Asset Allocation & Fund Positioning, Copley Fund Research

Steven Holden

Steven Holden is the CEO and Founder of Copley Fund Research, an independent provider of research on equity fund positioning and performance.  Set up in 2014, Copley focuses on global, global emerging market, US, Asia Ex-Japan and China active equity funds, covering over $4tr in assets across 1300 active managers.  The company provides data and analysis on market trends, manager exposures and active fund performance to an audience of investment managers, pension funds and fund selectors worldwide.  Mr Holden’s 14-year investment banking career started in 2000, where he worked for Morgan Stanley as an equity derivative trader focused on emerging markets in London.  Following this, he spent 4 years at Citibank in London and Hong Kong as an Executive Director in derivative sales, focused again on emerging markets.

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

Kenya Consumer discretionary / Quantitative Analysis

<ul>
<li>Global EM Active managers staged their 2nd consecutive monthly outperformance versus the MSCI Emerging Markets index in May, erasing most of the losses suffered during the shock March sell off. </li>
<li>Performance was correlated to style bias, with Aggressive Growth and Growth funds outperforming Value and Yield strategies.</li>
<li>The dispersion in returns between active EM managers is well above normal levels, with May's difference between the best and worst performer of 16.21% the 2nd highest over the last 12 months.</li>
<li>The Artisan Developing World Fund is one of only 2 funds to post positive performance in 2020.  Large positions in <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/sea-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:8509:1" rel="noopener">Sea Ltd (SE US), </a><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/mercadolibre-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:27954:1" rel="noopener">MercadoLibre Inc (MELI US)</a> and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/meituan-dianping" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:26970:1" rel="noopener">Meituan Dianping (3690 HK)</a> were the key drivers of outperformance.</li>
</ul><p><em>The analysis is taken from our Global Emerging Market research, which covers 224 GEM active strategies with combined AUM of $360bn </em></p>


Global EM Active managers staged their 2nd consecutive monthly outperformance versus the MSCI Emerging Markets index in May, erasing most of the losses suffered during the shock March sell off. 
Performance was correlated to style bias, with Aggressive Growth and Growth funds outperforming Value and Yield strategies.
The dispersion in returns between active EM managers is well above normal levels, with May's difference between the best and worst performer of 16.21% the 2nd highest over the last 12 months.
The Artisan Developing World Fund is one of only 2 funds to post positive performance in 2020.  Large positions in Sea Ltd (SE US), MercadoLibre Inc (MELI US) and Meituan Dianping (3690 HK) were the key drivers of outperformance.
The analysis is taken from our Global Emerging Market research, which covers 224 GEM active strategies with combined AUM of $360bn 

China Overseas Land & Investment (688 HK)

Active GEM Managers Claw Their Way Back - But Remain Underwater for the Year.