sharpe ratio, and volatility of over 17%.
For detailed analysis of performance for each strategy, industry comment and ranking tables, please open the attached .pdf file.

24 Nov 2009 - Performance Report: BlackRock Asset Allocation Alpha Fund (Class D)
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Manager Comments | Looking ahead, the manager believes there is still some way to go before it is worth worrying about either a relapse into recession or a sustained period of insipid economic growth. The manager says it is too early to expect any meaningful tightening of policy in the major economies due to massive output gaps and falling core inflation. “Central banks in the major developed countries continue to re-affirm that extreme settings are expected to remain warranted for an ‘extended period’. And governments are very unlikely to tighten fiscal policy while the labour market remains so weak and government bond markets remain well supported. As we have argued before this is the ‘sweet spot’ of the economic cycle for equities and risk assets more broadly.” |
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24 Nov 2009 - Performance Report: AUI Wingate Global Equity Income Fund
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Manager Comments | The manager said that a significant performance headwind for both the fund and its benchmark was generated by a combination of the weak equity market and stronger Australian dollar. Major contributors to the fund's performance included oil and gas companies BP and ConocoPhillips on the back of strong earnings announcements. During the month the manager increased exposure to McDonalds as well as two healthcare equipment providers, CR Bard and Becton Dickinson, all of which the manager believes exhibit attractive valuations, well established market positions and strong cash flows. |
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24 Nov 2009 - Performance Report: Apostle Loomis Sayles Credit Opportunities Fund
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Manager Comments | The fund moved to a 50/50 split between Bank Loans and riskier High Yield loans in July. Since then the High Yield portion has sisnificantly outperformed the Bank Loans which the manager says is consistent with broad market trends. The manager expressed concern about an apparent disparity between the real economy and investment markets. \'In the real economy, unemployment is rising (reducing consumer expenditures) and banks are not lending at a torrid pace to real businesses. Home prices will not likely find a floor until mid-2010 and commercial real estate seems to be in decline. Meanwhile, investment cash returns are essentially zero and has been flowing in high volume towards anything easily buyable: stocks, bonds, and commodities. This disparity is unsustainable, in our opinion. We worry that it will take so much time for the real economy to show real strength that a significant number of overlevered credits will default. Our scepticism continues to drive our portfolio construction.\' |
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24 Nov 2009 - Performance Report: Prodigal Absolute Cayman Fund
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Manager Comments | The manager says that their Convertible Arbitrage strategy performed strongly with two positions experiencing large increases in value. However the portfolio reduced holdings in some positions that had a limited expected return. On the Risk Arbitrage side opportunities are increasing as the number of deals being announced over the last few months has increased significantly. The fund's capital allocated to Risk Arbitrage has increased as a result which the manager says is in line with previously expressed expectations of forthcoming opportunities for the strategy. |
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18 Nov 2009 - Performance Report: Fortitude Capital Absolute Return Trust
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Manager Comments | Fortitude remains the stand out Australian manager when it comes to protecting downside risk, having only recorded four negative months in the four and a half years since inception, and a maximum drawdown of just 0.58% |
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18 Nov 2009 - Performance Report: Herschel Absolute Return Fund
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Manager Comments | Toward the end of the month the fund adopted a more defensive position, reducing its net equity market exposure to 38.8%, of which 85% was long and 46% short. |
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13 Nov 2009 - Performance Report: CSL Active Long/Short Programme
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Manager Comments | The strong performance was also driven by limited losses, mainly from the agricultural and grain sectors. Commodity Strategies also reported a strong month for their long only portfolio, with energy, metals and grains all contributing to the overall performance. |
More Information | » View detailed profile of this fund |