Asset Allocation & Fund Positioning, Copley Fund Research

Steven Holden

Asset Allocation & Fund Positioning

Copley Fund Research

Copley Fund Research provide research and data on asset allocation among Global and Emerging Market equity funds.  The analysis details absolute and relative positioning across countries, sectors and industries together with highly granular data on single stock and single fund allocations.  The data is updated monthly with time series going back to January 2011.

Global Research - Analysis of 165 prominent Global equity funds, combined AUM $335bn
GEM Research - Analysis of 127 prominent global EM equity funds, combined AUM $250bn

Asset Allocation - Global and GEM Equity

Quantitative Analysis

<p>In this report, we screen for the largest overweight Country/Sectors across Global EM by analysing the allocations of long-only active Emerging Market funds.</p><p>In part one of the series, we focus on Indian Financials.  We look at where current allocations sit versus history, drill down to find the most widely held stocks in the sector, the key overweight and the key underweight holdings. </p><p>We find that despite it being the largest overweight holding, Indian Financials exposure is far from excessive, both versus its own history and versus peers.  Furthermore, recent activity points to an increase in exposure among managers.</p><p><em>Our Emerging Market fund universe consists of 242 Global Emerging Market active long-only funds, with combined AUM of $450bn. </em></p>

In this report, we screen for the largest overweight Country/Sectors across Global EM by analysing the allocations of long-only active Emerging Market funds.In part one of the series, we focus on Indian Financials.  We look at where current allocations sit versus history, drill down to find the most widely held stocks in the sector, the key overweight and the key underweight holdings. We find that despite it being the largest overweight holding, Indian Financials exposure is far from excessive, both versus its own history and versus peers.  Furthermore, recent activity points to an increase in exposure among managers.Our Emerging Market fund universe consists of 242 Global Emerging Market active long-only funds, with combined AUM of $450bn. 

Emerging Market Overweights Series.  Part 1:  Indian Financials

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul>
<li>EM fund ownership in POSCO sits towards the lower end of the 12-year range.  Having suffered something of a 2-year ownership bear market from mid 2018 onwards, activity started to reverse from May of this year.</li>
<li>Previous investors are buying back in to POSCO, though ownership levels remain well off the previous highs.</li>
<li>As the fundamentals start to match up for a growing number of managers, rising ownership has the ability to drive prices higher from here</li>
</ul>


EM fund ownership in POSCO sits towards the lower end of the 12-year range.  Having suffered something of a 2-year ownership bear market from mid 2018 onwards, activity started to reverse from May of this year.
Previous investors are buying back in to POSCO, though ownership levels remain well off the previous highs.
As the fundamentals start to match up for a growing number of managers, rising ownership has the ability to drive prices higher from here


Smartkarma Research Team, Smartkarma

Smartkarma Research

Smartkarma Research Team

Smartkarma

Smartkarma unites the fragmented investment industry, connecting institutional investors, independent research providers, and corporates within a single network.

Research Reinvented

Technical Analysis

iShares MSCI Emerging Markets / Technical Analysis

<p>For our next Smartkarma Webinar, Insight Provider <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/profiles/thomas-schroeder" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="accounts:381" rel="noopener">Thomas Schroeder</a> will provide an updated view on his technical outlook for Asian markets. </p>
<h3>The webinar was hosted on Wednesday, 25/November/2020, 5.00pm SGT/HKT.</h3>
<p>Watch the session here:</p>
<p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DqFzaPstH6M" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p>Or subscribe to listen on the go:</p>
<p><iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed-podcast/episode/5EuHF2JHhdas8SaXyo81Oi" width="100%" height="232" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe></p>
<p>Thomas Schroeder started using charts and trading in the FX markets in 1989 and entered the equities arena in 1992 with Deutsche Bank as a fundamental analyst, but found himself relying more on inter-market cycles and charts. In 1994, he became the Asian head of Technical Research for UBS Securities in Hong Kong and in 1997 he was charged with heading the Global Technical Research team for SG Securities. In July of 2003, Chart Partners Group Limited was formed, providing clients with timely and accurate progressive trading strategies in a truly global context.</p>

For our next Smartkarma Webinar, Insight Provider Thomas Schroeder will provide an updated view on his technical outlook for Asian markets. 
The webinar was hosted on Wednesday, 25/November/2020, 5.00pm SGT/HKT.
Watch the session here:

Or subscribe to listen on the go:

Thomas Schroeder started using charts and trading in the FX markets in 1989 and entered the equities arena in 1992 with Deutsche Bank as a fundamental analyst, but found himself relying more on inter-market cycles and charts. In 1994, he became the Asian head of Technical Research for UBS Securities in Hong Kong and in 1997 he was charged with heading the Global Technical Research team for SG Securities. In July of 2003, Chart Partners Group Limited was formed, providing clients with timely and accurate progressive trading strategies in a truly global context.

Smartkarma Webinar | Asian Markets Technical Outlook - An Update

Cross Asset Strategy

<ul>
<li>GEM managers strengthen Indian exposure during the recent market turbulence.  Average weights now stand at 9.61%, up from a low of 8.69% at the end of March 2020.</li>
<li>Ownership levels have increased across Energy, Consumer Discretionary, Health Care and Tech sectors but decreased in Utilities, Real Estate, Materials and Financials.  </li>
<li>
<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/reliance-industries-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:198:1" rel="noopener">Reliance Industries (RIL IN)</a> makes leadership challenge, closing in on <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/hdfc-bank-ltd-4b6b7a92-9087-468d-9dbe-ab169e77f014" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:558:1" rel="noopener">HDFC Bank (HDFCB IN)</a> as India's most widely held stock.</li>
<li>Recent ownership increases have pushed <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/reliance-industries-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:198:1" rel="noopener">Reliance Industries (RIL IN)</a> to the 3rd most widely invested stock and the largest Indian holding on an average weight basis. </li>
</ul><p><em>Analysis taken from our Global Emerging Markets research, covering 243 EM active funds with combined AUM of $370bn.</em></p>


GEM managers strengthen Indian exposure during the recent market turbulence.  Average weights now stand at 9.61%, up from a low of 8.69% at the end of March 2020.
Ownership levels have increased across Energy, Consumer Discretionary, Health Care and Tech sectors but decreased in Utilities, Real Estate, Materials and Financials.  

Reliance Industries (RIL IN) makes leadership challenge, closing in on HDFC Bank (HDFCB IN) as India's most widely held stock.
Recent ownership increases have pushed Reliance Industries (RIL IN) to the 3rd most widely invested stock and the largest Indian holding on an average weight basis. 
Analysis taken from our Global Emerging Markets research, covering 243 EM active funds with combined AUM of $370bn.

India:  Confidence Returns Among EM Active Managers

Managing Director

Elan Gore

TMI Data Science

TMI Data Science utilizes Natural Language Processing to build custom leading indicators using unstructured data sourced from the global financial, trade & traditional media.  Our proprietary software, TMI Machine, is a text-mining platform designed with the buy-side & capital markets professional in mind, text-mining the global media to discern and quantify nuanced qualitative shifts in press coverage as they apply to macroeconomics, equity indexes/ETFs, commodities, currencies, fixed income & individual equities.  TMI provides custom leading indicators and systematic trading strategies, operating at the nexus of linguistics & statistics drawing on vast experience in investment banking and hedge fund settings in senior quantitative and fundamental roles.  

TMI Data Science was founded by Elan Gore, an award-winning Senior Global Basic Materials Equity Analyst & China Economist with 15 years of experience in North American hedge funds & institutional managers; and Alessandro Porrino, Ph.D., an Algorithmic Trading Analyst and Programmer with 10 years of front-office experience ranging from complex FX option pricing to auto-hedging strategies at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Standard Chartered.  Mr. Gore holds an MBA in Finance from New York University Stern School of Business, and Mr. Porrino holds a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from Brunel University London.

<ul>
<li>As the street warms up to a potential Biden victory, arguments for improving equity breadth and cyclical rotation are starting to emerge again</li>
<li>Financial media references to a cyclical rotation saw a multi-STDEV spike in June, which coincided with a significant and notably enduring lift in the ratios of US industrials-to-staples and transports-to-staples </li>
<li>Our testing highlights the US transports-to-staples ratio as the most correlated with the cyclical rotation theme, but we see similar action in the copper/gold ratio and EM currencies</li>
<li>In the past 10 days, our text-mined data shows an incipient pro-cyclical move, but its momentum has yet to fully turn net-positive</li>
<li>Calls for a cyclical rotation softened through the September correction, COVID-19 second wave fears and more recent fiscal stimulus uncertainty; but the cyclical/defensive sector ratios endured as the structural reframing of a Biden presidency as an inflation-positive outcome went mainstream</li>
<li>While historically "cyclical rotation" and "value rotation" were strongly correlated, we have seen a decoupling in these themes due to the heavy burden of the COVID-19 crisis on financials and energy</li>
<li>Economists have pointed to the increased likelihood of a vaccine in H1 as a driver of recent bullishness and inflationary optimism, but observations from text mining and from the Superforecaster survey (Good Judgement Project) do not suggest new positives here</li>
<li>Predictably, at this stage of post-pandemic recovery the focus of cyclical rotation is on industrials and materials (particularly mining &amp; construction materials), with a Biden win implying elevated infrastructure spend</li>
</ul><div class="content-highlight"><p>TMI Data Science utilizes Natural Language Processing to build custom leading indicators using unstructured data sourced from the global financial, trade &amp; traditional media. Our proprietary software text-mines the global media to discern and quantify nuanced qualitative shifts in press coverage as they apply to macroeconomics, equity indexes/ETFs, commodities, currencies, fixed income &amp; individual equities. </p></div>


As the street warms up to a potential Biden victory, arguments for improving equity breadth and cyclical rotation are starting to emerge again
Financial media references to a cyclical rotation saw a multi-STDEV spike in June, which coincided with a significant and notably enduring lift in the ratios of US industrials-to-staples and transports-to-staples 
Our testing highlights the US transports-to-staples ratio as the most correlated with the cyclical rotation theme, but we see similar action in the copper/gold ratio and EM currencies
In the past 10 days, our text-mined data shows an incipient pro-cyclical move, but its momentum has yet to fully turn net-positive
Calls for a cyclical rotation softened through the September correction, COVID-19 second wave fears and more recent fiscal stimulus uncertainty; but the cyclical/defensive sector ratios endured as the structural reframing of a Biden presidency as an inflation-positive outcome went mainstream
While historically "cyclical rotation" and "value rotation" were strongly correlated, we have seen a decoupling in these themes due to the heavy burden of the COVID-19 crisis on financials and energy
Economists have pointed to the increased likelihood of a vaccine in H1 as a driver of recent bullishness and inflationary optimism, but observations from text mining and from the Superforecaster survey (Good Judgement Project) do not suggest new positives here
Predictably, at this stage of post-pandemic recovery the focus of cyclical rotation is on industrials and materials (particularly mining &amp; construction materials), with a Biden win implying elevated infrastructure spend
TMI Data Science utilizes Natural Language Processing to build custom leading indicators using unstructured data sourced from the global financial, trade &amp; traditional media. Our proprietary software text-mines the global media to discern and quantify nuanced qualitative shifts in press coverage as they apply to macroeconomics, equity indexes/ETFs, commodities, currencies, fixed income &amp; individual equities. 

TMI Thematics: Cyclical Rotation Through The Lens of Text Mining

United States

iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF is an exchange-traded fund incorporated in the USA. The ETF tracks the performance of the MSCI TR Emerging Markets Index. The ETF holds emerging market stocks that can predominantly be classified as large and mid-cap. It weights the holdings using a market capitalization methodology and rebalances quarterly.

iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM US)

Emerging Market Overweights Series. Part 1: Indian Financials

Emerging Market Overweights Series. Part 1: Indian Financials. Analysing the make-up of the overweight in Indian Financial stocks.

Steven Holden

POSCO: Sentiment Turnaround

EM fund ownership in POSCO is at the lower end of the 12-year range. As the fundamentals start to match up for a growing number of managers,...

Steven Holden

Smartkarma Webinar | Asian Markets Technical Outlook - An Update

Join us on 25 November, 5PM SGT/HKT for an updated view by Insight Provider Thomas Schroeder on his technical outlook for Asian markets.

Smartkarma Research

India: Confidence Returns Among EM Active Managers

Global EM managers strengthen India exposure during the recent market turbulence. Ownership increases across Energy and Consumer Discretionary,...

Steven Holden

TMI Thematics: Cyclical Rotation Through The Lens of Text Mining

As the equity melt-up sees renewed "cyclical rotation" calls, we text-mine the global financial media to find early signs of recovery in the theme...

Elan Gore