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Top 6 Highly rated global funds by category
Investment Funds

Top 6 Highly rated global funds by category

Sharing Alpha, the funds rating platform, has published their ranking of the highly rated global funds by category from April.
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31 MAY, 2021

By Constanza Ramos

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The funds rating platform Sharing Alpha has made a ranking with the highly rated funds by category from April. We have selected those who were global in order to bring you an overview of the funds that had better ratings in the past month of April. We have selected funds from Invesco, Lazard, Robeco, Baillie Gifford, Nutshell AM and Templeton.


ISIN

FUNDS

Category

Rent. 5 years ann
LU0052864419Invesco Global Consumer Trends FundConsumer Goods & Services Sector Equity23,36%
FR0000098683Lazard Convertible GlobalConvertibles12,18%
LU0187079347Robeco Global Consumer TrendsGlobal Equity Large Cap19,08%
IE00BD09K309Baillie Gifford Global Discovery FundGlobal Equity Mid/Small Cap23.55%* (3 years an.)
LU0152980495Templeton Global Bond FundGlobal Fixed Income-0,8%
IE00BLP46Q11Thornbridge Nutshell Global Equity UCITS FundGlobal Equity9.55% (2 years an.)

Ido Cohen, fund manager, Invesco Global Consumer Trends Fund

The consumer industry is experiencing a period of disruption that is changing the foundations of our society. Technology is changing how and where we shop, how we consume media, how we travel… therefore how we spend our money.

Technology is also demolishing many of the traditional barriers to traditional trade, causing global changes. All of these structural changes are creating winners and losers, generating an excellent environment for stock selection.

Consumption is one of the main long-term secular trends in the world. The portfolio management team tries to identify those companies that, thanks to their technology, are going to change consumer habits, anticipating changes and thus trying to take advantage of their great long-term growth potential.

Thanks to a very active and flexible management and a rigorous selection process, the fund managers look for those companies with great long-term potential that can change consumer behaviour.

Currently, the fund is positioned in two large blocks: 65% in digital consumption and 35% in traditional consumption. Digital consumption includes fast-growing categories such as ecommerce, entertainment (social media, streaming music, video games), online media, and e-sports (with multimillion audiences globally), among others.

In the traditional part, the exposition to sectors such as hotels, restaurants and leisure stand out, more focused on economic evolution.

As of April 30, the fund's performance reaches a 24% annualized return at 3 and 5 years.

Arnaud Brillois, Fund Manager, Lazard Convertible Global

During the month of April 2021, Lazard Convertible Global PD H EUR share class returned 1,03% versus 1,28% for its benchmark (Refinitiv/Thomson Reuters Global Focus Convertible Hedged EUR). The fund’s equity sensitivity slightly decreased in absolute and relative terms during the period, standing at 63.0% versus 53.2% for the benchmark at the end of the month.

Our equity exposure overweight added to relative performance overall: US overweight and Asia added while underweight to Europe detracted. Modified duration slightly decreased over the month, while remaining below the benchmark, standing at 1.97 versus 2.31.

Sensitivity to interest rates had a slightly positive absolute impact with lower US interest rates while relative performance was neutral. Continued credit spreads tightening both in the US and Europe, in the high yield space in particular, slightly added to absolute performance and was neutral to relative performance.

Security selections in US software and internet applications added to relative performance while consumer cyclical names and semiconductors cost us over the month.

Our underweight to media/communications, a specific a benchmark name, which we exclude from our investable universe for credit reasons, continued to detract to relative performance in April.

Over the month, we took some profits in European materials, reduced our exposure to pharmaceuticals and increased our exposure to healthcare equipment services, software and automotive. We also added a new position in airlines, from a very active primary market.

Jack Neele and Richard Speetjens, Portfolio Managers Robeco Global Consumer Trends

Robeco Global Consumer Trends is an actively managed fund that invests in stocks in developed and emerging countries across the world. The selection of these stocks is based on fundamental analysis. The fund's objective is to achieve a better return than the index.

The fund invests in a number of structural growth trends in consumer spending. The first is the "digital transformation of consumption". The second trend is that of the growth in the “emerging middle class”. The third trend focuses on the increasing importance of "health & wellbeing". The fund managers aims to select stocks of the structural winners within these trends.

From a strategy perspective, we remain true to our style and focus on the long-term structural winners in attractive growth trends. We believe that when the global economies reopen again, many of the trends that accelerated in 2020 will continue unabatedly in 2021. Even if the style rotation might have some more legs due to vaccine progress, a balance between Covid winners and companies that can benefit from the reopening trade is important.

If the companies we invest in, will deliver their full earnings potential, the high valuations will come down quickly as well.

Finally, earnings growth – also for cyclical companies – might be abundant in the recovery year 2021. When we look further out, economic growth might become more scarce again, which bodes well for our portfolio focused on long-term structural trends.

Brodie Douglas, Fund Manager, Baillie Gifford Global Discovery Fund 

We engage constructively with companies, encouraging long-term thinking and investing for growth, even in the face of the incessant short-termism of the market. 

True long-term investing isn’t easy. Resisting external pressures can be tough, so it’s no coincidence that our firm is a multi-generational private partnership.

The 47 partners all work within the firm and have unlimited liability, so our clients’ interests are aligned with ours. We don’t measure success or create targets around AUM or profitability, we measure it by the delivery of meaningful, after costs, outperformance for clients. 

Significant wealth creation is, and always has been, the preserve of a tiny fraction of companies with blue-sky opportunities and inspired leadership. Not, for us, seeking ‘market coverage’ or fixating on share prices.

We look for real-world opportunities as technology and business models evolve. This means we’re not simply active investors. We’re Actual Investors valuing constant learning, patience and fortitude

Our Worldwide Discovery strategy aims to produce superior long-term returns by investing in a portfolio of smaller, immature companies with significant growth potential. Its investment philosophy seeks innovative, entrepreneurial, problem-solving companies early in their lifecycle.

We believe these unique companies can lead to significantly better long-term outcomes and deliver real change, which if they get right will lead to sizable share-price appreciation. 

Our style of investment is well suited to, first, identifying interesting businesses early in their development and, subsequently, backing them with a long-term investment horizon and ability to look through short term volatility. The opportunity for superior returns arises because:

Our Worldwide Discovery team has a dual role: managing specialist small-cap funds; and co-ordinating Baillie Gifford’s search for small-cap ideas globally.

Historically the team have produced numerous investment ideas which have gone on to feature in Baillie Gifford’s large-cap strategies. Therefore, their insight is additive to Baillie Gifford’s investment capabilities as a whole and is beneficial to the Firm’s broader client base. 

Please note the Worldwide Discovery strategy is currently soft closed.

Mark Ellis, CEO Nutshell AM

We use an in-house proprietary bottom-up model and methodology, based on many fundamental factors, to narrow down the investment universe, with the final portfolio allocation based on manager discretion.

We focus on those rare exceptional companies which have a persistent comparative advantage over others in their sector. This is what is commonly referred to as a ‘’moat’. A moat can be anything from the ownership of key patents, to a strong brand, to a dominant market position in a sector that commands high switching costs.

Typically these are highly profitable businesses which offer stable earnings growth regardless of the economic environment. We are probably more nimble than some of our peers and will take profit on holdings where we think the expected long run return has fallen due to short term price appreciation. 

We also integrate ESG factors into the investment process, using positive and negative ranking biases based on ESG performance. On top of that, we exclude certain sectors which we feel uncomfortable about such as companies operating in the tobacco or fossil fuel industries.

Incorporating an ESG element into our process is the right thing to do from a moral perspective. But it’s also worth noting that recent academic research suggests that ESG inclusion may also benefit performance. Recently our portfolio has been awarded 5 Globes from Morningstar for its ESG credentials being in the top 2 percent of funds in the sector.  

In short, at Nutshell, we still believe that genuinely active managers, who focus on hunting down truly great companies at reasonable valuations, can deliver market-beating returns for their investors.

Michael Hasenstab and Calvin Ho Portfolio Managers Templeton Global Bond Fund

TGM also pioneered the use of ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) momentum analysis to identify countries that may be improving or deteriorating, as a way of identifying both attractive investment opportunities as well as risks to avoid. In February 2018, TGM published a paper (Global Macro Shifts; Issue 9) on the team’s ESG process and philosophy, detailing how the team codifies ESG scores for each country it covers, as well as the team’s forecasted changes in scores.

The key differentiator for TGM from other portfolio managers is the team’s emphasis on ESG momentum, rather than just the absolute level of a country’s ESG score. This is where the real insight lies – ESG as a compass, not just a measuring stick. The team’s projected ESG scores are then integrated into the investment process.

The team’s flagship strategy, the Templeton Global Bond Fund, has an investment objective of seeking current income with capital appreciation and growth of income by investing in sovereign bonds and currencies. The strategy will invest in developed and emerging markets, according to prevailing sources of medium- to longer-term value.

Quantitative and qualitative analysis is combined with on-the-ground research that leverages the insights of local analysts around the world. The team continually evaluates prevailing risks, shifting the risk budget to align with changes in global economic and financial market credit cycles.

Currently, the Global Bond Fund is predominantly allocated in local-currency sovereign bonds in a number of higher-yielding emerging markets, as well as various currency exposures against the US dollar and the euro. 

Looking ahead, the team expects a continued rebound in global economic activity through the second and third quarters of 2021 with areas of Asia at the forefront of the economic recovery.

TGM remains actively constructive in a number of markets, focusing on three core themes in upcoming quarters: (1) weakness in the euro and USD, on excessive fiscal and monetary policies, against currencies in countries with strong trade dynamics, current account surpluses, better fiscal management and stronger growth potential, notably in Asia; (2) avoiding interest-rate risks in low-yielding developed markets; and (3) pursuing sovereign bond investment opportunities.

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