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

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul>
<li>Ownership levels in Magnit are depressed. Today's average weights and funds held % are at multi-year lows.</li>
<li>Recent sentiment looks positive when compared to other EM stocks, though this is partly a function of low ownership rather then any large scale buying.</li>
<li>Although lightly owned at present, it is a well known stock having being owned by 151 of the 224 in our analysis.</li>
<li>Max ever combined AUM from the funds in our analysis is ~20x the current level, most funds are at their lowest ever levels of ownership.</li>
<li>Prices are highly correlated to EM fund ownership.  Higher ownership levels are likely to drive prices higher.</li>
<li>Given Magnit's strong performance in 2020 relative to broader EM and other favoured Russian stocks, it could be appearing back on the radar of active EM managers. If it does, expect performance to follow.</li>
</ul>


Ownership levels in Magnit are depressed. Today's average weights and funds held % are at multi-year lows.
Recent sentiment looks positive when compared to other EM stocks, though this is partly a function of low ownership rather then any large scale buying.
Although lightly owned at present, it is a well known stock having being owned by 151 of the 224 in our analysis.
Max ever combined AUM from the funds in our analysis is ~20x the current level, most funds are at their lowest ever levels of ownership.
Prices are highly correlated to EM fund ownership.  Higher ownership levels are likely to drive prices higher.
Given Magnit's strong performance in 2020 relative to broader EM and other favoured Russian stocks, it could be appearing back on the radar of active EM managers. If it does, expect performance to follow.


Fomento Economico Mexica-Ubd (FEMSAUBD MM)

Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB de CV (WALMEX* MM EQUITY)

Magnit PJSC

Magnit PJSC : Mind the Gap.