...Market Funds 2012 The World Behind Fitch’s MMF Ratings by Charlotte Quiniou, CFA, Director in Fitch Ratings Fund and Asset Manager Rating Group Fitch money market fund (MMF) rating is far more than just a stamp on a fund. Its value for investors comes from the depth and breadth of the underpinning rating analysis and process. A key component of a Fitch MMF rating is also the regular, independent surveillance performed by Fitch’s analysts, which supports ongoing dialogue with fund managers, so that systematic mechanical reactions are avoided. To better serve investors, Fitch provides information on rated MMFs and developments in the money market industry, notably based on MMF surveillance information, through freely available periodic publications and online tools. A Disciplined procedures ensure consistency Fitch conducts analysis and assigns ratings on MMFs following a consistent, disciplined process that is applied globally. The diagram in Figure 1 provides a summary view of the major steps followed by Fitch when assigning or reviewing a MMF rating. At the start of the rating process, each MMF is assigned to a group of two analysts: the primary (or lead) analyst, and the secondary (or back-up) analyst. Analysts are responsible for leading the analysis and formulating a rating recommendation. The primary analyst is typically responsible for the continuous surveillance of the rating, once it has been assigned, and maintaining the dialogue with the fund manager...
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...Rae Bock started Bock Investment Services (BIS) in 1994 with the goal of making BIS the leading money market advisory service in South Carolina. To provide better service for her present clients and to attract new clients, she has developed a weekly newsletter. Lisa has been considering adding a new feature to the newsletter that will report the results of a weekly telephone survey of fund managers. To investigate the feasibility of offering this service, and to determine what type of information to include in the newsletter, Lisa selected a sample random sample of 45 money market funds. The Data File “Bock”, reports fund assets and yields for the past seven and 30 days. Before calling the money market fund managers to obtain additional data, Lisa decided to do some preliminary analysis of the data already collected. Managerial Report 1. Use appropriate descriptive statistics to summarize the data on assets and yields for the money market funds. 2. Develop a 95% confidence interval estimate of the mean assets, mean 7-day yield, and mean 30-day yield for the population of money market funds. Provide a managerial interpretation of each interval estimate 3. Discuss the implication of your findings in terms of how Lisa could use this type of information in preparing her weekly newsletter. 4. What other information would you recommend that Lisa gather to provide the most useful information to her clients? (This case problem is due to Anderson, Sweeney, and Williams for...
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...Investment Funds and Securities Bloomberg Exercises 1. Learn about the different types of funds and their classifications by going to the Bloomberg’s FUND screen: FUND <Enter>; click “Fund Functions” and “Fund Lookup”; or enter MFOD and click type: Equity, Debt, Money Market, Real Estate, Commodity, or Alternative. 2. The performances of funds by type (e.g., mutual, hedge fund, ETFs, and unit investment trust) can be found on the Fund Heat Map Screen, FMAP. Use the screen to identify the top performers based on total return for several types: FMAP <Enter>, Click “Fund Type” in “View By” dropdown. 3.) alternative) can be found on Bloomberg’s Fund Heat Map Screen, FMAP. Use the screen to identify the top performers based on total return for several objectives: FMAP <Enter>, Click “Objective” in “View By” dropdown. 4. Use the Bloomberg fund search screen, FSRC, to search for the following types of equity-type funds and ETFs: a. Fund Type: Open-End; Classification (Asset Class Focus): Equity; Fund Strategy: Growth or Growth and Income; Analytic criterion: Input total return for one year of greater than X% (e.g., 20%) b. Fund Type: Closed-End; Classification (Asset Class Focus): Equity; Country of Domicile: select (e.g., U.S.); Analytic criterion: input total return for one year of greater than X% (e.g., 20%) c. Fund Type: Open-end; Classification: Industry Focus: Select industry (e.g., technology); Analytic criterion: input total return for one...
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...and investment trusts. Firstly, it will shortly introduce the definitions of two different funds, then after identifying the main difference between them, it will talk about the advantages and disadvantages for each other. Finally, it will come up with a conclusion. Unit trusts and investment trusts are two types of funds that people can invest in as a private investor in the world. They together form the very fundamental way of how funds operate. Unit trusts are‘open-ended’funds, which means that the size of the fund and the number of units depends on the amount of money investors put into the fund.(Arnold,2012:30) Moreover unit trust fund is an investment scheme where money from many investors is pooled together for collective investments, and is invested towards a specified goal as stated in the investment objective of the fund.(Fig1.1) (ambmutual.com) Arnold(2012) also claimed that investment trusts differ from unit trusts-they are companies able to issue shares and other securities rather than units. Investors can purchase these securities when the investment company is first launched or purchase shares in the secondary market from other investors. These are known as closed-end funds because the company itself is closed to new investors – if you wished to invest your money you would go to an existing investor to buy shares and not buy from the company. An open-end fund does not restrict the amount of shares that can be issued or redeemed at any time. Usually,...
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...management are the two classes in which the investment strategies are categorized. Active management is whereby financial professionals try to outperform a specific benchmark. Passive funds like the exchange traded funds (ETFs) are whereby the index is tracked with no active stock selection (Barr, 2009). The risk of a failing a benchmark or index can be reduced through passive investment. Passive investment also reduces the cost. The active investment has the potential of boosting returns through outperforming some benchmarks. However, there are increased risks and also there are no guarantees that the benchmarks will be exceeded or matched. In a well-diversified portfolio, active and passive investment can flourish. The role of ETFs which is an important building block for dynamic and diverse portfolios is to offer access to equities and fixed income across large developed economies and the emerging markets. ETFs can be traded like share, thus similar liquidity is offered hence it allows the investor to adjust to their portfolios. In the context of investors’ specific objective, active management allows risks to be managed properly (Barr, 2009). Passive funds don’t neutralize risks, but they introduce benchmark risks and concentrated risks to investors and in relation to exchange-traded fund. The concept of market efficiency holds that there can be no over-valued or under-valued securities because of the market factors of discount which at all times influence the pricing of...
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...management are the two classes in which the investment strategies are categorized. Active management is whereby financial professionals try to outperform a specific benchmark. Passive funds like the exchange traded funds (ETFs) are whereby the index is tracked with no active stock selection (Barr, 2009). The risk of a failing a benchmark or index can be reduced through passive investment. Passive investment also reduces the cost. The active investment has the potential of boosting returns through outperforming some benchmarks. However, there are increased risks and also there are no guarantees that the benchmarks will be exceeded or matched. In a well-diversified portfolio, active and passive investment can flourish. The role of ETFs which is an important building block for dynamic and diverse portfolios is to offer access to equities and fixed income across large developed economies and the emerging markets. ETFs can be traded like share, thus similar liquidity is offered hence it allows the investor to adjust to their portfolios. In the context of investors’ specific objective, active management allows risks to be managed properly (Barr, 2009). Passive funds don’t neutralize risks, but they introduce benchmark risks and concentrated risks to investors and in relation to exchange-traded fund. The concept of market efficiency holds that there can be no over-valued or under-valued securities because of the market factors of discount which at all times influence the pricing of...
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...23 1. Mutual funds are attractive to small investors because they are able to diversify their portfolio for a minimum investment of $250 to $2,500 (p. 609). The investors must rely on the fund’s portfolio manager to make the investment decisions though. Mutual funds generate returns in three ways: through dividend payments to shareholders, distribute capital gains resulting from the sale of securities within the fund, and through mutual fund share price appreciation (p. 611). 2. Open-end mutual funds differ in the fact that they are open to investors which means they will sell shares to investors at any time (p. 609). They also allow investors to sell the shares back to the fund at any time which closed-end cannot (p. 609). 3. Load funds are promoted by registered representatives of brokerage firm, who earn a sales charge upon the investments in the fund between 3 and 8.5 percent (p. 615). No-load funds are promoted strictly by the mutual fund of concern, thereby avoiding an intermediary (p.615). 6. The ideal mutual fund for investors who wish to generate tax-free income and a low degree of risk would be a short-term municipal bond fund (p.620). 9. If the mutual fund distributes at least 90 percent of its income to its shareholders, the fund itself is exempt from federal taxation (p.625). 11. Money market funds differ from other types of mutual funds based on the composition, maturity, and risk of their assets (p. 625). The most common money market funds are commercial...
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...ARTICLES BY AUTHOR Superior performance has helped Neuberger Berman survive and thrive since the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. Neuberger Berman was knocked around more than most asset managers in the treacherous seas of the 2008 financial crisis. The 73-year-old firm had only recently been lashed to Lehman Brothers when the investment bank foundered and ultimately failed. Buyout firms proposed a lifeline, but they fell short as the financial crisis deepened, leaving Neuberger's leaders to improvise an employee buyout during the most punishing financing environment in memory. Yet, four years later, Neuberger is freshly invigorated and focused on the essentials in the way disaster survivors tend to be. Its business is in sturdy condition, its fund performance is outpacing most peers and its strong investment culture has been affirmed. If the new Neuberger is in some ways "a $200 billion start-up," as one executive characterizes it, it is also one of the country's premier and most deeply rooted asset managers. Roy Neuberger, a founding partner and guiding force of the firm, died just two years ago, at the age of 107. Until he was nearly 100, he came into the office every day. For all the drama Neuberger has undergone in the past 15 years -- going public in 1999 after 60 years as a partnership, being absorbed by Lehman in 2003 and then set adrift five years later -- Neuberger is in some ways now much closer to the firm that Roy Neuberger ran than it has been in years, with its focus...
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...The Mutual Fund At a basic level, mutual funds are nothing more than a collection of stocks and bonds. A mutual fund primarily focuses on bringing groups of people together to invest their money into bonds, stocks, and other different securities. It’s important to know that each of these gathered investors owns shares that ultimately make up a portion of the holdings in the total fund. Once a person invests into these stocks, bonds, or securities through the mutual fund they can make money in three different ways. One being if the fund sells a security that increases in price then it has a capital gain. If a capital gain occurs then most funds forward these gains to investors in a distribution. Another way investors make money through mutual funds is if fund holdings’ price rises but is not sold by the fund manager. The fund’s shares increase and one can sell their mutual fund shares for a profit. The third way an investor can make a profit is when income is earned from the interest on bonds and from the dividend on stocks. The fund pays out almost all of the income it receives throughout the year to fund owners in a distribution. Mutual funds not only have great benefits on a profitable level but also have many other perks to them. Most importantly, mutual funds provide professional management of the investors’ money. Most investors purchase funds because they either don’t have the time or the expertise to thoroughly manage their own portfolios. This is a great way for...
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...Should retail investors invest in index-tracker funds rather than actively-managed funds? As we all know that there are two main institutional investments which are index fund and actively managed fund. However, it seems to be a hard problem when a retail investor who wants to make an institutional investment, perhaps most of them do not know which one deserve their investment. Index funds refers to a kind of fund buying all or part of securities according to a standard formed by certain index, which aims to achieve the same level of returns of following the returns , and catch up the market growth at the same time. The index fund is a kind of passive management fund which is just opposite to the actively management fund. There are many characteristics of index fund. 1, Index Investing uses passive operation of tracking the benchmark index, which can make the costs of the fund's operating and transaction into a minimum. Portfolio strategy can be adjusted by According to the change of the index’s Composition, and what’s more, no fees will be paid about the investment research and analysis. So a lower management fee will be charged. On the other hand, the index investors tend to buy long-term holders of stocks, as opposed to active management by actively trading the formation of high turnover and must pay higher transaction costs, the investment of index funds does not take any adjustment to the investment portfolio initiatively, and the low cost of turnover transaction will...
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...the advent of the internet. They could call a stockbroker and place an order for a particular stock, (usually paying a commission of about $100.00 - $200.00 dollars per trade), or they could invest (buy shares) in a mutual fund which held many different stocks and offered diversification to the investor, many (but not all) mutual funds do not charge a commission. If the investor wanted to spread their risk among many different parts of the economy, a mutual fund was the main and most cost-effective way to accomplish that objective. ETFs have some similarities to mutual funds, but this article will highlight some of the differences between ETFs and mutual funds. ETFs and mutual funds are both investment companies, (legally classified as “open-end” companies), but ETFs and mutual funds function differently, and the difference in the way they function is what allows ETFs to be able to be more tax-efficient than a mutual fund. Mutual funds “pool together” investors’ funds and buy stocks in proportion to the total amount invested. The size of the fund can vary based on inflows and outflows by investors. Usually a fund is large enough so that buys and sells do not significantly affect the size of a fund on a day-to-day basis. In a very simple example, if a mutual fund had $1,000,000.00 to invest (ignoring cash requirements by regulators), they could invest $50,000.00...
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...1. What implications do you draw from the graph for mutual fund investors? It seems like less than 30% of the mutual funds have beaten the Vanguard 500. In reality, there has been an accelerating trend in recent decades to create passively managed mutual funds that are based on market indices, known as index funds. Advocates claim that index funds routinely beat a large majority of actively managed mutual funds (this is proved by the graph provided); one study claimed that over time, the average actively managed fund has returned 1.8% less than the S&P 500 index - a result nearly equal to the average expense ratio of mutual funds (fund expenses are a drag on the funds' return by exactly that ratio). Since index funds attempt to replicate the holdings of an index, they obviate the need for active management, and have a lower churn rate. 2. Is the graph consistent or inconsistent with market efficiency? Explain carefully. The graph is consistent with market efficiency. The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) states that it is not possible to consistently outperform the market by using any information that the market already knows, except through luck. Information or news in the EMH is defined as anything that may affect prices that is unknowable in the present and thus appears randomly in the future. Market efficiency hypothesis is the simple statement that security prices fully reflect all available information. A precondition for this strong version of the hypothesis is that...
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... Jingwen Liu 25402323 Part A Introduction With the development of financial market, the technical analysis tools play an important role for the security evaluation. According to Penman (2010), investors estimate the stock future prices and trends by collecting and estimate the past prices and information. However, there are some conflict points on the momentum strategies performance, and it is a technical tool with multiple economy factors needs to be considered into. Why do momentum strategies exist? Refer to both behavioural and market-based argumentations. Momentum strategies are the stock analysis stool exists in the financial evaluation process, also in funds and currency investment. According to Chan, Jegadeesh, and Lakonishok J (1996) said, "it is a strategy that buying stocks in a high returns over the past three to twelve months, and selling those that had the poor returns over the same period." In the other words, the outperform stock will remain well but the underperform stock will continually worse (Fama & French, 1992). From the views from market- based argumentation, massive of evidence find that the momentum strategies are profitable for financial investment. For example, Aharoni, Ho and Zeng (2012) had a test in the profitability of momentum strategies in Australia stock market, which be found that the...
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... e) What will happen if in one month time, share price of Cambridge drop to £5.00 and Eastbridge decided to hold on to the shares and sell at a later date when the share price is more favourable? Assume that the spot rate in one month time is US$1.68. Question 2 What types of risk are present in a portfolio? Which type of risk remains after the portfolio has been diversified? Question 3 How, according to portfolio theory is the risk of the portfolio measured exactly? Question 4 Discuss about the integration of market worldwide and its impact on international portfolio diversification. Question 5 Giri Lyer is a European analyst and strategist for Tristar Funds, a New York-based mutual fund company. Giri is currently evaluating the recent performance of shares in Pacific Wietz, a publicly traded specialty chemical company in Germany listed on the...
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...STOCKHOLM SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS Master thesis within Finance Evaluating the Performance of Socially Responsible Investment Funds: A Holding Data Analysis H. Camilla Stenström* Jessica J. Thorell** Abstract: This paper investigates the performance of regular mutual funds compared to Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) mutual funds, over the time period of January 2001 to September 2007. The paper extends the research on the performance of SRI funds by using holding data of regular funds to create replicating portfolios. In the replicating portfolios, unethical investments are excluded according to a norm-based screening list, hence creating artificial SRI funds. The replicating portfolio returns are then used as a benchmark to compare against the SRI funds’ and regular funds’ returns. Results from the study indicate that an exclusion of companies according to norm-based screening can improve a fund’s performance. However, when looking specifically at the fund management of SRI funds, the results point towards inferior performance compared to regular funds. Key Words: Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds, ethical investments, holding data analysis, norm-based screening PhD Stefan Engström 13:15-15:00, December 14, 2007 Room 349, Stockholm School of Economics Tutor: Presentation: Venue: * 19873@student.hhs.se ** 19924@student.hhs.se H.C. Stenström and J.J. Thorell ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks to tutor PhD Stefan Engström for all support and guidance...
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