Dynamic Planner has launched Client Access, a customer focused and interactive technology designed to help advisers drive deeper client engagement and relationships in the new flexible hybrid world of financial advice.

Now available to Dynamic Planner users, Dynamic Planner Client Access empowers clients to complete the psychometric risk and sustainability profiling questionnaires remotely, enriching the process of data capture. Fully interactive, clients benefit from simple language and short videos to clearly communicate key messages and guide them at every step. It is mobile friendly with screens optimised for all devices, with the look and feel fully configurable to a firm’s branding.

Yasmina Siadatan, Sales & Marketing Director at Dynamic Planner said: “While remote advice is here to stay, it can be a challenge for advisers to make the process engaging and easy to understand for clients, as well as build deep relationships which ultimately result in better outcomes. Dynamic Planner Client Access gives advisers that fundamental piece of the hybrid advice puzzle, whilst enhancing their whole experience in an interactive and efficient way.

“We believe it will be fundamental in supporting hybrid advice as demand grows even more, with the ability for advice firms to engage successfully on a remote basis with clients a major step along this path. Advisers will be able to improve outcomes through better informed conversations with clients, whilst at a business level, the increased efficiency of the process will enable firms to increase capacity in their business.”

Advisers can choose which questionnaires clients receive, and once captured, the information flows seamlessly back into Dynamic Planner to support the profiling, cash flow and review processes. With automatic notification that the process is complete, and any inconsistencies in answers flagged, Dynamic Planner Client Access increases the efficiency of advice firms and enables them to focus on more important things such as having good conversations with clients.

Client Access is available now in Dynamic Planner; see for yourself

Dynamic Planner is today trusted by thousands of UK financial advisers, helping them engagingly match their clients with suitable investment portfolios. The award-winning software is constantly evolving to reflect latest regulation and how businesses in the profession work.

What is it like helping make that happen, as members of Dynamic Planner’s growing Product, Development and Test teams? What is a typical day like? What is the culture like? What do people like about working at Dynamic Planner? To give you some insight and to help mark International Women’s Day 2022 [Tuesday 8 March], three team members share their experience.

Claire, Senior Product Owner

When did you join Dynamic Planner?

November 2019.

Describe a typical day for you.

In the morning, I usually enjoy a quieter hour of focus before more people start to come online and meetings begin. A typical day could involve a design meeting with other members of the Product team; research calls with existing clients; technical meetings with our developers; and stakeholder discussions for various projects. Aside from meetings, I can often be found creating prototype wireframes, working through analysis, and documenting designs by writing user stories and flow charts, for example. I also regularly help our Client Success team with any product queries they have.

What do you like about working at Dynamic Planner?

I never feel like I am a number on a spreadsheet. Instead, I feel like a valued member of the team. I love being able to work flexibly, insofar as I start my working day at 8am. I’m a morning person and this really suits me. Whilst we all work remotely the majority of the time, I like the way we are kept connected and updated with regular company meetings. And it’s also always fun to anticipate what each month’s payday treat will be!

Nethra, Senior Software Developer

When did you join Dynamic Planner?

April 2020.

Describe a typical day for you.

My day starts with a meeting with my team, discussing what was done the previous day and the pending tasks. Then, the whole day is spent on coding and technical discussions, alongside occasional scrum meetings.

What do you like about working at Dynamic Planner?

Dynamic Planner is a place that continually demands excellence, while still allowing you to experience a healthy and positive work environment.

Tara, Senior Test Analyst

When did you join Dynamic Planner?

September 2020.

Describe a typical day for you.

As a QA Tester, I start my day off checking my messages, reviewing test runs and checking anything urgent that needs dealing with from a quality perspective. After catching up with the team, I’ll usually start working on testing tickets and working with the Developers and Product Owners / Managers to make sure we are all on the same page with what needs to be delivered. Then, I work on designing and creating solid automation, reviewing code and generally working with the QA and wider teams as needed. Each day is different.

What do you like about working at Dynamic Planner?

I like the flexible working and the team dynamics. With flexible working, I can choose to go into the office or work remotely. Also, I’m able to work around my life more than in previous jobs. If I need a slightly longer lunch one day, I’m not chained to my desk. It’s just about being respectful to your team and not taking advantage. In terms of team dynamics, I always feel free to express myself with ideas or suggestions. Everyone is friendly and approachable.

Visit our careers page to view our latest vacancies

The team at Dynamic Planner have grown rapidly during Covid, meaning many members began roles in varying levels of lockdown in the UK. However, the award-winning firm’s commitment to remote and hybrid working has helped new starters hit the ground running in the field of financial planning technology.

Thomas Pegg’s dream of being a commercial pilot was thwarted by a medical condition. But software testing appealed to his love for the technical side of flying. He retrained and took a role as a test analyst for a political party before joining Dynamic Planner in July 2021.

How has the transition been from your old role to new?

I think I’ve had a steeper learning curve than some of my colleagues, in that I was in politics for seven years and financial technology, or fintech, is a completely new world for me. The biggest challenge has been understanding the business, how it operates. But I was given lots of time and support, and it wasn’t long before I was getting stuck in.

What do you do on a day-to-day basis?

I do some manual testing, but most of the day is spent writing automation. That was one of the key things I was looking for from a new role – the opportunity to develop my test automation skills. It’s important because it’s helping safeguard the quality of the product. When there are software updates, we know that the core features are always going to be robust, because we have that automation in place.

Working in tech wasn’t your original career plan. How do you feel about it now?

The possibilities of what you can do with tech are endless – from the strides forward in AI to new uses in the medical profession. Fintech is an industry that’s great if you want to be challenged and stretched, and the career paths can be very rewarding. It’s exciting to be able to contribute to advances happening.

Visit our careers page to view our latest vacancies

By Wayne Bishop, King and Shaxson Asset Management

King and Shaxson Asset Management’s sole focus is managing ESG and Impact portfolios. We have been doing so since 2002, long before the terms were first coined.

In the years leading up to the pandemic, interest and assets under management in ESG and Impact products had been growing at a rapid pace. This was fuelled by relative outperformance and client interest; the pandemic’s arrival then provided a perfect catalyst.

The reflation trade in 2021 led to a reversal in this relative outperformance for the first time in 11 years, presenting a window for opponents to criticise ESG and Impact. In particular, they took aim at funds’ exposure to the technology sector. Increased retail interest has added a number of new considerations and risks to the financial adviser’s process. In this article we seek to explain the main risks and considerations advisers need to understand.

Firstly, we need to understand what ESG and Impact investing really means. Put simply, it’s an additional step in the investment process. Non-financial factors, such as those associated with the environment, society or corporate governance are analysed alongside the traditional investment process.

Beyond this, a fund can have Impact considerations, where investments are identified as having a positive and measurable outcome on people or the planet. In many places, these outcomes are supporting solutions linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The considerations above will define where the product sits on the spectrum of capital (highlighted below).

For more information and details on funds identified in the spectrum of capital, please see our ‘Terminology Buster’ video.

Into the mainstream

No doubt we can attribute some of the growth in ESG and Impact investing to the desire of investors to ‘do good’. However, other factors have played a pivotal role in its growth.

The first is the maturity of sectors associated with ESG and Impact, and with that, its relative out-performance. Many of the technologies, such as renewable energy, electric vehicles, energy efficiency, environmental technology, medical Artificial Intelligence, fintech, and the internet of things have developed in the last 20 years.

The investment universe has grown alongside the growth of the sectors, albeit at a slower pace. Companies that were smaller and riskier some 20 years ago, are now large-cap companies. Other companies have repurposed themselves, or have been spun out of conglomerates to align. All of which have altered the size and structure of the universe.

What cannot be understated as perhaps the most significant factor is the growth in data. This enables the analysis of ESG and Impact factors, which had previously been a laborious process for asset managers. Now there are numerous services run by large rating agencies, providing scoring and supplemental non-financial information. At the same time, many companies today report on ESG or Impact metrics, albeit a process that’s in its infancy and will require further standardisation.

Importantly, it is not only asset managers who get this information. Internet sources and social media enable the underlying investor, who by their nature are more interested in their investments, to access both positive and negative information.

How the data is applied to the investment process is a key factor in investment selection. ESG data is an ever-growing source of information, but most ESG rating agencies process the data to determine an investment’s risk, rather than determine if the company is ‘doing good’. This may appear to be a small nuance in terms, but it is instrumental in the investment selection process.

Two ESG funds may sit alongside each other in terms of their label and risk profile, but have very different holdings as a result of the screen applied. A detailed understanding of how products are screened is essential. Our ethical screening policy explains some of the key areas we look at (click here to read).

This means that, for advisers, there is a risk of a clash between client expectations and the products offered. Understanding both client expectations and looking ‘under the bonnet’ of a product is therefore essential to ensure alignment. Experience has taught us that as clients become more interested, their views change over time. Therefore, this should always be regarded as a dynamic process.

Out of the woodwork

As mentioned, the recent reversal in relative performance for both ESG and Impact has provided a window for a number of critical comments (click here to read our recent comment on technology). Over the past years, we have cautioned about over-egging outperformance. Much of it boils down to lacklustre returns and higher volatility of sectors such as oil and gas, commodities, and large banks.

Whilst we have seen underperformance in the last 12 months, we call the longer-term nature of this into question. High commodity prices eventually lead to alternatives being used. We see high oil and gas prices as speeding up renewables and battery storage take-up. We still see major disruption from technology eroding older industries, from vehicles to finance.

Therefore, many of the longer-term structural trends associated with both ESG and Impact investments remain intact, and as efficiency and cost savings become a priority, we see these trends accelerating, rather than retreating. The much-needed decline in some valuations means that we see recent performance as a healthy correction after the pandemic.

Years of experience has helped us gain a healthy perspective on this sector, trends that come and go and those that stay and grow. As a team managing ESG and Impact portfolios, we are strictly discretionary and do not offer an advisory service. Our focus is helping financial advisers, not being one.

Boasting an 11-year track record, King & Shaxson Asset Management offers 11 model portfolios (Dynamic Planner Risk Profile 3-8), all of which incorporate a stringent negative and positive screen. To find out more and to request an MPS brochure, please click here.

Disclaimer: For Investment Professionals Only. The information contained in this document is for general information purposes only and should not be considered a personal recommendation or specific investment advice. Nothing in this document constitutes an offer to buy or sell securities of any type or should be construed as an offer or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe or sell any investment or to engage in any other transaction.

The team at Dynamic Planner have grown rapidly during Covid, meaning many members began roles in varying levels of lockdown in the UK. However, the award-winning firm’s commitment to remote and hybrid working has helped new starters hit the ground running in the field of financial planning technology.

Max Bowser began his career in financial services as a paraplanner, who taught himself programming in his spare time. When the principal financial adviser at his firm retired and sold up, he decided to make it a full-time profession. After a year of freelancing, he joined Dynamic Planner in February 2021.

Were you thinking about a move into financial technology when you started learning programming?

Not really. I was making games and I’d made a few apps and other tools. I realised I could apply what I’d learnt to my job, so over time I became more of a software developer who happened to be a former paraplanner. Then, when I was freelancing, I saw a job posting for Dynamic Planner. It looked like a good opportunity: being paid to do programming, which I really enjoy, without wasting my knowledge about financial advice.

You joined Dynamic Planner during a lockdown. What was that like?

I’d say it was a unique experience, except it’s one that lots of people have been through now. There’s obviously the challenge of not being in an office, not being able to wander over and chat with anyone, either socially or to ask questions. But everyone’s good at being available online, and there’s a lot of effort to bring people together remotely. From the tech side of things, the hardware is really good, which helped with getting up to speed.

What does your role involve?

I’ve ended up being the custodian of a new project to manage all our product data. When I joined, I began helping with the project, which had just started, and over a few weeks I was taking on more and more of the work. That freed up the developer who had been working on it to take on something else, and the project was handed over to me. It’s a nice thing about the company: it’s the right size that there’s plenty of interesting stuff going on, but it’s also small enough that you can take ownership of things.

Visit our careers page to view our latest vacancies

By RSMR

Independent research business RSMR has added a new RSMR Responsible Growth portfolio to its Responsible Managed Portfolio Service (MPS). There are now four risk profiled portfolios in the RSMR Responsible MPS in Dynamic Planner – alongside the RSMR Rfolios MPS range of risk profiled portfolios.

Stewart Smith, RSMR Head of Managed Portfolio Services, said: “The RSMR MPS offers advisers attractive, cost-effective options to align with the most frequently selected investor risk profiles in Dynamic Planner.

“The RSMR Responsible portfolios provide a pragmatic solution for advisers seeking greater exposure to responsible investment supported by a rigorous fund research process.”

What is RSMR’s approach to ESG?

Stewart Smith: “ESG factors represent potential risks to any fund’s holdings, irrespective of the fund’s badge. Therefore we consider ESG to be an integral part of the research process for all funds we assess, monitor and ultimately rate.

“RSMR introduced Responsible fund ratings back in 2012 (called SRI ratings at the time and subsequently renamed) in response to demand. For us, funds with a Responsible rating go beyond ESG investing with each of the 44 RSMR Responsible rated funds needing to satisfy our additional criteria.

“As part of our Responsible fund rating process, we determine which of the four RSMR Responsible categories the fund belongs in. Funds can then be further subdivided at a more granular level.”

1. Sustainable – Funds that select and include investments on the basis of responsibly contributing to and benefiting the global sustainable economy. This may include referencing the portfolio to one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or the application of a screen.
2. Impact – Funds that can demonstrate they are aligned to the Global Impact Investing Network’s definition of Impact, ‘Investments made with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return’.
3. Thematic – Funds that use macro themes to identify long-term responsible structural growth trends.
4. Ethical – Funds that apply a screen, either positive, negative or both, that may be based on ethics or on a ‘best in sector’ approach. Each fund will have its own defined screen and may vary between providers.

How did the RSMR Responsible MPS come about?

Stewart Smith: “As the RSMR Responsible fund universe continued to grow, we launched the RSMR Responsible Balanced Portfolio in June 2016, initially as an advisory portfolio but then converted to a discretionary portfolio in March 2018, at which point we also added the Responsible Cautious and Responsible Dynamic portfolios.

“We have been running standard and Responsible (or SRI) client portfolios comprising RSMR rated funds for advice businesses much longer than that.

“We have taken the opportunity to broaden our offering in the Responsible investing area through the launch of the Responsible Growth Portfolio, which means we can offer advisers four RSMR Responsible portfolios, risk profiled by Dynamic Planner at risk levels 4, 5, 6 and 7 respectively.”

How does RSMR construct and manage its MPS?

Stewart Smith: “RSMR’s MPS investment approach is designed to be easily explained by the adviser and easily understood by the client, and has achieved strong and consistent past performance.

“It begins with putting together a strategic asset allocation for each portfolio. The intention is for this to be relatively stable over time and not be influenced by any market timing decisions.

“Ours is a forward-looking approach, considering the various longer-term risk and return expectations for the relevant asset classes relative to their history. Our information and data are drawn from a wide range of industry sources to form a consensus of the investment factors which may drive returns in the future, for example valuation levels, interest rate and inflation expectations, economic growth rates and so on.

“Whilst we hold formal discussions on asset allocation quarterly, any new information relevant to asset class views, and any potential portfolio fund changes, are frequently discussed within the RSMR team.”

What does the Responsible Growth portfolio look like?

Stewart Smith: “While our allocations and fund choices will vary over time, the initial asset allocations are 37.5% International Equities, 27.5% UK Equities, 26.0% Fixed Income, 5.0% Multi-Asset and 4% Cash. The Portfolio’s IA benchmark will be Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares.

“Our fund selections include some of the larger fund management groups who have been active in responsible investing for a number of years. There are also funds from lesser known groups who have equally strong pedigrees and often provide more specialist exposure.”

Find out more: www.rsmr.co.uk/about-us/services

RSMR Portfolio Services Limited is a limited company registered in England and Wales under Company number 7137872. Registered office at Number 20, Ryefield Business Park, Belton Road, Silsden BD20 0EE.
RSMR Portfolio Services Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under number 788854. © RSMR 2021. RSMR is a registered Trademark.

The team at Dynamic Planner have grown rapidly during Covid, meaning many members began roles in varying levels of lockdown in the UK. However, the award-winning firm’s commitment to remote and hybrid working has helped new starters hit the ground running in the field of financial planning technology.

Amanda Thorpe is currently Product Owner for parts of Dynamic Planner, which deal with annual reviews and recommendations for retail investors. She joined in May 2021, having previously worked as a chartered tax adviser and then as a product owner for a tax return software company.

What was it like starting a new job during the pandemic?

It’s actually not been that weird. It’s a nice place to work, very friendly. There’s a good programme here in the first few weeks, with sessions with representatives from different departments who talk you through what they do, which helped with understanding the business. My first day, I was lucky enough to go into the office for a meeting. Then, when the restrictions allowed, a few of us started going into the office on Thursdays, just because it’s good to do some things in person.

How long did it take you to feel confident in your new role?

At first it felt like there was a lot to learn, but I focused on how I was changing and progressing month to month. By the end of month three I felt that I could have conversations with our clients in which I really knew what I was talking about. This company is very, very good at getting feedback from customers, so there’s a lot of client interaction in my role, which is really useful for what we’re trying to achieve.

What do you think might attract other people to Dynamic Planner?

Probably the fact that the company is growing and everyone is feeding into it. Even in the six months I’ve been here, we’ve gone through changes where we’re trying to figure out what processes work best, what improvements we can make, how we can get the most out of what we’re doing. There’s an opportunity to really shape where the company is going.

Visit our careers page to view our latest vacancies

“We are on the cusp of a Golden Age for the financial planning industry, with a mixture of demand, regulation and technology providing the backdrop against which financial advice and planning is made more accessible than ever before,” says Ben Goss, CEO Dynamic Planner.

Speaking at Dynamic Planner’s 10th Annual Conference, Ben Goss continued: “More than four million people took financial advice in 2020, growing rapidly year-on-year as people considered their priorities as well as their portfolios during the pandemic.

“The Regulator and the Treasury both want to see more people accessing the financial advice they need to make long term investment decisions, and combined with the huge adoption of Internet and video communication over the last two years, advice firms with the right systems now have an unprecedented opportunity.

“They can now open up capacity to the benefit of their clients, the benefit of their business and, in removing much of the manual work associated with financial planning, make their working lives more fulfilling.

“However, challenges remain: regulation continues to evolve, this year with Consumer Duty, fragmented systems all too often cause wasted energy and increased risk of error and advisers need to find new ways to demonstrate their value when they are not in the room with the client. How can firms do this?

“Three years ago, Dynamic Planner embarked on a multi-million-pound upgrade to deliver the one financial planning system firms need in a hybrid world. We have since launched a range of new developments from sustainability profiling to risk-based cash flow planning.

“We are grateful for the contributions from hundreds of firms across our client base, at every stage of the design and development process, ensuring that Dynamic Planner is a system built with financial planners for financial planners.

“Today and over the coming weeks and months, we are launching a range of new innovations to deliver on our one system vision and ensure that firms thrive in the hybrid world.”

New innovations from Dynamic Planner include:

• Client Access: enhancing Dynamic Planner’s market-leading client profiling solution is the capability for firms to ask clients to complete the financial planning KYC process remotely on a secure, white labelled web app. Client Access is intuitive and engaging for the client and maximises efficiencies for the firm by feeding data back into Dynamic Planner to support the profiling, cash flow and review processes. It can be used in conjunction with an existing client portal.
• Open API: Dynamic Planner has launched an open API programme enhancing its existing API capability to make it even easier for third party firms to integrate. Open API tackles the challenges around data fragmentation and further streamlines the process of obtaining and reporting accurate valuations for advice firms. The first integration to the Open API will be with Time4Advice’s Curo CRM.
• Target Market Product and Platform Research: building upon Dynamic Planner’s outstanding investment research capability, new functionality enables advice firms to objectively research products, platforms and providers from across the whole of market, and map those to target markets in line with PROD requirements, streamlining the advice process all within one financial planning system.

Want to see what Dynamic Planner can do for you? Schedule a free, no-obligation demo and experience the full functionality of Dynamic Planner.

By Jim Henning, Head of Investment Services, Dynamic Planner

Concerns over the rising pace of inflation have seen interest rates start their gradual climb and the beginning of the end of the great financial experiment by central banks, referred to as quantitative easing.

This raises a number of questions for those clients relying on natural income in their retirement:

1. How durable is the portfolio’s income and underlying capital, post the era of fiscal stimulus and interest rate manipulation since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 and the Covid-19 pandemic?
2. What is the nature of expected risks with the underlying assets, particularly within the fixed income space given their elevated sensitivity to interest rates changes?
3. There has also been strong growth in demand for alternative asset classes, such as investment in infrastructure, to drive the transition to a clean, low carbon economy and generate an attractive yield. How can risks be assessed accurately?

Dynamic Planner’s Income Focused Fund Research Reports might just help you out at the next client annual review.

The latest set of six, monthly reports provide a wealth of research, both in terms of how the solution has delivered historically and also what types of risks the portfolio manager is taking from a forward lens perspective.

This research is only possible because of the in-depth risk profiling performed at individual holdings level by the Asset & Risk Modelling Team at Dynamic Planner. The reports also share detailed content as to process and philosophy adopted by the management team running the assets.

As the recovery from the Covid recession gathers pace, we can see how income payments from this subset of risk profiled funds have stabilised over the last year. Below, the net income paid by the Risk Profile 5 income focused funds over the last five years are shown (specifically the median and the mid 50% range).

Source: Lipper Refinitiv, 12mth periods to end Jan each year

When it comes to talking about risks, your clients may be interested in widening the discussion to ESG.

If so, try Dynamic Planner’s sustainability questionnaire, launched last March and take a look at the MSCI ESG fund ratings available in the system. Using the above income focused Risk Profile 5 funds, it’s encouraging to see the MSCI fund ratings are predominantly AA and A, indicating the high quality of the underlying investee companies managing ESG risks (relative to their sector / industry peers) held within the portfolios.

Source: MSCI at end Jan 2022

The latest Income Focused Fund Research Reports are set to be available from Friday [11 Feb] in the latest version of Dynamic Planner for the following funds:

*Coming soon

By Sam Liddle, Sales Director, Church House Investment Management

The absolute return sector has always had its critics and, in the case of several participants in the sector, rightly so. But in a year that looks set to challenge both equity and fixed income markets, could the strategy come back into its own?

So far this year, much airtime has been handed to discussions around which style of investing, asset class, or region will dominate from a performance standpoint in 2022. The reality is, it’s a uniquely difficult time for both growth and income investors, as both equity markets and fixed income assets face uphill struggles.

This is when a traditional multi-asset absolute return strategy, managed appropriately, may well prove a sanctuary for investors looking to beat inflation, while also offering capital preservation to income investors.

The number one challenge

Inflation is the main bugbear for the moment and a particularly difficult one to tackle. It is not just a UK problem, US inflation in December was reported at an annual rate of 7%.

The bounce-back in world economies last year led to an equally rapid rise in energy prices and this is now being made worse by supply constraints, which means we do not see an immediate catalyst for a correction of this rapid rise.

But we do expect economic growth to continue in 2022 on both sides of the Atlantic, which should lead to further earnings growth for companies. Ultimately, this is what will drive markets in 2022 (as ever) but we expect a bumpy ride. This lack of visibility can give rise to increased volatility, particularly in risk assets like equities, meaning returns easily become inconsistent.

How volatility and uncertainty affect investors

This may not be so much of an issue for younger investors, as they hopefully have time for investments to recover before they need access to their capital. But for older investors, particularly those looking to draw an income, it can become a significant problem.

Take a retiree making regular drawdowns from their pension pot to maintain their lifestyle. If a risk event sends equity markets horribly south, and they are heavily exposed to them, it could not only reduce the value of their savings, but also put them at threat of ‘pound-cost ravaging’.

This is a phenomenon whereby they are forced to sell larger and larger portions of their pension pot to maintain their preferred level of income while the underlying value of that pot continues to fall.

Contending with inflation, now sat at a decade-high level of 5.4%, means the income they are drawing down also has less spending power.

Absolute clarity

While this all seems rather gloomy, this is where the multi-asset nature of absolute return investing can really come into its own. Funds in the sector can vary considerably in style, objective and, indeed, success, but being able to invest across a spectrum of assets allows skilled investment managers to pick the right opportunities and weight their portfolios in accordance with their clients’ expectations.

This diversification, if done correctly, can help shield the risks associated with investing in an individual strategy, style, sector, or region and serve as an outsourced asset allocation solution in difficult volatile markets. It means investors can hope to avoid the risks of being overexposed to market volatility by having a large exposure to cash. Then, to mitigate the risk of capital erosion this creates, complement this cash allocation with growth and income positions in assets like equities and floating rate notes (FRNs).

How to identify absolute return ‘purists’

It is vitally important in this sector to separate the pure absolute return funds from the ‘quasi’ absolute return funds. The past has shown that when markets are volatile, it has been easier to see which funds have the most risk on the table. We have always believed that in a volatile environment, the pursuit of growth while disregarding capital preservation seems like a reckless strategy.

To our mind, an absolute return fund should have a number of key characteristics: first, it should start with cash. Then, every investment beyond cash should offer compelling reward potential for an appropriate level of risk. If, in volatile and uncertain market conditions, there are relatively few opportunities that meet those criteria, holding higher weights in cash or near-cash instruments seems sensible.

Investing on an absolute return basis should mean ensuring every investment is made with an awareness of the downside risk. Many funds adopt a ‘rolling three-year’ absolute return target, leaving investors to suffer significant volatility in the interim. There is always the danger that having waited three years, investors don’t get the absolute return they wanted either but by then it is too late.

Instead, we continue to target a positive return over rolling 12-month periods, employing ‘patience’ as an investment strategy – a seemingly under-used strategy of late. Reverting to near cash when short-term volatility looks extreme, or valuations in other asset classes are untenable and simply waiting until they become compelling, seems the pragmatic approach.

This is important because of the impact significant drawdowns can have on long-term returns. The greater the amount lost, the higher the gain required to break even, and who knows when markets might return to normal.

The above article has been prepared for investment professionals. Any other readers should note this content does not constitute advice or a solicitation to buy, sell, or hold any investment. We strongly recommend speaking to an investment adviser before taking any action based on the information contained in this article.

Please also note the value of investments and the income you get from them may fall as well as rise, and there is no certainty that you will get back the amount of your original investment. You should also be aware that past performance may not be a reliable guide to future performance.