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

EM Positioning 2018: The Big Exposures & Risks

RRG Macro Insights: Emerging Markets Move to Center Stage

MSCI Emerging Markets: Another Long-Term Acceleration Phase (Part 1)

Tencent (700 HK): Buy the Dip? Not so Fast…

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

Cross Asset Strategy

Multiple Countries / Cross Asset Strategy

<p>In order to understand the drivers of performance among EM active managers, we create a portfolio based on the aggregated holdings of 134 global emerging market equity funds. Fund holdings and stock performance are recorded on a monthly basis and annualised to provide absolute and relative performance figures for the year.</p><p>We find that underweights positions in 'Big Tech' were a key driver of relative underperformance on the year. Sound stock selection in financial stocks generated positive relative returns, and Tencent was the must-have position for 2017.</p>

In order to understand the drivers of performance among EM active managers, we create a portfolio based on the aggregated holdings of 134 global emerging market equity funds. Fund holdings and stock performance are recorded on a monthly basis and annualised to provide absolute and relative performance figures for the year.We find that underweights positions in 'Big Tech' were a key driver of relative underperformance on the year. Sound stock selection in financial stocks generated positive relative returns, and Tencent was the must-have position for 2017.

EM Positioning Review 2017. The Key Drivers of Performance