Investors should prefer the certainty of index funds which track the index less passive fees, than the hope and disappointment of active funds which, in aggregate, track the index less active fees.
In this series of articles, I look at some of the key topics explored in my book “How to Invest With Exchange Traded Funds” that also underpin the portfolio design work Elston does for discretionary managers and financial advisers. Clarifying terms We believe that typically an index fund or ETF can perfectly well replace an active fund for a given asset class exposure. As with all disruptive technologies, many column inches have been dedicated to the “active vs passive” debate. However, with poorly defined terms, much of this is off-point. If active investing is referring to active (we prefer “dynamic”) asset allocation: we fully concur. There need be no debate on this topic. Making informed choices on asset allocation – either using a systematic or non-systematic decision-making process – is an essential part of portfolio management. If, however, active investing refers to fund manager or security selection, this is more contentious, and this should be the primary topic of debate. Theoretical context: the Efficient Market Hypothesis The theoretical context for this active vs passive debates is centred on the notion of market efficiency. The efficient market hypothesis is the theory that all asset prices reflect all the available past and present information that might impact that price. This means that the consistent generation of excess returns at a security level is impossible. Put differently, it implies that securities always trade at their fair value making it impossible to consistently outperform the overall market based on security selection. This is consistent with the financial theory that asset prices move randomly and thus cannot be predicted . Putting the theory into practice means that where markets are informationally efficient (for example developed markets like the US and UK equity markets), consistent outperformance is not achievable, and hence a passive investment strategy make sense (buying and holding a portfolio of all the securities in a benchmark for that asset class exposure). Where markets are informationally inefficient (for example frontier markets such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam ) there is opportunity for an active investment strategy to outperform a passive investment strategy net of fees. Our view is that liquid indexable markets are efficient and therefore in most cases it makes sense to access these markets using index-tracking funds and ETFs, in order to obtain the aggregate return for each market, less passive fees. This is because, owing to the poor arithmetic of active management, the aggregate return for all active managers is the index less active fees. The poor arithmetic of active management Bill Sharpe, the Nobel prize winner, and creator of the eponymous Sharpe Ratio, authored a paper “The Arithmetic of Active Management” that is mindblowing in its simplicity, and is well worth a read. We all know the criticism of passive investing by active managers is that index fund [for a given asset class] delivers the performance of the index less passive fees so is “guaranteed” to underperform. That’s true, but it misses a major point. The premise of Sharpe’s paper is that the performance, in aggregate, of all active managers [for a given asset class] is the index less active fees. Wait. Read that again. Yes, that’s right. The performance of all active managers is, in aggregate (for a given asset class) the index less active fees. Sounds like a worse deal than an index fund? It’s because it is. How is this? Exploring the arithmetic of active Take the UK equity market as an example. There are approximately 600 companies in the FTSE All Share Index. Now imagine there are only two managers of two active UK equity funds, Dr. Star and Dr. Dog. Dr. Star consistently buys, with perfect foresight, the top 300 performing shares of the FTSE All Share Index each year, year in year out, consistently over time. This is because he avoids the bottom 300 worst performing shares. His performance is stellar. That means there are 300 shares that Dr. Star does not own, or has sold to another investor, namely to Dr. Dog. Dr. Dog therefore consistently buys, with perfect error, the worst 300 performing shares of the FTSE All Share Index each year, year in year out, consistently over time. His performance is terrible. However, in aggregate, the combined performance of Dr. Star and Dr. Dog is the same as the performance of the index of all 600 stocks, less Dr. Star’s justifiable fees, and Dr. Dog’s unjustifiable fees. The performance of both active managers is, in aggregate, the index less active fees. It’s a zero sum game. In the real world the challenge of persistency – persistently outperforming the index to be Dr.Star – means that over time it is very hard, in efficient markets to persistently outperform the index. So investors have a choice. They can either pay a game of hope and fear, hoping to consistently find Dr. Star as their manager. Or they can be less exciting, rational investor who focus on asset allocation and implement it using index fund to buy the whole market for a given asset exposure keep fees down. Given this poor “arithmetic” of active management, why would you ever chose an active fund (in aggregate, the index less active fees) over a passive fund (in aggregate the index less passive fees)? Quite. Monitoring performance consistency The inability of non-index active funds to consistently outperform their respective index is evidenced both in efficient market theory, and in practice. Consistent with the Efficient Market Hypothesis, studies have shown that actively managed funds generally underperform their respective indices over the long-run and one of the main determinant of performance persistency is fund expenses . Put differently, lower fee funds offer better value for money than higher fee funds for the same given exposure. This is a key focus area from the UK regulator as outlined in the Asset Management Market Study. In practice, the majority of GBP-denominated funds available to UK investors have underperformed a related index over longer time horizons. Whilst the percentage of funds that have beaten an index over any single year may fluctuate from year to year, no active fund category evaluated has a majority of outperforming active funds when measured over a 10-year period. This tendency is consistent with findings on US and European based funds, based on the regularly published “SPIVA Study”. The poor value of active managers who “closet index” “Closet indexing” is a term first formalised by academics Cremers and Petajisto in 2009 . It refers to funds whose objectives and fees are characteristic of an active fund, but whose holdings and performance is characteristic of a passive fund. Their study and metrics around “active share” and “closet indexing” caused a stir in the financial pages on both sides of the Atlantic as active fund managers started to watch the persistent rise of ETFs and other index-tracking products. The issue around closet index funds is not simply about fees. It’s as much about transparency and customer expectations. Understanding Active Share Active Share is a useful indicator developed by Cremers and Petajisto as to what extent an active (non-index) fund is indeed “active”. This is because whilst standard metrics such as Tracking Error look at the variability of performance difference, active share looks at to what extent the weight of the holdings within a fund are different to the weight of the holdings within the corresponding index. The higher the Active Share, the more likely the fund is “True Active”. The lower the Active Share, the more likely the fund is a “Closet Index”. How can you define “closet indexing”? There has been some speculation as to what methodology the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) used to deem funds a “closet index”. In this respect, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the pan-European regulator’s 2016 paper may be informative. Their study applied a screen to focus on funds with 1) assets under management of over €50m, 2) an inception date prior to January 2005, 3) Fees of 0.65% or more, and 4) were not marketed as index funds. Having created this screen, ESMA ran three metrics to test for a fund’s proximity to an index: active share, tracking error and R-Squared. On this basis, a fund with low active share, low tracking error and high R-Squared means it is very similar to index-tracking fund. Based on ESMA’s criteria, we estimate that between €400bn and €1,200bn of funds available across the EU could be defined as “closet index” funds. That’s a lot of wasted fees. Defining “true active” We believe there is an essential role to play for “true active”. By this we mean high conviction fund strategies either at an asset allocation level. True active (asset allocation level): at an asset allocation level, hedge funds which have the ability to invest across assets and have the ability to vary within wide ranges their risk exposure (by going both long and short and/or deploying leverage) would be defined as “true active”. Target Absolute Return (TAR) funds could also be defined as true active given the nature of their investment process. Analysing their performance or setting criteria for performance evaluation is outside the scope of this book. However given the lacklustre performance both of Hedge Funds in aggregate (as represented by the HFRX index) and of Target Absolute Return funds (as represented by the IA sector performance relative to a simple 60/40 investment strategy), emphasises the need for focus on manager selection, performance consistency and value for money. True active (fund level): we would define true active fund managers as those which manage long-only investments, either in hard-to-access asset classes or those which manage investments in readily accessible asset classes but in a successfully idiosyncratic way. It is the last group of “active managers” that face the most scrutiny as their investment opportunity set is identical to that of the index funds that they aim to beat. True active managers in traditional long-only asset classes must necessarily take an idiosyncratic non-index based approach. In order to do so, they need to adopt one or more of the following characteristics, in our view:
Their success, or otherwise, will depend on the quality of their skill and judgement, the quality of their internal research resource, and their ability to absorb and process information to exploit any information inefficiencies in the market. True active managers who can consistently deliver on objectives after fees will have no difficulty explaining their skill and no difficulty in attracting clients. By blending an ETF portfolio with a selection of true active funds, investors can reduce fees on standard asset class exposures to free up fee budget for genuinely differentiated managers. Summary In conclusion, “active” and “passive” are lazy terms. There is no such thing as passive. There is static and dynamic asset allocation, there is systematic and non-systematic tactical allocation, there is index-investing and non-index investing, there are traditional index weighting and alternative index weighting schemes. The use of any or all of these disciplines requires active choices by investors or managers. What kind of investor are you: a stock selector, a manager selector or an index investor?
In this series of articles, I look at some of the key topics explored in my book “How to Invest With Exchange Traded Funds” that also underpin the portfolio design work Elston does for discretionary managers and financial advisers. In previous articles, we looked at things to consider when designing a multi-asset portfolio. Let’s say, for illustration, an investor decides on a balanced portfolio invested 60% in equities and 40% in bonds. The “classic” 60/40 portfolio. You now have a number of options of how to populate the equity allocation within that portfolio. We look at each option in turn. Equity exposure using direct equities: “the stock selectors” This is the original approach, and, for some, the best. We call this group “Stock Selectors”: investors who prefer to research and select individual equities and construct, monitor and manage their own portfolios. To achieve diversification across a number of equities, a minimum of 30 stocks is typically required (at one event I went to for retail investors I was slightly nervous when it transpired that most people attending held fewer than 10 stocks in their portfolio). Across these 30 or more stocks, investors should give due regards to country and sector allocations. Some golden rules of stock picking would include:
The advantage of investing in direct equities is the ability to design and manage your own style, process and trading rules. Also by investing direct equities there are no management fees creating performance drag. But when buying and selling shares, there are of course transactional, and other frictional costs, such as share dealing costs and Stamp Duty. The most alluring advantage of this approach is the potential for index-beating and manager-beating returns. But whilst the potential is of course there, as with active managers, persistency is the problem. The more developed markets are “efficient” which means that news and information about a company is generally already priced in. So to identify an inefficiency you need an information advantage or an analytical advantage to spot something that most other investors haven’t. Ultimately you are participant in a zero-sum game, but the advantage is that if you can put the time, hours and energy in, it’s an insightful and fascinating journey. The disadvantage of direct equity is that if it requires at least 30 stocks to have a diversified portfolio, then it requires time, effort and confidence to select and then manage those positions. The other disadvantage is the lack of diversification compared to a fund-based approach (whether active or passive). This means that direct investors are taking “stock specific risks” (risks that are specific to a single company’s shares), rather than broader market risk. In normal markets, that can seem ok, but when you have occasional outsize moves owing to company-specific factors, you have to be ready to take the pain and make the decision to stick with it or to cut and run. What does the evidence say? The evidence suggests that, in aggregate, retail investors do a poor job at beating the market. The Dalbar study in the US, published since 1994, compares the performance of investors who select their own stocks relative to a straightforward “buy-and-hold” investment in an index funds or ETF that tracks the S&P500, the benchmark that consists of the 500 largest traded US companies. The results consistently show that, in aggregate, retail investors fare a lot worse than an index investor. Reasons for this could be for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to:
But selecting the “right” 30 or more stocks is labour-intensive, and time-consuming. So if you enjoy this and are confident doing this yourself, then there’s nothing stopping you. Indeed, you may be one of the few who can, or think you can, consistently outperform the index year in, year out. But it’s worth remembering that the majority of investors don’t manage to. For most people, a direct equity/direct bond portfolio is overly complex to create, labour intensive to manage and insufficiently diversified to be able to sleep well at night. Furthermore owning bonds directly is near impossible owing to the high lot sizes. So why bother? Investors who want to leave stock picking to someone else have two options to be “fund” investors selecting active funds. Or “index” investors selecting passive funds. Equity exposure using active funds: the “manager selectors” A fund based approach means holding a single investment in fund which in turn holds a large number of underlying equities, or bonds, or both. Investor who want to leave it to an expert to actively pick winners and avoid losers can pick an actively managed fund. We call this group “Manager Selectors”. But then you have to pick the “right” actively managed fund, which also takes time and effort to research and select a number of equity funds from active managers, or seek out “star” managers who aim to consistently outperform a designated benchmark for their respective asset class. And whilst we all get reminded that past performance is not an indicator of future performance, there isn’t much else to go by. In this respect access to impartial independent research and high quality,unbiased fund lists is an invaluable time-saving resource. The advantage of this approach that with a single fund you can access a broadly diversified selection of stocks picked by a professional. The disadvantage of this approach is that management fees are a drag on returns and yet few funds persistently outperform their respective benchmark over the long-run raising the question as to whether they are worth their fees. This is evidenced in a quarterly updated study known as the SPIVA Study, published by S&P Dow Jones Indices, which compares the persistency of active fund performance relative to asset class benchmarks. For efficient markets, such as US & UK equities, the results are usually quite sobering reading for those who are prefer active funds. Indeed many so-called active funds have been outed as “closet index-tracking funds” charging active-style fees, for passive-like returns. So of course there are “star” managers who are in vogue for a while or even for some time. But it’s more important to make sure a portfolio is properly allocated, and diversified across managers, as investors exposed to Woodford found out. In my view, an all active fund portfolio is overly expensive for what it provides. Whilst the debate around stock picking will run and run (and won’t be won or lost in this article), consider at least the bond exposures within a portfolio. An “active” UK Government Bond fund has the same or similar holdings to a “passive” index-tracking UK Government Bond fund but charges 0.60% instead of 0.20%, with near identical performance (except greater fee drag). Have you read about a star all-gilts manager in the press? Nor have I. So why pay the additional fee? What about hedge funds? Hedge funds come under the “true active” category because overall allocation exposure can vary greatly, and there is the ability to position a fund to benefit from falls or rises in securities or whole markets, and the ability to borrow money to invest more than the fund’s original value. But most “true active” hedge funds are not available to retail investors who are more limited to traditional “long-only” retail funds for each asset class. Equity exposure using index funds: the “index investor” Investors who don’ want the time, hassle or cost of picking active managers, or believe that markets are “efficient” often use passive index-tracking funds. We call this group “Index Investors” (full disclosure: I am a member of this group!). These are investors who want to focus primarily on getting the right asset allocation to achieve their objectives, and implement and actively manage that asset allocation but using low cost index funds and/or index-tracking ETFs. The advantage of this approach is transparency around the asset mix, broad diversification and lower cost relative to active managers. The disadvantage of this approach is that it sounds, well, boring. Ignoring the news on companies’ share prices are up or down and which single-asset funds are stars and which are dogs would mean 80% of personal finance news and commentary becomes irrelevant! On this basis, my preference is to be a 100% index investor – the asset allocation strategy may differ for the different objectives between my parents, myself and my kids. But the building blocks that make up the equity, bond and even alternative exposures within those strategies can all index-based. A blended approach Whilst my preference is to be an index investor, I don’t disagree, however, that it’s interesting, enjoyable and potentially rewarding for some retail investors and/or their advisers to spend time choosing managers and picking stocks, where they have high conviction and/or superior insight. Traditionally the bulk of retail investors were in active funds. This is extreme. More and more are becoming 100% index investors: this is also extreme. There’s plenty of ground for a common sense blended approach in the middle. For cost, diversification and liquidity reasons, I would want the core of any portfolio to be in index funds or ETFs. I would want the bulk of my equity exposure to be in index funds, with moderate active fund exposure to selected less efficient markets (for example) small caps, and up to 10% in a handful of direct equity holdings that you follow, know and like. What would a blended approach look like for a 60/40 equity/bond portfolio? 60% equity of which Min 70% index funds/ETFs Max 20% active funds Max 10% direct equity “picks”/ideas 40% bonds of which 100% index funds Summary For most investors, investing is something that needs to get done, like opening a bank account. If you are in this group then using a ready-made model portfolio or low-cost multi-asset fund, like a Target Date Fund, may make sense. For some investors, investing is more like a hobby – something that you are happy to spend time and effort doing. If you are in this group, you have to decide if you are a Stock Selector, Manager Selector or Index Investor, or a blend of all three, and research and build your portfolio accordingly.
Focus on index methodology Methodology is the genetic code of an index. The rules that govern how an index is constructed determines what’s in it, at what weights, and therefore how it will perform in relation to the performance of all its components. A handful of (mainly older) indices are price-weighted indices (such as the DJIA (in the US, since 1896), FT30 (in the UK, since 1935), and Nikkei 225 (in Japan, since 1950). This means the weight of each stock in the index is determined by its price relative to the summed prices of all the constituents of the index. The bulk of the most familiar, and most tracked, indices are capitalisation-weighted indices. This means the weight of each stock in the index is determined by its (often free-float-adjusted) market capitalisation relative to the aggregated market capitalisation of all the constituents of the index. This leads to one of an oft-cited critique of mainstream indices that they become “pro-cyclical”: namely, they allocate an increasing weight to the best performing stocks, and a decreasing weight to the worst performing stocks. This is true, but is coloured by your view as to which comes first, the stock performance chicken, or the index performance egg. Looking at concentration risk What is certainly true is that changes in company capitalisation can create significant stock concentrations in mainstream indices. For example, the top 5 holdings in the S&P 500 (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook) currently represent 21.6% of that index. The top 30 stocks represent 44.6%, and the top 100 stocks represent 69.9%. The remaining 400 stocks are a long tail of relatively smaller companies whose individual change in value will not materially impact the overall index performance. Fig.1. S&P500 Concentration ![]() Size-bias is a choice not an obligation Index concentration, and related “size-bias”, the relative over-weighting of the largest companies, is however a choice, not an obligation for index investors. The existence of equal-weight indices enable a less concentrated exposure to the same components of an index. Whilst this solves the stock concentration risk, it creates a “Fear of Missing Out risk” when those large stocks are doing well. So, if choosing to use an equal-weighted index to reduce dependency on a concentrated index, communication is key. Reducing stock-specific risk may be welcome with end clients in theory, but clear messaging is required to explain that investment performance will not be comparable to the performance of funds (whether active or passive) using traditional capitalisation weighted benchmarks. End investors may feel they miss out when sentiment in the largest names is strong. But will be relieved when the reverse applies. On the basis that many investors are asymmetrically loss-averse, the more evenly distributed stock risk of an equal-weighted index could be something to consider. But only once any potential “Fear of Missing Out” has been discussed and addressed. Fig.2. S&P 500 vs S&P 500 Equal Weight, YTD Performance (USD terms); Fig.3. & FTSE 100 vs FTSE 100 Equal Weight, YTD Performance (GBP terms) Source: Elston Research, Bloomberg data, as at 18-Sep-20
Index selection is an active choice There’s no such thing as passive. Index investing is about adopting a systematic, rules-based approach to stock selection. There is an active choice to be made around methodology and index selection. If you don’t want to always hold the largest stocks, then don’t use a cap-weighted index. If you want to hold stocks based on other criteria – their earnings, their dividends, their style, or just equally weighted – there are plenty of other indices to choose from. It’s up to the index investor to make that active choice. While there are no shortage of limitations and no “right” answers, portfolio theory nonetheless remains, rightly, the bedrock of traditional multi-asset portfolio design.
In this series of articles, I look at some of the key topics explored in my book “How to Invest With Exchange Traded Funds” that also underpin the portfolio design work Elston does for discretionary managers and financial advisers. Portfolio theory in a nutshell Portfolio theory, in a nutshell, is a framework as to how to construct an “optimised” portfolio using a range of asset classes, such as Equities, Bonds, Alternatives (neither equities nor bonds) and Cash. An “optimised” portfolio has the highest unit of potential return per unit of risk (volatility) taken. The aim of a multi-asset portfolio is to maximise expected portfolio returns for a given level of portfolio risk, on the basis that risk and reward are the flipside of the same coin. The introduction of “Alternative” assets, that are not correlated with equities or bonds (so that one “zigs” when the other “zags”), helps diversify portfolios, like a stabilizer. Done properly, this can help reduce portfolio volatility to less than the sum of its parts. Whilst the framework of Modern Portfolio Theory was coined by Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz in 1952, the key assumptions for portfolios theory – namely which asset classes, their returns, risk and correlations are, by their nature, just estimates. So using portfolio theory as a guide to designing portfolios is only as good as the quality of the inputs assumptions selected by the user. And those assumptions are ever-changing. Furthermore, the constraints imposed when designing or optimising a portfolio will determine the end shape of the portfolio for any given optimisation. And those constraints are subjective to the designer. So portfolio design is part art, part science, and part common sense. Whilst there are no shortage of limitations and no “right” answers, portfolio theory nonetheless remains, rightly, the bedrock of traditional multi-asset portfolio design. What differentiates multi-asset portfolios? A portfolio’s asset allocation is the key determinant of portfolio outcomes and the main driver of portfolio risk and return. Ensuring the asset allocation is aligned to an appropriate risk-return objective is therefore essential. Getting and keeping the asset allocation on track for the given objectives and constraints is how portfolio managers – whether of model portfolios or of multi-asset funds – can add most value for their clients. There are no “secrets” to asset allocation in portfolio management. It is perhaps one of the most well-studied and researched fields of finance. Stripping all the theory down to its bare bones, there are, in my view, three key decisions when designing multi-asset portfolios:
Strategic allocation is expected to answer the key questions of what are a portfolio’s objectives, and what are its constraints. The mix of assets is defined such as to maximise the probability of achieving those objectives, subject to any specified constraints. Objectives can be, for example:
Strategic allocations should be reviewed possibly each year and certainly not less than every 5 years. This is because assumptions change over time, all the time. Static vs Dynamic One of the key considerations when it comes to managing an allocation is to whether to adopt a static or dynamic approach. A strategy with a “static” allocation, means the portfolios is rebalanced periodically back to the original strategic weights. The frequency of rebalancing can depend on the degree of “drift” that is allowed, but constrained by the frictional costs involved in implementing the rebalancing. A strategy with a “dynamic” approach, means the asset allocation of the portfolios changes over time, and adapts to changing market or economic conditions. Dynamic or Tactical allocation, can be either with return-enhancing objective or a risk-reducing objective or both, or optimised to some other portfolio risk or return objective such as income yield. For very long-term investors, such as endowment funds, a broadly static allocation approach will do just fine. Where very long-term time horizons are involved, the cost of trading may not be worthwhile. As time horizons shorten, the importance of a dynamic approach becomes increasingly important. Put simply, if you were investing for 50 years, tactical tweaks around the strategic allocation, won’t make as big a difference as if you were investing for just 5 years. This is because risk (as defined by volatility) is different for different time frames, and is higher for shorter time periods, and lower for longer time periods. In a way this is also just common sense. If you are saving up funds to buy a house, you will invest those funds differently if you are planning to buy a house in 3 years or 30 years. Time matters so much as it impacts objectives and constraints, as well as risk and return. Access Preferences Managers need to make implementation decisions as regards how they access particular asset classes or exposures – with direct securities, higher cost active/non-index funds, or lower cost passive/index funds and ETFs. Fund level due diligence as regards underlying holdings, concentrations, round-trip dealing costs and internal and external fund liquidity profiles are key in this respect. The choice between direct equities, higher cost active funds or lower cost index funds is a key one and is the subject of a later article. Types of multi-asset strategy There is a broad range of multi-asset strategies available to investors, whose relevance depends on the investor’s needs and preferences. To self-directed investors, these multi-asset portfolios are made easier to access and monitor through multi-asset funds, many of which are themselves constructed wholly or partly with index funds and/or ETFs. We categorise multi-asset funds into the following groups (using our own naming conventions based on design: these do not exist as official “multi-asset sectors”, unfortunately): Relative Risk Relative risk strategies target a percentage allocation to equities so the risk and return of the strategy is in consistent relative proportion the (ever-changing) risk and return of the equity markets. This is the most common approach to multi-asset strategies. Put differently, asset weights drive portfolio risk. Examples include Vanguard LifeStrategy, HSBC Global Strategy and other traditional multi-asset funds. Target Risk Target risk strategies target a specific volatility level or range. This means the percentage allocation to equities is constantly changing to preserve a target volatility band. Put differently, portfolio risk objectives drive asset weights. Examples of this approach include BlackRock MyMap funds. Target Return Target return strategies target a specific return level in excess of a benchmark rate e.g. LIBOR, and take the required risk to get there. This is good in theory for return targeting, but results are not guaranteed. Examples of this approach include funds in the Target Absolute Return sector, such as ASI Global Absolute Return. Target Date Target Date Funds adapt an asset allocation over time from higher risk to lower, expecting regular withdrawals after the target date. This type of strategy works as “ready-made” age-based fund whose risk profile changes over time. Examples of target date funds include Vanguard Target Retirement Funds, and the Architas BirthStar Target Date Funds (managed by AllianceBernstein)*. Target Income Target income funds target an absolute level of income or a target distribution yield. Examples of this type of fund include JPMorgan Multi-Asset Income. Target Term Funds These exist in the US, but not the UK, and are a type of fund that work like a bond: you invest a capital amount at the beginning, receive a regular distribution, and then receive a capital payment at the end of the target term. For self-directed investors, choosing the approach that aligns best to your needs and requirements, and then selecting a fund within that sub-sector that has potential to deliver on those objectives – at good value for money – is the key decision for building a robust investment strategy. The (lack of) secrets The secret is, there are no secrets. Good portfolio design is about informed common senses. It means focusing on what will deliver on portfolio objectives and making sure those objectives are clearly identifiable by investors. Designing and building your own multi-asset portfolio is interesting and rewarding. Equally there are a range of ready-made options to chose from. The most important question is to consider to what extent a strategy is consistent with your own needs and requirements. * Note: funds referenced do not represent an endorsement or personal recommendation. Disclosure: until 2015, Elston was involved in the design and development of this fund range, but now receives no commercial benefit from these funds. In this series of articles, I look at some of the key topics explored in my book “How to Invest With Exchange Traded Funds” that also underpin the portfolio design work Elston does for discretionary managers and financial advisers.
Aligning investment strategy with objectives Investing can be defined as putting capital at risk of gain or loss to earn a return in excess of what can be received from a risk-free asset such as cash or a government bond over the medium-to long-term. There can be any number of motives for investing: it could be to fund a future retirement via a SIPP, or to fund future university fees via a JISA. Online tools and calculators can help estimate how much is required to invest today to fund goals in the future. Investors can target a particular return, but learn to understand that the higher the required return, the higher the required level of portfolio risk. Risk and return are the “ying and yang” of investment. You can’t get one without the other. Total return can be broken down into income yield (dividends from equities and interest from bonds) and capital growth. In the UK, income and gains are taxed at different rates. If investing within a tax-efficient account, like a SIPP or an ISA, then income and gains are tax-free. If investing outside a tax-efficient account, investors must also then consider in their objectives how they want to receive total return – with a bias towards income or with a bias towards growth. Given the majority of DIY investors are able to make use of tax-efficient accounts, there is less need to consider income or growth, with many investors opting to focus on Total Returns and to use funds that offer “Accumulating” units that reinvest income, and reflect a fund’s total return. How then to build a portfolio to deliver an appropriate level of risk-return? What matters most when investing? For the purposes of these articles, I assume that readers need no reminder of the basic checklist of investing: to start early, to maximise allowances, keep topping up regularly, and to keep costs down. Then comes the key decision – what to invest in. The main driver of portfolio risk and return is not which stocks or equity funds are within a portfolio, but what the proportion is between higher risk-return assets such as equities, and lower risk-return assets such as shorter duration bonds. Put simply, whether to invest 20%, 60% or 100% of a portfolio in equities, will have a greater impact on overall portfolio returns, than the selection of shares or funds within that equity allocation. For example, when making spaghetti Bolognese, the ratio between spaghetti and Bolognese impacts the “outcome” of the overall meal, more than how finely chopped the onions are within the Bolognese recipe. While this may seem obvious, it gets lost in all the noise and news that focuses on hot stocks, star managers and performance rankings. For those that want to back up common sense with academic theory, the academic articles most referenced that explore this topic are Brinson Hood & Beebower (1986), Ibboton & Kaplan (2000), and Ibbotson, Xiong, Idzorek & Cheng (2010), all referenced and summarised in my book. Building a multi-asset portfolio to an optimised asset allocation to align to a particular risk-return objectives sounds like hard work and it is. That’s why multi-asset funds exist. The rise of multi-asset funds As investing becomes more accessible to more people, there is less interest in the detail of how investments work and more interest in portfolios that get people from A to B, for a given level of risk-return. After all, there are fewer people who are interested in the detail of how engines work than there are who are interested in how a car looks, how it drives and what they need it for. There is nothing new about multi-asset funds, indeed one could argue that the earliest investment trust Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust, founded in 1868, invested in both equities and bonds "to give the investor of moderate means the same advantages as the large capitalists in diminishing the risk by spreading the investment over a number of stocks”. In the unit trust world, managed balanced funds have been around for decades. I would define a multi-asset fund as a strategy that invests across a diversified range of asset classes to achieve a particular asset allocation and/or risk-return objective. They offer a ready-made “portfolio within a fund” thereby enabling a managed portfolio service for the investor from a minimum regular investment of £25 per month. . In this respect, multi-asset funds help democratise investing, and make the hardest part of the investor’s checklist – how to construct and manage a diversified portfolio. The different types of multi-asset fund available is a topic in itself. The ability for investors to select a multi-asset fund for a given level or risk-return characteristics for a given time frame is one of the most straightforward ways to implement a strategy once that has been aligned to a given set of objectives. Multi-Asset Fund or ETF Portfolio? The main advantage of a ready-made multi-asset fund is convenience. Asset allocation, and portfolio construction decisions are made by the fund provider. The main advantages of an ETF Portfolio are timeliness, cost and flexible. ETF Portfolios are timely. You can adjust positions the same day without 4-5 day dealing cycles associated with funds – an important feature in volatile times. ETF portfolios are good value. You can construct a multi-asset ETF portfolio for a lower cost than even the cheapest multi-asset fund. ETF Portfolio are flexible – you can tilt a core strategy to reflect your views on a particular region (e.g. US or Emerging Markets), sector (e.g. healthcare or technology), theme (e.g. sustainability or demographics), or factor (e.g. momentum or value), to reflect your views based on your research. Conclusion Setting the right objectives to meet a target financial outcome, such as funding future retirement, university fees, or creating a rainy day fund is the primary consideration when making an investment plan. Getting the asset allocation right – choosing a risk profile – in a way best suited to deliver that plan is the second most important decision. Finding a straight forward to deliver that risk-return profile, by building your own ETF portfolio or using a ready-made multi-asset index fund, is the final most important step. All the while, it makes sense to stick to the investing checklist: to start early, keep topping up, and keep costs down. In this series of articles, we look at some of the key topics explored in my book “How to Invest With Exchange Traded Funds” that also underpin the portfolio design work we do for discretionary managers and financial advisers.
From space pens to pencils There’s a famous story, probably an urban myth, about NASA spending millions of dollars of research to develop a space pen whose ink could still flow in a zero gravity environment. When the Russians were asked whether they planned to respond to the challenge to enable their cosmonauts be able to write in space, they answered “We just use a pencil.” Sometimes sensible and straightforward answers to problems prove more durable than more elaborate and costly alternatives. The same could be said of investments. The quest for high-cost star-managers in the hope of alchemy, is under pressure from low-cost index funds that get the job done, by giving low cost, transparent, and liquid exposure to a particular asset class. How an active stock picker became a passive enthusiast I spent my early years in the City working for active managers. My job was to pick stocks based on proprietary models of those companies’ operating and financial models. I was fortunate enough to work in a very successful hedge fund, whose style was “true active”: it could be highly concentrated on high conviction stocks, it could be long or short a stock or a market, it could (but didn’t) use leverage. If you enjoy stockpicking, as I did, working for a relatively unconstrained mandate was at times highly rewarding, at times highly stressful and always interesting. Investors, typically large institutions, who wanted access to this strategy, had to have deep pockets to wear the very high minimum investment, and the fund was not always open for new investors. It certainly wasn’t available to the man on the street. Knowledge gap entrenches disadvantage When I started my own family and started investing a Child Trust Fund I became all too aware of the massive disconnect and difference between the investment opportunities open to hundreds of institutional investors and those available to millions of ordinary individual retail investors. I was staggered and rather depressed to see how few people in the UK harness the power of the markets to increase their long-term financial resilience. Of the 11m ISA accounts held by 30m working adult, only 2m are Stocks and Shares ISAs. The investing public is a narrow audience. The vast majority is put off from learning to or starting to invest by complexity, jargon and unfamiliarity. Casual conversations with people from all walks of life showed that whilst they may fall prey to some scheme that promised unrealistic returns, they were less inclined to put a “boring” checklist in place to contribute to their own ISA or Junior ISA, perhaps unaware that this could be done for less than the cost of a coffee habit at £25 per month. The lack of knowledge on investing was nothing to do with gender, age or education. It was almost universal. People either knew about investments or they didn’t. And that knowledge was usually hereditary. And it entrenches disadvantage. Retail investments need a shake up Looking at the retail fund industry, it was clear that there wasn’t much that was truly “active” about it. Most long-only retail managers hugged benchmarks for chunky fees that befitted their brand or status (now known as “closet indexing”). Until recently, the bulk of personal finance pages and investment journalism was more about a quest for a handful of “star managers”, in whatever asset class, who were ascribed the status of an alchemist, that investors would then herd towards. It seemed like the retail fund industry was focused on solving the wrong problem: on how to find the next star manager, rather than how to have a sensible, robust diversified portfolio. By contrast, in the US, there has always been a higher culture of equity investing (New York cabbies talk more about stocks than about sport, in my experience). So I was fascinated to read about the behavioural science that underpinned the roll out of automatic enrolment in the USA in 2005 where investors who were not engaged with their pensions plan were defaulted into a Target Date Fund – a multi-asset index fund whose mix of assets changes over time, according to their expected retirement date. I also read about the mushrooming of so-called “ETF Strategists”, investment research firms that put together ultra-low cost managed portfolios for US financial advisers built entirely with Exchange Traded Funds. Winds of change Conscious of these emerging trends, it seemed that mass market investing in the UK was about to enter a period of structural change: namely with the ban of fund commissions (Retail Distribution Review), and the launch of automatic enrolment, as well as other planned “behavioural finance” interventions to improve savings rates and financial capability. So in 2012, I set up my own research firm to see what, if any, of that experience in the US might apply in the UK. We work with asset managers to develop low-cost multi-asset investment strategies for the mass market, constructed with index-tracking funds and ETFs. It is bringing the rather dry science of institutional investing into the brand-rich and personality-heavy world of personal investing. Why index investing? I try and avoid the terms active and passive and will explain why. For most people, a multi-asset approach using index funds makes sense. This can be called “index investing”. Surprisingly, one of it’s biggest supporters is Warren Buffett. “Consistently buy a low cost…index fund. I think it’s the thing that makes the most sense practically all of the time…Keep buying through thick and thin, and especially through thin.” (Warren Buffet, Letter to shareholders, 2017) In this series of articles, I share some of the experience I have had in developing investment strategies and products for asset managers built with index funds and ETFs. I look at the concepts underpinning multi-asset investing, focus on the importance of getting the asset allocation right for a given objective, summarise my view on the active vs passive debate (and attempt to clarify some terms), as well as some practical tips on building and managing your own portfolio. Each of the articles can be explored more deeply in a book I wrote with my former colleague and co-author Shweta Agarwal on How to Invest with Exchange Traded Funds: a practical guide for the modern investor
We look at the three largest ETPs that track the gold price and which are “physically-backed” (meaning they own the underlying asset), and track the same spot price index, the LBMA Gold Price Index. Each of these ETPs offers a London-listed share-class, and each also offers a GBP-denominated listing. This means that the share price is expressed in GBP-terms. This is convenient for client reporting and essential for some platforms. The returns, however, remain unhedged to GBP. Whilst SGLN and SGLP are Irish-domiciled funds, PHGP is Jersey domiciled. Each has UK tax reporting status. In terms of scale and cost, iShares Physical Gold ETC (Ticker: SGLN, launched in 2011) is the largest at £11.9bn with TER of 0.19%, followed by Invesco Physical Gold (Ticker: SGLP, launched in 2009) at £10.7bn with TER of 0.19%, followed by WisdomTree Physical Gold (Ticker: PHGP, launched in 2007) at £7.1bn With increasing choice available, the key differentiation amongst physically-backed ETPs is cost. Fig.1. YTD performance of largest London-listed Gold ETPs Source: Bloomberg, as at 7th August 2020, GBP terms
NOTICES Commercial Interest: Elston Consulting Limited creates research portfolios and administers indices that may or may not be referenced in this article. If referenced, this is clearly designated as such and is to raise awareness and provide purely factual information as regards these portfolios and/or indices. Image Credit: Shutterstock
Liquid Alternatives: Assets We define Liquid Alternative Asset ETFs as tradable ETFs that hold liquid securities that provide access to a particular “alternative” (non-equity, non-bond) asset class exposure. More specifically, we define this as Listed Property Securities, Infrastructure Securities, Commodities, Gold and Listed Private Equity. Looking at selected ETF proxies for each of these asset classes, the correlations for these Liquid Alternative Assets, relative to Global Equity are summarised below. Fig.1. Liquid Alternative Assets: Correlation Matrix Incorporating these exposures within a multi-asset strategy provides can provide diversification benefits, both from an asset-based perspective and a risk-based perspective. Looking at 5 year annualised performance, only Gold has outperformed Global Equities. Listed Private Equity has been comparable. Meanwhile Infrastructure has outperformed property, whilst Commodities have been lack-lustre. Fig.2. Liquid Alternative Assets Returns vs Global Equities Looking at performance YTD, gold has returned +31.06% in GBP terms, outperforming Global Equities by 32.54ppt. Infrastructure has also slightly outperformed equities owing to its inflation protective qualities. Fig.3. YTD performance of Liquid Alternative Assets (GBP terms) Source: Elston research, Bloomberg data Liquid Alternatives: Strategies We define Liquid Alternative Strategy ETFs as tradable ETFs that provide alternative asset allocation strategies. By providing differentiated risk-return characteristics, these ETFs should provide diversification and/or reflect a particular directional bias. Fig.4. Examples of European-listed Liquid Alternative Strategies Each of these strategies provide a low degree of correlation with Global Equities and therefore have diversification benefits. Fig.5. Liquid Alternative Strategies: Correlation Matrix In 2020, the Market Neutral strategy has proven most defensive. Fig.6. Liquid Alternative Strategies: YTD performance Source: Bloomberg data, GBP terms, as at July 2020 Conclusion ETFs offer a timely, convenient, transparent, liquid and low-cost way of allocating or deallocating to a particular exposure. Blending Liquid Alternative ETFs – both at an asset class level and a strategy level - provides managers with a broader toolkit with which to construct portfolios. NOTICES
Commercial Interest: Elston Consulting Limited creates research portfolios and administers indices that may or may not be referenced in this article. If referenced, this is clearly designated as such and is to raise awareness and provide purely factual information as regards these portfolios and/or indices. Image Credit: Shutterstock
Why use options overlays? Managers of larger investment portfolios sometimes use options overlays to create an alternative payoff profile relative to a straightforward “long-only” equity holding of a share or index. This is done to reflect a particular investment view. Examples of options overlay strategies include Covered Calls and Put Writes. These strategies to protect investments when markets move sideways and there is higher potential for downside risk. This typically comes at the expense of explicit costs and foregone returns. What is a covered call strategy? A Covered Call strategy combines a holding in equities with sales of call options (an option to buy an equity at a given price within a specific time) on those equities. In other words, it can be seen as sacrificing unknown future gains on equities in exchange for a known income today. These aim is 1) to generate returns through income from those sales and 2) reduce downside risk. What is a written put strategy? A Put Write strategy combines a cash exposure with sales of put options (an option to sell an equity at a given price within a specific time) on those equities, with the aim of generating an income from option sales whilst providing a cushion during market downturns. What’s new? UBS has launched a range of four ETFs that offer a choice of two underlying exposures (S&P 500 or Euro Stoxx 50) combined with these two types of options overlay strategies to give investors access to these defensive strategies that perform better in sideways or downward markets. The ETFs available are: Fig.1. UBS UCITS ETFs incorporating options strategies Source: Elston Research, Bloomberg data What does this launch mean for investors? The launch of these ETFs gives investors of any size the opportunity to access these options overlay strategies within a fund exposure, rather than outwith a fund exposure, meaning that they benefit from:
Not really. Covered call strategies are used to enhance the income of traditional OEICs in the “Enhanced Income” sector. Funds such as the Schroder Income Maximiser and Fidelity Enhanced Income use a covered call strategy within the fund to generate additional income at the expense for capital growth, as did Enhanced Income ETFs from BMO. But this is typically done for yield enhancement rather than as a pure defensive strategy. These UBS ETFs are not yield focus but are using that additional income to provide some cushioning. Why the ETF format? The advantage of the ETF format means that investors have the ability to allocate or deallocate to that strategy quickly and conveniently. As we saw in March, in period of heightened daily volatility, the 4-5 day dealing cycles (8-10 days for an unfunded switch) of traditional OEICs create significant and unintended market timing risk. The ETF format offers a more timely way of adding or removing a particular exposure. Who might use these? Discretionary managers and financial advisers using platforms that can access ETFs may find these strategies a useful addition to the toolkit as a Liquid Alternative strategy. Are these Liquid Alternative ETPs? Yes, we would classify them as such. But we differentiate between Liquid Alternative Asset Classes and Liquid Alternative Strategies. We would classify these ETFs as Liquid Alternative Strategies, alongside Managed Futures ETFs and Equity Market Neutral ETFs. What are the drawbacks? From a UK perspective, whilst the S&P500 product will be a useful proxy for overall market risk, it’s disappointing that there is these overlay strategies are not available for the UK’s FTSE 100 index as that would be of more appeal for UK investors, advisers and managers. Furthermore, financial advisers using traditional fund-based platforms will not be able to access these type of options overlay strategies, limiting potential usage. Performance Track record Whilst the ETFs are new, the underlying indices has been created with data back to July 2012. In the 8 years to end July 2020 in USD terms, the US Equity Defensive Covered Call Index returned +11.09%, compared to +13.71% for the S&P 500. The foregone returns being part of the cost of downside protection. By contrast, the maximum monthly drawdown (in March 2020) for the Covered Call index was -10.74%, compared to -12.51% for the S&P500, a -14% reduction in drawdown. Over the same time frame, the US Equity Defensive Put Write Index returned +3.81% compared to +2.88% for US Treasuries. By contrast, the maximum monthly drawdown (in March 2020) for the Put Write index was -8.14%. Fig.2. Performance vs selected comparators Source: Bloomberg data, 31st July 2012 to 31st July 2020, USD terms In the 1 year to July 2020, the annualised daily volatility of the Covered Call Index was 29.75% compared to 34.10% for the S&P500 (a 12.8% reduction) In more normal markets – in the 3 years to December 2019, the volatility of the Covered Call Index was 12.27% compared to 12.89% (a 4.8% reduction) Conclusion On our analysis, the Put Write index should work well in providing consistent returns in sideways markets in excess of cash/government bonds, but is not immune from severe market shocks. The Covered Call Index provides a defensive bias whilst maintaining the potential for returns from the underlying exposure. At a TER of 0.26%-0.29% the strategies are reasonably priced relative to either creating a bespoke options strategy or compared to the OCF of traditional OEICs with embedded options overlays. Nonetheless, a FTSE 100 exposure would be additionally welcome. NOTICES
Commercial Interest: Elston Consulting Limited creates research portfolios and administers indices that may or may not be referenced in this article. If referenced, this is clearly designated as such and is to raise awareness and provide purely factual information as regards these portfolios and/or indices. Image Credit: Shutterstock Liquid Alt ETPs: success for alternative asset class exposure, less so for alternative strategies9/7/2020
Following the severe market turbulence of 2020, it’s worth taking a fresh look at “Liquid Alts” within the ETF space. What are Liquid Alternative ETFs? We define Liquid Alternative ETFs as any ETF that is:
Rise in popularity post GFC The increased popularity in the US of “Liquid Alts” came after the Global Financial Crisis and related liquidity crunch. Following the crisis, there was a demand for portfolio diversifiers that were an alternative to bonds, but with a keen focus on liquidity profile of the underlying holdings. In the US, the tradability of the ETF format meant that a broad range of “Liquid Alt” ETFs were launched, providing access to asset classes such as gold, commodities, and property securities, as well as long/short and more sophisticated “active” or systematic investment strategies packaged up within an ETF. Liquid Alts became in vogue. What about Liquid Alts in the UK? First we need to distinguish between the “type” of Liquid Alts available. We distinguish between those Liquid Alts that give exposure to an alternative asset class; and those that give exposure to an alternative asset allocation strategy. In the UK, following the financial crisis, we saw the launch of ETFs that gave exposure to alternative asset classes – gold, commodities, property, listed private equity, and infrastructure, for example. In this respect, the growth – in depth and breadth – of Liquid Alts has been impressive, particularly in the commodities and property sectors. But when it comes to Liquid Alts to deliver an alternative strategy, the ETP format has not been popular: the preferred format remains daily-dealing funds. Diversifier strategies, for example absolute return funds such as GARS, systematic trading strategies, long/short funds and funds-of-structured-products, have all been typically manufactured as funds in the UK rather than exchange traded products. Reviewing the marketing in 2016, we were expecting the range of Liquid Alt strategies available to UK investors to broaden both in the mutual fund format and the ETP format. As regards mutual funds, that has proven to be the case. As regards ETPs, Liquid Alt strategies have failed to catch on. Only a handful of liquid alternative strategy ETPs were launched, and they have largely failed to gain any traction. Why is this? Whilst straightforward Liquid Alt asset class ETPs have been successful in the UK, Liquid Alt strategy ETPs have failed to gain traction in the UK for 4 reasons, in our view:
Evaluating success: complexity fails To summarise, in the UK, within the Liquid Alt ETF space, the more straightforward a product, the more traction it’s got. Importantly, the reverse applies. “Straightforward” liquid alt ETFs Straightforward liquid alt ETFs provide liquid exposure to a specific asset class, or proxy for an asset class. Fig.1. Liquid Alternative Asset Classes We find these “Liquid Alt” ETFs very useful building blocks to build in some diversifiers in a targeted and transparent way. “Complex” liquid alt ETFs The more complex liquid alt ETFs launched into the European market, have had far less success, and have ended up in the ETF graveyard.. Examples of complex strategies include: ETFs tracking a proxy of the HFRX Hedge Fund Index, an equity long/short ETF, and a market neutral ETF. Fig. 2. Liquid Alternative Strategies Liquidity lessons learned and relearned There were painful liquidity lessons learned in the 2008 GFC. Those liquidity lessons have been relearned for “less liquid alts” delivered by traditional fund formats, where investors were gated in direct property funds during Brexit in 2016 and Coronavirus this year. By comparison, investors who chose property securities ETFs as their “liquid” way of accessing that exposure experienced no such gating. Furthermore, the high profile gating of Woodford’s Equity Income fund and GAM absolute return bonds fund are further reminders as to why liquidity of the underlying asset, whether, within a fund or ETF, is so important. Where next? We see potential for increased competition in the single-asset class liquid alts, particularly infrastructure and listed private equity where there is little choice. Whilst we expect some ETF providers to continue to create liquid alt trading strategies, we are not convinced that ETPs are the best format for these diversifiers. Where we do expect innovation is in index-tracking funds that can be held on platform and provide a transparent, liquid and systematic approach to delivering true diversification strategies, as an alternative to opaque, higher cost absolute return funds. NOTICES Commercial Interest: Elston Consulting Limited creates research portfolios and administers indices that may or may not be referenced in this article. If referenced, this is clearly designated and is to raise awareness and provide purely factual information as regards these portfolios and/or indices.
We are adding the Elston Maximum Deconcentration Portfolio to our suite of multi-asset risk-based strategies. The portfolio is now "live" with factsheets updated daily (portfolio ticker ESBMDC). What is "Deconcentration"? Put simply, in the context of multi-asset investing, if single asset investing is having all eggs in one basket; 60/40 investing is having all eggs in two baskets; then deconcentration is having one egg per basket. It is diversification at its simplest: giving an equal weight to each asset class within the portfolio. This portfolio construction approach is known as a "Deconcentration strategy" as it deconcentrates the portfolio from any single asset class. It is also known as a (1 over N) approach, where N is the number of holdings within the portfolio. What problem are we trying to solve? Most traditional multi-asset strategies, such as a 60/40 portfolio, have a capitalisation-weighted approach to asset allocation. Within a classic global equity benchmark, for example, the US dominates with a ~60% allocation. So within a vanilla 60/40 portfolio, US equities may have a 36% allocation (60% US exposure within 60% Global Equity allocation). Nothing wrong with that, but it's an overweight based on capitalisation. Likewise within the bond allocation rather than having a bias towards GBP issued bonds under a classic 60/40 approach. Again, nothing wrong with that, but it limits the diversification impact of international bonds. How does a max deconcentration portfolio work? One way of creating differentiated risk-returns is to ignore these size-and-domestic biases is to create a "naive" or simple diversification strategy, such as an equally-weighted multi-asset approach. We look at an opportunity set of 20 asset class exposures: regional equity markets, bonds by issuer type, maturity and currency, as well as alternatives such as gold, listed infrastructure, property securities. We then create an equal-weight allocation (1/20 = 5%) to each asset class. This portfolio thereby provides an alternative approach to multi-asset diversification with differentiated risk-return characteristics. Does it work? By default, the risk-return characteristics of a 1/N portfolio will be different to that of a traditional multi-asset portfolio, so a Max Deconcentration strategy will provide a differentiated risk-return characteristic for diversification purposes. However, there is also research to suggest that a "simple" 1/N portfolio can outperform more "sophisticated" mean-variance optimised portfolios. For more on this, see De Miguel, Garlappi and Uppal (2009) and related readings. Obviously the nuance of any 1/N portfolio will depend on its design parameters: the performance of our Max Deconcentration strategy will be included in future multi-asset strategy reviews relative to a 60/40 benchmark as well as other risk-based strategies such as Min Variance and Risk Parity. Keep updated To view peformance of this strategy, please refer to our strategy factsheets, published daily, or request portfolio access via Bloomberg. To replicate this strategy, subscribe to our Advanced Portfolios for weightings files and detialed performance analysis.
What just happened? The UK’s financial services watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Henderson Investment Funds Limited, the fund provider that is now part of Janus Henderson, £1.9m ($2.5m) for “failing to treat fairly more than 4,500 retail investors in two of its funds.” The funds named are the Henderson Japan Enhanced Equity Fund and the Henderson North American Enhanced Equity Fund, which had been originally set up and marketed as actively managed funds. In November 2011, the funds’ appointed manager Henderson Global Investors Limited decided to reduce the level of active management of these funds – effectively making them more similar to a passively-managed tracker fund. Who was affected? While this change of strategy was communicated to institutional investors, who were also offered fees to be reduced to zero, there was no such communication or fee adjustment for the 4,713 direct retail investors (who represented 5% of fund value by AUM), and 75 intermediary companies (for example, financial advisers) who remained invested in those funds. How long did this go on for? This discrepancy continued between November 2011 and August 2016, Henderson allowed this discrepancy to continue with retail investors seeing no change in prospectus, objectives or fee levels while the fund was deliberately reposition to a more passive-style strategy: effectively Henderson wilfully converted two of its funds into closet index funds, but just didn’t tell its retail clients. What was performance like during this period? The charts below show the performance of each fund between November 2011 and August 2016. The charts show the funds underperforming the index owing to active fees which creates heavier and heavier drag. Henderson Japan Enhanced Equity (old name) Source: Bloomberg, GBP terms, monthly data, vs selected index Henderson North American Enhanced Equity (old name) Source: Bloomberg, GBP terms, monthly data, vs selected index What happened after 2016? Based on our research, in 2016, the two offending funds were renamed. The Henderson Japan Enhanced Equity became the Henderson Institutional Japan Index Opportunities fund. The Henderson North American Enhanced Equity became the Henderson Institutional North American Index Opportunities. The retail AMC on these funds was reduced from 1.50% to 0.50%. Information on the two funds is presented in the table below. Fund particulars Note: Old name and old retail AMC is pre 2016 changes. New name, new retail AMC and new OCF is as at April 2019. AUM as at November 2019. Source: See fund provider data for each fund here and here Fined for being a closet index fund? The fine is for not treating customers fairly, because for retail clients the change in strategy was not communicated and fees were left unchanged. This contrasts to the treatment of institutional clients, where changes were communicated and fees were offered to be waived. The fine is therefore for leaving retail investors thinking they were invested in active fund even though it had – deliberately – become a closet tracker. Is the first fine for closet indexing in the UK? No, the FCA led the way in 2018 and issued the first fine in Europe for closet index funds, fining a number of unnamed fund houses £34m to compensate clients invested in closet index funds. What’s different this time is that both the manager and the specific funds have been “named and shamed”. How can you tell if an active fund is a closet tracker There are a number of metrics used such as active share, tracking error and R-squared that have been set out by ESMA. On that basis, between 5-15% of all funds offered in Europe could be deemed closet index funds. How was the fine worked out? The total fine was £2.7m, based on £5.8m revenues during the period, but a 30% discount was applied based on Henderson’s cooperation resulting in a £1.9m fine. £1.8m of this fine represents compensation to affected clients, based on the difference in fees paid by retail investor between the two Henderson funds and similar passive products. How can we evaluate a “closet index” fund? There is no defined formula for evaluating a closet index fund. Some measures look at active share, others at a combination of active share, tracking error and correlation. In our view, a closet index fund will have zero or negative alpha, a beta to its index that is close to 1.0x and a high correlation between the fund and the index. Negative alpha means the fund underperforms the index. Beta close to 1.0x means that the fund moves in tandem with the index. Correlation close to 100% means the behaviour of the fund is similar to the index. In terms of similarity to the index, we can see the following metrics for the period under review: Henderson Japan Enhanced Equity (old name) Alpha: -0.198% Beta: 1.033 Correlation: 95.6% Source: Elston research, Bloomberg data, 1-Nov-11 to 31-Aug-16, monthly data Henderson North American Enhanced Equity (old name) Alpha: -0.137% Beta: 1.052 Correlation: 90.0% Source: Elston research, Bloomberg data, 30-Nov-11 to 31-Aug-16, monthly data Investor awareness The fines are helping to increase investor awareness of the closet indexing issue, and we expect long-only retail active managers to remain under scrutiny. Find out more Read the FCA’s final notice Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Additional disclosure: Additional disclosure: This article has been written for a UK audience. Tickers are shown for corresponding and/or similar ETFs prefixed by the relevant exchange code, e.g. “NYSEARCA:” (NYSE Arca Exchange) or “LON:” (London Stock Exchange). For research purposes/market commentary only, does not constitute an investment recommendation or advice, and should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product. This blog reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Elston Consulting, its clients or affiliates. For information and disclaimers, please see www.elstonconsulting.co.uk Photo credit: as per specified source; Chart credit: as per specified source; Table credit: as per specified source. All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement.
In this report, we analyse the data around a selected opportunity set of bond indices as represented by London-listed ETFs. The report covers global, USD, EUR, GBP and Emerging Market bond markets, for aggregate, government, corporate, high yield and emerging market exposures. Whilst the bond market dwarfs the equity market, the majority of ETFs are focused on equity exposures. That is gradually changing with growing acceptance of bond ETFs as a convenient and liquid way of accessing targeted bond exposures by geography, issuer type, credit quality, or maturity profile. In this report, we:
For more information and important notices, view the full report. Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. Business relationship disclosure: This article references research by Elston Consulting that is sponsored by State Street Global Advisors Limited. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. Additional disclosure: This article has been written for a UK audience. Tickers are shown for corresponding and/or similar ETFs and may be prefixed by the relevant exchange code, e.g. “LON:” (London Stock Exchange) for UK readers. For research purposes/market commentary only, does not constitute an investment recommendation or advice, and should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product. This blog reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Elston Consulting, its clients or affiliates. For information and disclaimers, please see www.ElstonETF.com All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement. Image credit: Elston; Chart credit: n.a.; Table credit: n.a.
What’s new? A bond ETF is not brand new: the first bond ETF launched back in 2002. But they are gaining traction, and as adoption increases the breadth and depth of bond ETFs have also broadened. In my first DIY multi-asset ETF portfolio back in 2008, the main bond ETFs available back then were for broad exposures like Gilts, Index-Linked Gilts and Corporate Bonds. Fast forward over ten years and there’s the ability to access much more targeted exposures. Investors can access both corporate and government bonds for GBP issuers as well as for major currency issuers such as USD and EUR, both unhedged and hedged to GBP. Furthermore, within these opportunity sets investors can select from a range of investment term options, whether short-term (e.g. <5 years), medium term (e.g. 5-10 years), or long-term (>10 years). As well as high yield bonds, more specialised bond exposures are also increasingly available. So whatever the exposure, there is an investable index to express it, and increasingly an ETF to track it. But what is a bond ETF and what are the benefits? A bond ETF is simply a bond fund that can be bought or sold on an exchange, like a share. This has three benefits: it enables access, provides diversification and creates liquidity. According to a recent survey of UK managers, while the access and diversification points are readily understood, there are concerns about liquidity.
Understanding bond ETF liquidity Ultimately the liquidity of a bond fund, whether a traditional fund or an ETF is only as good as the underlying asset. We can term this “internal liquidity”. But if liquidity of a fund itself is a concern then you are probably better off in a bond ETF than a traditional bond funds. Why is that? Simply put the stock exchange creates a secondary market for ETFs (buyers and sellers of bond ETFs trading with each other without necessarily requiring a creation or redemption of units of the bond ETF that would impact underlying bond liquidity). We can term this “external liquidity”. If liquidity of the underlying asset class was a concern and you wished to exit a traditional bond fund, your redemption would be at the discretion of the fund provider and in extremis, you may find yourself gated. So if bond liquidity is a concern, avoid traditional funds and stick to ETFs: there’s a secondary market for them other than the fund issuer. Additional liquidity of bond ETFs By way of example, 2017 provided a stress test for the bond market – in particular high yield bonds. The findings are reassuring. When high yield bond yields spiked in March 2017 and high yield bond values came under pressure, we can see how high yield bond ETFs actually fared in these challenging conditions. The volumes of the secondary market trading between investors buying/selling on exchange (which requires no trading of the fund’s underlying securities) eclipsed net share redemptions (which does require trading of the underlying securities) by a significant factor. The volumes on secondary markets increased to an average of $12.7bn in the first two weeks of March (versus a previous nine-week average of $6.7bn), whilst the net redemptions of high yield bond ETFs was only $3.5bn (representing 6.1% of total assets). A similar resilience was exhibited in November 2017. So far from triggering a liquidity stampede in the underlying holdings, the presence of secondary market enabled investors to trade the ETF holding those bonds amongst themselves. This is why secondary market liquidity is seen as an advantage, rather than a disadvantage. Secondary Market Trading of High-Yield Bond ETFs Increased When Yields Rose in 2017, 29-Dec-16 to 29-Dec-17* Source: ICI 2018 Factbook. Figure 4.6
The ratio of secondary market volume to net share issuance is therefore one measure of bond ETF liquidity, but the most indicative measure of bond ETF liquidity is bid-ask spread. Conclusion Innovation for bond ETF investing is focused on more nuanced index design and construction of bond ETFs which provide the tools managers need to reflect their views as regards issuer type, term and credit quality when allocating to bonds. The adoption of bond ETFs is demand-led as it enables access, provides diversification and creates liquidity. This is and should be welcome to investors large and small. For more information and important notices, view the full report. Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. Business relationship disclosure: The article includes references to research by Elston Consulting that was sponsored by State Street Global Advisors Limited. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. Additional disclosure: This article has been written for a UK audience. Tickers are shown for corresponding and/or similar ETFs and may be prefixed by the relevant exchange code, e.g. “LON:” (London Stock Exchange) for UK readers. For research purposes/market commentary only, does not constitute an investment recommendation or advice, and should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product. This blog reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Elston Consulting, its clients or affiliates. For information and disclaimers, please see www.ElstonETF.com All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement. Image credit: n.a.; Chart credit: ICI; Table credit: n.a.
We conducted a Survey of senior portfolio managers and decision makers from firms whose combined assets under management is in excess of £500bn. The survey was designed to get a better understanding on how those managers approach bond investing. Our key findings based on the survey are summarised below:
For more information and important notices, view the full report. Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. Additional disclosure: The data in this article comes from an Elston ETF Research report “Bond ETF Investing Survey” that was sponsored by State Street Global Advisors Limited. We warrant that the information in this article is presented objectively. For further information, please refer to important Notices and Disclosures in that Report which is available on our website www.ElstonETF.com This article has been written for a UK audience. Tickers are shown for corresponding and/or similar ETFs prefixed by the relevant exchange code, e.g. “LON:” (London Stock Exchange) for UK readers. For research purposes/market commentary only, does not constitute an investment recommendation or advice, and should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product. This article reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Elston Consulting, its clients or affiliates. For information and disclaimers, please see www.ElstonETF.com Image credit: Elston Consulting; Chart credit: Elston Consulting; Table credit: Elston Consulting
Sectors: walking or just talking? Most portfolio managers discuss markets within the context of the economic cycle. And no wonder: the main drivers of market performance – growth, inflation and interest rates – are not constants but fluctuate with the economic cycle. Managers point to their stock selection decisions because a particular company is seen as “cyclical” or “defensive”. In theory, cyclical companies do relatively better when the economy is expanding. Defensive companies do relatively better when the economy is slowing or contracting. But despite talking the talk on sectors when analysing the economic outlook, it’s harder to judge whether or not managers are walking the walk when it comes to sector investing. If your portfolio manager is not providing a sector allocation in their reporting back, perhaps ask for one. What exactly is a sector? A sector is a group of companies which provide the same or related product or service. The most broadly use classification system is the Global Industry Classification Standard (“GICS”) which categorises companies into 11 distinct sectors. GICS further defines 69 industry types that fall within each of those sectors. Cyclical or Defensive? When a company’s earnings are dependent on or more correlated with the broader economic business cycle, they are “cyclical”. When a company’s earnings are independent of or less correlated with the broader economic business cycle, they are defensive as in theory are less impacted by downswings in the economy. The list of sectors includes sectors considered “cyclical” such as: Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, Financials, Industrials, Materials, and Technology; and sectors considered “defensive” sectors such as: Consumer Staples, Energy, Health Care, Utilities and Real Estate. Sector indices Sector indices calculate the performance of, typically, the combined market capitalisation of each distinct sector. In this way we are able to see the performance of each sector at different stages of the economic cycle on a standalone basis, in comparison with other sectors, and relative to the overall equity market. Why use a sector lense? By looking both the economy AND the market through a sector lense it is possible to analyse how groups of companies with commonalities as regards their input (expenses) and output (revenues) behave relative to their peers to inform comparisons within each sector, and comparisons between sectors over different time frames. This helps us understand the impact the economy has on sector-specific drivers, and which sectors could be in favour or out of favour at different stages of the economic cycle. Understanding the economic cycle The economic cycle (a.k.a business cycle) is the fluctuation in economic growth rates over time as measured by real (inflation adjusted) Gross Domestic Product as measured by national statistic offices. The economic cycle can be broken down into two broad states: expansion (trend of economic growth) and recession (trend of economic decline). Expansions are measured from the trough (or bottom) of the previous economic cycle to the peak of the current cycle, while recession is measured from the peak to the trough. The economic is different from the market cycle (the fluctuation of the equity markets over time), although one can impact the other. What drives sector performance? Economic activity changes at different changes in the cycle. In periods of expansion, consumers are more likely to increase their non-essential discretionary spending – so Consumer Discretionary should do better. In periods of recession, consumers are more likely to hunker down and focus only on essential spending – so Consumer Staples and Utilities should do better, for example. This seems intuitive. Furthermore, research suggests that more specifically it is the role of monetary policy that really drives sector performance. Central Banks adapt monetary policy based on the economic cycle. When monetary policy is easing, cyclical stocks do generally better. When monetary policy is tightening, defensive stocks generally do better. Surfing the cycle Given the economic cycle and monetary policy are in flux, it follows that an investor with a strategic allocation to equities should dynamically allocate to different sectors at different stages of the cycle, rotating from cyclicals to defensives and back again as the economic cycle fluctuates. This sector rotation strategy can earn “consistent and economically significant excess return while requiring only infrequent rebalancing”. Accessing sectors All equities fall within a sector grouping. Investors must therefore decide whether they wish to construct a portfolio of stocks within each sector or have a fairly concentrated holding within each sector. For investors that want to maximise diversification within each sector, a sector ETF is a convenient way of accessing targeted and comprehensive exposures to distinct sectors. Sector investing Whether investing in a particular sector to capitalise on specific sector trends, or seeking to implement a dynamic allocation strategy between sectors over the economic cycle with an equity allocation, sector ETFs offer a low-cost and convenient way of implementing cyclical sector views efficiently and precisely. Notices and Disclaimers: Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. Additional disclosure: Recently published Elston ETF Research reports “Sector Equities: 4q18 Update” and “Sector Equities: 4q18 Survey” were sponsored by State Street Global Advisors Limited. We warrant that the information in this article is presented objectively. For further information, please refer to important Notices and Disclosures please see our website www.ElstonETF.com This article has been written for a UK audience. Tickers are shown for corresponding and/or similar ETFs prefixed by the relevant exchange code, e.g. “LON:” (London Stock Exchange) for UK readers. For research purposes/market commentary only, does not constitute an investment recommendation or advice, and should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product. This article reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Elston Consulting, its clients or affiliates. For information and disclaimers, please see www.ElstonETF.com Photo credit: N/A; Chart credit: Elston Consulting; Table credit: Elston Consulting In December we conducted a Survey of senior portfolio managers and decision makers from firms whose combined assets under management is in excess of £500bn. The survey was designed to get a better understanding on how those managers approach sector investing.
Our key findings based on the survey are summarised below:
Anywhere to hide? For investors with a broad mandate, asset allocation decisions between equities, alternatives, bonds and cash and equivalents gives scope to limit the impact of market volatility. But what about for mandates which necessarily must remain fully invested in equities. Within the equity sleeve, we believe a sector perspective enables investors to make nuanced adjustments to their equity portfolio. Lower volatility On a one year basis, the lowest volatility sector is Consumer Staples with a volatility of 11.6% compared to 13.3% for World Equities. Consumer Staples is nonetheless 75.1% correlated to world equities. Potential Diversifier Over the last two years, Utilities has shown both lowest beta (0.52) and lowest correlation (52.8%) to world equities. This makes the Utilities sector a potential diversifier within a portfolio context. Chasing growth? From a momentum perspective, Technology remains the strongest performing sector with an annualised return over 3 years of +20.2% (in GBP terms). Conclusion Whilst economic outlook remains key driver for sector-based performance, the current volatility and correlation characteristics of specific sectors are informative from a portfolio construction perspective. Source: Elston Research, Bloomberg. Indices used: MSCI World Index and MSCI World sector index data Notes: Volatility: annualised 260 day volatility to 31-Dec-18; Correlation: 2 year correlation of daily returns to 31-Dec-18; all data expressed in GBP terms. Notices and Disclaimers: Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. Additional disclosure: The data in this article comes from an Elston ETF Research report “Sector Equities: 4q18 Update” that was sponsored by State Street Global Advisors Limited. We warrant that the information in this article is presented objectively. For further information, please refer to important Notices and Disclosures in that Report which is available on our website www.ElstonETF.com This article has been written for a UK audience. Tickers are shown for corresponding and/or similar ETFs prefixed by the relevant exchange code, e.g. “LON:” (London Stock Exchange) for UK readers. For research purposes/market commentary only, does not constitute an investment recommendation or advice, and should not be used or construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any product. This article reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Elston Consulting, its clients or affiliates. For information and disclaimers, please see www.ElstonETF.com Photo credit: N/A; Chart credit: Elston Consulting; Table credit: Elston Consulting
The phenomenal rise in ETF adoption looks extraordinary. But viewed in the context of any technology upgrade – from tape to CD, from CD to MP3 – there’s nothing outstanding about it. It’s just common sense.
ETFs are just a more flexible and lower cost way of getting exposure to an asset class relative to traditional mutual funds. Whilst some vested interests in the active world murmur about “How might ETFs cope in market distress?” The answer is, repeatedly (including in recent market turmoil), “Just fine, thank you”. Born out of crisis Indeed, the massive switch from Mutual Funds to ETFs is in part a direct result of the Global Financial Crisis. In the GFC, some investors were caught out by 1) not knowing exactly what was in their fund and 2) not being able to sell funds they no longer wanted to manage their risk exposure because they were “gated”. We’ve seen similar gatings of property funds after the Brexit vote, and of bond funds in face of interest rate rises. The two greatest benefits of ETFs are, in my view, their transparency (knowing exactly what’s inside the fund on a daily basis, and how it’s likely to behave) and their liquidity (there’s a secondary market in ETFs via the exchange, which means you can buy or sell an ETF without necessarily triggering a creation/redemption process within the fund). Transparency enables a more precise way of accessing specific asset class exposures. Liquidity is not just about intra-day trading, it’s more about the simple fact that if you don’t want to hold a fund anymore, rather than relying on the goodwill of the manager to accept your redemption order, you can simply sell it on via the exchange. This simple difference is a key advantage of ETFs. Secondary market Take the high yield bond market. So in a rising rate environment, if investors wish to sell high yield bonds, with mutual funds the manager has to sell the underlying investments (putting further pressure on price and liquidity), with ETFs, the manager can simply sell the ETF to another participant willing to come in at a level that is a bargain for both. The underlying investments need not necessarily be sold. Liquidity is only ultimately as good as the underlying asset class. But in every bond market jitter (including last week’s) bond ETFs have continued to function, and enabled liquidity. I prefer to turn the question on its head: what product do you know of (aside from a mutual fund) that you can only sell back to its vendor? I’m struggling for examples: just a quick look on eBay is enough to show that there’s a secondary market in pretty much everything, be it vintage newspapers, matchbox cars or antique furniture. A quick look on the London Stock Exchange, shows there’s a market for pretty much every type of fund: global equity, UK value, UK gilts of different maturity buckets, corporate bonds of different investment grades, gold, commodities, property: you name it, you’ll find it. It’s asset allocation that counts Furthermore, I’ve never bought the argument that “ETFs only work in a bull market”. Sure equity ETFs do well in a bull market, but there are ETFs for each asset class that could be in favour at different stages of the cycle. ETFs are a portfolio construction tool to reflect a desired asset allocation. If you only want high quality, dividend paying equities, there are dual-screened income/quality ETFs. If you don’t want equity exposure, there are bond ETFs. If you don’t want long-duration bonds, there are short-duration bond ETFs. If you want a cash proxy with a bit more yield, there are Ultrashort Duration Bond ETFs. So ETFs don’t perform better or worse at different times in the cycle. Managers can perform better or worse by getting their asset allocation right. ETFs are just a straightforward way of managing a multi-asset portfolio. From closet index to true index ETFs are by definition the commoditisation of mutual fund industry (standardised formats that can be bought and sold at a published price). The plethora of index rules are the systemisation of investment process: whether you’re philosophy is traditional (cap-weighted), momentum, value, small cap, income, or quality there are now indices for most investment styles for most asset classes in most regions. The investor’s toolkit has got smarter, cheaper and more flexible. What’s not to like? Given the large number of closet index funds out there, we can expect a continued switch from closet index to true index to drive ETF adoption yet higher. In the meantime, if anyone knows of an eBay for old mutual fund holdings – please let me know. |
ELSTON RESEARCHinsights inform solutions Categories
All
Archives
June 2024
|