Инвестиции - къде, как, какво? - Тема 3

В момента всеки, който не спекулира активно, а стои на дълги позиции, е на загуба. Но ако не е заложил парите си за насъщния, а излишъците си, може да чака възстановяване на пазара. А такова все някога ще дойде.

Джина, понеже са двата абзаца един след друг, да не си останала с грешно впечатление, при п2п също може да загубиш всичко. Все пак при добър подбор, рискът е доста малък.

Напоследък разглеждам моя фонд в Амунди и се чудя добре ли е зле ли е. Разбрах от разни видея, че т.н. ножица между фонда и бенчмарка не е ок, разбира се когато фонда е  долната част на ножицата. Също големи вариации нагоре надолу също говори за нестабилност. И колко години човек трябва да чака за да реши дали един фонд върви на добре или на зле. Кой е най-важният показател всъщност..

Напоследък разглеждам моя фонд в Амунди и се чудя добре ли е зле ли е. Разбрах от разни видея, че т.н. ножица между фонда и бенчмарка не е ок, разбира се когато фонда е  долната част на ножицата. Също големи вариации нагоре надолу също говори за нестабилност. И колко години човек трябва да чака за да реши дали един фонд върви на добре или на зле. Кой е най-важният показател всъщност..

Not a standout.
Senior Analyst Jack Shannon

Summary
by Jack Shannon
Oct 26, 2022

Pioneer Fund’s leadership team wisely focuses on downside risk, but its execution of the style does not stand out from similar-minded peers. Most of its share classes earn a Morningstar Analyst Rating of Neutral while its most expensive class gets a Negative.

Lead manager Jeff Kripke and comanager James Yu employ a reasonable, quality-focused investment philosophy that emphasizes managing downside risk through owning companies with long-term, defensible competitive advantages. However, this style is not unique among large blend Morningstar Category peers, and this team doesn’t execute better than others. The strategy added an ESG mandate to its prospectus in 2018, but the portfolio is ultimately undifferentiated from the index and category peers in terms of ESG risk. As of August 2022, the portfolio’s Morningstar Portfolio Corporate Sustainability Score was only slightly better than the Russell 1000 category index and slightly lagged the category average. Increased portfolio turnover suggests that the managers are not as long-term oriented as their philosophy would suggest and signals a potential disconnect in the process. The portfolio’s annual turnover ranked in the highest third of the category in the last three years. Since Kripke took over in July 2015, he initiated more than 165 new positions, and the average lifespan of those positions was roughly 17 months. More than half were held for less than a year.

Kripke and Yu give the strategy a solid base to build on, but Pioneer’s analyst team, which the managers rely on for idea generation and company-specific research, is not the picture of stability. Since 2020, more than half the team turned over, and the current roster is made up of eleven analysts, seven of whom were hired after the start of 2020. This turnover is not historically unique, though, and further churn would not be a surprise. Frequent turnover can be problematic as analysts are not able to develop strategy-specific expertise, which can create inconsistencies in execution.

There are positives here. Since Kripke took over in July 2015 through September 2022, the fund’s A shares’ return edged out the benchmark, bolstered by its downside performance. Still, better options remain.

Process - Average
by Jack Shannon
Oct 26, 2022

While a focus on downside protection is a strong point, this strategy is not alone in utilizing a risk-first, quality-focused approach, and it earns an Average Process rating.

This strategy specializes in assessing and managing downside risks. Jeff Kripke and James Yu believe that “only the paranoid survive.” They look to own companies that are robust enough to withstand any market condition, especially those with low debt, defendable competitive advantages, and the technology that allows them to grow and scale their businesses. Still, this is not the only downside-focused strategy around, and the team’s quality criteria are shared by many other competing offerings. This strategy is meant to be long-term oriented, but the managers’ trading habits suggest that shorter-term views often generate portfolio activity. For instance, the managers bought into and sold out of FedEx FDX five times since the start of 2017 and owned Microstrategy MSTR, a highly levered company heavily invested in Bitcoin, for six months in 2021.

In 2018, an updated prospectus formally stated that portfolio holdings must pass proprietary ESG screens. The fund traditionally excluded sin stocks like alcohol and tobacco companies, but according to Sustainalytics, the portfolio’s sustainability metrics did not materially improve after the change was enacted nor do they differ much from the Russell 1000 category index or large blend Morningstar Category peers.

This is a concentrated portfolio, with 43% of the fund’s assets sitting in its top-ten holdings as of August 2022. That level of concentration ranks in the highest quartile of the large blend Morningstar Category. The top holdings are not particularly unique, as at least a third of category rivals own each of the portfolio’s top ten stocks. The managers like the megacap technology companies that sit atop the Russell 1000 category index. They place a little under 20% of the portfolio in Alphabet GOOGL, Microsoft MSFT, and Apple AAPL, compared with less than 14% in the index, and this portfolio’s allocation to those three companies ranked in the highest decile among actively-managed peers in the category.

A recent uptick in portfolio turnover gives reason for pause, and recent trading habits indicate that shorter-term catalysts may drive portfolio activity. After generally hovering between 50-60% from 2015 through 2018, portfolio turnover jumped up to 71% in 2019, 91% in 2020, and 89% in 2021. Since lead manager Jeff Kripke took over in July 2015, more than half the new positions he initiated were held for less than a year, and the average holding period was under one-and-a-half years. Frequently, the trading involves moving in and out of the same stock. For instance, since the start of 2017 Kripke initiated a new position in and sold completely out of FedEx five times, Mastercard MC three times, and McCormick & Co MKC three times, among others.

People - Average
by Jack Shannon
Oct 26, 2022

A promising management team gives reason for optimism but continued turnover on the analyst team earns this strategy an Average People Rating.

Lead manager Jeff Kripke provides a solid foundation to build on. He was hired to run this strategy in 2015 following over a decade of portfolio management experience at Allianz and Wellington Management. At Wellington, he was often one of multiple subadvisors on strategies, so his exact track record is difficult to parse out. However, he brings a risk-first mindset to the table, and he focuses on creating a robust portfolio that can withstand negative shocks. Comanager James Yu adds additional weight to the strategy. He joined Pioneer as an analyst in 2015 and was promoted to his current role in 2019. As an analyst, Yu covered a wide breadth of sectors, including energy, consumer discretionary, and industrials, among others. Kripke and Yu collectively make portfolio decisions.

Pioneer’s analyst team remains a concern, though. Just four of the 11 sector analysts joined Pioneer prior to 2020, with three joining the team in mid-2022. Turnover in and of itself is not necessarily bad. However, frequent churn means the analyst team generally lacks institutional knowledge of the strategy’s managers, process, and goals, which can create inconsistencies in executing the process and, ultimately, the fund’s results.

Parent - Average
by Mara Dobrescu, CFA
Jan 18, 2022

Amundi is strengthening its foothold on passive and environmental, social, and governance investing, but operational and stewardship challenges remain, resulting in a Parent Pillar rating of Average.

Created by the merger of SGAM and CAAM in 2010, Amundi completed its IPO in 2015 and reinforced its status as a global player by acquiring rival Pioneer Investments in 2017. More recently in January 2022, it completed the acquisition of passive specialist Lyxor Asset Management, and the combined entity is now the second-largest exchange-traded fund provider in Europe.

As the integration between Amundi and Lyxor unfolds over the next few months, we expect duplicate passive offerings to be either gradually culled or repositioned to allow for product differentiation. In particular, the firm indicated its desire to continue giving investors a wide range of options between physical and synthetic replication, as well as between plain-vanilla and ESG versions of most benchmarks. Although the group does not plan to pass down the economies of scale created by the merger through generalized fee cuts on its ETF range, we appreciate that its passive products were already priced competitively relative to the industry average prior to the Lyxor acquisition. Meanwhile, Amundi has also continued the painstaking effort of rationalizing its active fund range, cutting down the number of mutual funds it offers by around two thirds since 2019. This could benefit investors as the group seeks to focus resources on its most successful franchises. But on the flip side, Amundi's ambitious ESG objectives have more recently led it to launch a significant number of new sustainable strategies, which could ultimately counteract these rationalization efforts.

Incentive structures for portfolio managers and analysts are in line with industry norms, and while some team members invest personally in the funds they manage, it's far from being a common practice at the firm. The group also continues to grapple with the operational challenges of a complex, multilayered organization. These came painfully into focus in 2021 when the French regulator Autorité des Marchés Financiers imposed a EUR 32 million fine on Amundi for significant failures in risk and trading controls that allowed two employees (one portfolio manager and one trader) to purposely favor one of the accounts they were responsible for over another identically managed account. During the AMF's multiyear investigation that culminated in the fine, Amundi had promptly reimbursed clients for the prejudice they incurred and took steps to close the gaps in its processes that had allowed the breaches to occur. Still, we view this regulatory incident as significant, and we will continue to monitor the company's efforts to shore up its risk and monitoring tools going forward.

Performance
Oct 26, 2022

Lead manager Jeff Kripke’s overall record is solid and buoyed by the fund’s ability to withstand downturns. Since he took control in July 2015, the fund’s 10.0% annualized return through September 2022 significantly outpaced the category average’s 7.8%, edged out the category index Russell 1000’s 9.7% rise, and matched the benchmark S&P 500’s gain. Over rolling three-year periods since he began, the fund beat the prospectus and category benchmark over 80% of the time. The impressive performance was mainly driven by Kripke’s sizable overweight to Alphabet and sage stock-picking in the industrials sector.

Kripke’s calling card of downside risk assessment is evident in the fund’s 93% downside capture ratio over his tenure, though the fund did not hold up in the 2022 sell-off through September. Since the start of the year through September, the fund underperformed the S&P 500 by nearly 2 percentage points, the Russell 1000 by a little more than 1, and the average rival by nearly two and a half. It was dragged down by its technology overweight, as top holdings like Microsoft and Alphabet each dropped by more than 30% over that same period, and Elanco Animal Health ELAN, which was a 3% position coming into the year, fell by over 50%. Still, through September 2022, Kripke managed to avoid many big losers. Aside from Elanco, only two other holdings declined by more than 40% during the periods Kripke owned them.

Price
Oct 26, 2022

It’s critical to evaluate expenses, as they come directly out of returns. The share class on this report levies a fee that ranks in its Morningstar category’s second-costliest quintile. That’s poor, and based on our assessment of the fund’s People, Process and Parent pillars in the context of these fees, we don’t think this share class will be able to deliver positive alpha relative to the category benchmark index, explaining its Morningstar Analyst Rating of Neutral.