The FSA Spy market buzz – 26 April 2024
Golden mystery, Next big Healthtech thing, Plastic everywhere, The Magnificent Seven wane, Dreary fund presentation hell, Putting The Economist in its place, A touch of Shakespeare and much more.
Performance
Run by one of the largest and most experienced UK equity teams, the Blackrock UK Absolute Alpha fund is a “very useful portfolio diversifier”, according to McDermott.
It has comfortably beaten the Investment Association Target Absolute Return sector average over three years (7.33% versus 4.49%), as well as its 3-months sterling Libor benchmark cumulative return of the period of 5.35%.
“Looking at the discrete annual performance data from FE Fundinfo, we can see 2015 (8.61%) and 2019 so far (8.21%) have produced the strongest annual returns, with 2018 the only year the fund incurred losses (6.02% versus 2.81% for the sector),” said McDermott.
Turning to the Church House Tenax Absolute Return Strategies Fund, its goal is to maintain a diversified portfolio, principally in direct investments, seeking low correlations with equity markets and preserving capital, according to McDermott.
“It targets positive returns over rolling 12-month periods and Libor + 4% over rolling three-year periods,” he explained.
During the past three years the fund has returned 8.01% with 2016 the strongest year of discrete performance (7.57%) – while 2018 was also the only year this fund saw its assets fall (-1.75%), he noted.
The three-year annualised volatility of the Blackrock fund (8.85%) is slightly higher than that of the Church House fund (8.07%), which is perhaps to be expected because of the consistently larger allocation to equity markets made by the Blackrock manager.
Golden mystery, Next big Healthtech thing, Plastic everywhere, The Magnificent Seven wane, Dreary fund presentation hell, Putting The Economist in its place, A touch of Shakespeare and much more.
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