The manager took over this fund at the end of 2015. Ed had an excellent track record at his previous company. Since taking on this strategy the fund has struggled to outperform the benchmark. The fund has a high active share class. An active share score of 100 indicates that the equity portion of the fund and its benchmark have no common holdings. Looking at the high-level data it seems that although the fund captures significantly on the upside, it does not protect on the downside. In 2020 at the lowest point the fund was down nearly 40% against a benchmark down just over 30%. Although the fund has recovered some of those loses it has had to work harder to catch up with the benchmark.
Taking this a step further the volatility measure over three years is 23.04% compared to the benchmark of 14.67%. This means investors are taking on more risk/volatility to get the returns, and the ride will be bumpy. The fund appears to have a bias to value stocks. This might not be value in the true sense, but it may be unloved areas of the markets. As an example, Barclays is a top-5 holding and a strong bias to areas like this will make it harder for the fund to outperform. On the flip side, if there is a recovery in these areas then this fund could do very well in a short period of time….read more