ActiveShares Large-Cap, Mid-Cap and Multi-Cap Funds
ActiveShares Large-Cap, Mid-Cap and Multi-Cap Funds will be a series of actively-managed ETFs advised by the Precidian Funds. At the moment, their prospectuses are missing information about both expenses and management.
AR Capital BDC Income Fund
AR Capital BDC Income Fund seeks to provide a high level of income, with the potential for capital appreciation. The strategy is to invest in the equities of business development corporations. They’ll target BDCs which are paying attractive rates of distribution and appear capable of sustaining that distribution level over time. A secondary consideration is the potential for capital appreciation. The managers are employees of BDCA Adviser, LLC but are otherwise unidentified. The initial expense ratio has not been released and the minimum initial investment is $2500, raised to $100,000 if you’re silly enough to try and buy shares directly from the fund company.
AR Capital Dividend and Value Fund
AR Capital Dividend and Value Fund (Advisor shares) seeks to provide a high level of dividend income, with the potential for capital appreciation. The strategy is to invest in dividend-paying stocks, with special emphasis on energy infrastructure MLPs and REITs. Up to 15% of the portfolio may be placed in illiquid investments and 20% in fixed-income. The managers are Brad Stanley and Mark Painter, portfolio managers at Carnegie Asset Management. Since February 2010, they’ve used this strategy in separate accounts which have trailed the S&P 500 by 150-250 basis points a year. That said, we have neither income nor volatility data for the separate accounts so they might be much more attractive than the raw return numbers imply. The initial expense ratio has not been released and the minimum initial investment is $2500, raised to $100,000 if you’re silly enough to try and buy shares directly from the fund company.
ASTON/Guardian Capital Global Dividend Fund
ASTON/Guardian Capital Global Dividend Fund will seek long-term capital appreciation and current income by investing in a global portfolio of dividend-paying stocks whose firms have the ability to grow earnings and a willingness to increase dividends. They will not hedge their currency exposure. The manager will be Srikanth Iyer, Managing Director and Head of Systematic Strategies for Guardian Capital LP. Guardian has been using this strategy in separate accounts since 2007, with mixed results as far as total return goes. The initial expense ratio is 1.31% and the minimum initial investment is $2500, reduced to $500 for IRAs, ESAs and UTMAs.
ASTON/Pictet International Fund
ASTON/Pictet International Fund will seek capital appreciation by investing in developed market stocks which demonstrate growth at a reasonable price. They will not hedge their currency exposure. The manager will be Fabio Paolini, Head of EAFE Equities at Pictet. Pictet has been around since 1805 and has been running this strategy in other accounts since 1995. Those accounts have outperformed the EAFE by 200-250 basis points/year over the long-term. The initial expense ratio is 1.51% and the minimum initial investment is $2500, reduced to $500 for IRAs, ESAs and UTMAs.
ATAC Beta Rotation Fund
ATAC Beta Rotation Fund will seek capital appreciation by investing in ETFs (and occasionally ETNs) based on the managers’ inflation expectations. At base, high beta sectors thrive in rising inflation environments and low beta sectors in falling inflation environments. Their plan is to rotate in the sectors best positioned for gains. They warn of turnover rates exceeding 1000% per year. The managers will be Edward Dempsey, founder and Chief Investment Officer of Pension Partners, and Michael Gayed. The pair also runs ATAC Inflation Rotation Fund (ATACX) which uses the same strategy to rotate between bond sectors and cash. The minimum initial investment is $2500.
BPV Large Cap Value Fund
BPV Large Cap Value Fund (Advisor shares) seeks to outperform the Russell Value index. Their sub-advisor has a quant-driven strategy for investing in large cap value stocks that have an attractive combination of value, management and momentum. The managers are a team from AJO Partners. (Nope, I’ve never heard of it either.) AJO’s website describes them as “an institutional investment manager established in 1984 [who] manage tax-exempt portfolios of value-oriented U.S. and international equities.” They’ve got $24B in AUM, $19B in their large cap strategy (not clear how they make that tax-exempt) and a really, really annoying website. They’ve decided that all of their menu items need to start with the letter “P”. Clicking on the Performance tab starts with a cartoon (“We didn’t underperform, you overexpected”) and leads to a blank page with a 404 error. The initial expense ratio hasn’t been announced and the minimum initial investment is $1000.
Catalyst Macro Strategy Fund
Catalyst Macro Strategy Fund (I shares) seeks to “positive returns in all market environments” and to “participate in the upside of the equity markets while seeking to minimize the impact of the market’s downside during periods of extreme market stress.” They can invest, long and short, in a global portfolio of stocks and bonds. The lead manager is Al Procaccino of Castle Financial & Retirement Planning Associates Inc. Castle’s website provides evidence of offices that look like a resort, but not of success with this (or any other) strategy. The initial expense ratio will be 1.75% after waivers and the minimum initial investment is $2500.
DoubleLine Flexible Income Fund
DoubleLine Flexible Income Fund will seek current income and capital appreciation by active asset allocation among market sectors in the fixed income universe. It can invest anywhere and can short; you might profit by thinking of it as a sort of fixed-income hedge fund. The manager will be The Gundlach. The initial expense ratio is not yet set; the minimum initial investment is $2000, reduced to $500 for IRAs.
DoubleLine Low Duration Emerging Markets Fixed Income Fund
DoubleLine Low Duration Emerging Markets Fixed Income Fund will seek long-term total return by investing in governmental, quasi-governmental and private emerging markets bonds. “Although the Fund may invest in individual securities of any maturity or duration, the Adviser will normally seek to construct an investment portfolio for the Fund with a dollar-weighted average effective duration of three years or less.” The managers will be Mark W. Christensen, Su Fei Koo and Luz M. Padilla. The initial expense ratio is not yet set; the minimum initial investment is $2000, reduced to $500 for IRAs.
Innealta Fixed Income Fund
Innealta Fixed Income Fund (Class N) seeks “to maximize expected total return in the context of various risks across a wide spectrum of fixed income sectors” by investing in fixed-income ETFs. The manager is Gerald W. Buetow, Jr. (Ph.D.), Innealta’s Chief Investment Officer. The initial expense ratio will be capped at 0.98% and the minimum initial investment is $5,000.
Liquid 8 Fund
Liquid 8 Fund seeks to generate current income with a low correlation to the risks and returns of major market indices. (“Liquidate”? Really? Do managers have a “it’s better to be ridiculed than ignored” ethos? Are you seeing funds with cutesy names – Giant 5, Bread & Butter, Palantir – drawing serious investor attention?) The strategy is to sell listed weekly put options on stocks, stock indices and ETFs with the goal of an annual shareholder yield of 8%. The manager is C. Shawn Gibson of Liquid Alternatives (“a newly-formed investment advisor”), assisted by “co-decision makers … G. Bradley Ball and Adam C. Stewart.” The decision-makers, co- and otherwise, have worked for institutional investment advisers but have not established a public track record. The initial expense ratio will be capped at 1.50% and the minimum initial investment is $1000.
McKinley Non-U.S. Core Growth Fund
McKinley Non-U.S. Core Growth Fund will seek long-term capital appreciation by investing in 40-70 non-U.S. stocks. There’s not much detail in the prospectus, except to note that they’re “bottom-up” guys, emerging markets are capped at 40% and they don’t hedge. The managers will be a team from McKinley Capital Management. The initial expense ratio is 1.45% and the minimum initial investment is $2500, reduced to $1000 for IRAs.
Pzena Mid Cap Focused Value Fund
Pzena Mid Cap Focused Value Fund seeks to provide long-term capital appreciation. The strategy is invest in 30-40 stocks, ranging from about $1.5 – 25 billion in market cap, “sell at a substantial discount to their intrinsic value but have solid long-term prospects.” The managers are a team led by founder Richard Pzena. Morningstar describes the publicly-traded Pzena as having “a strong franchise [built] around its long-term, deep-value-oriented investing philosophy” but fretted that their strategies got hammered in 2008. The firm has about $25 billion in AUM, up 50% in a year. The initial expense ratio will be 1.35% and the minimum initial investment is $5000, reduced to $1000 for IRAs.
Pzena Emerging Markets Focused Value Fund
Pzena Emerging Markets Focused Value Fund seeks to provide long-term capital appreciation. The strategy is to use “a classic value strategy” to identify the 40-80 most attractive stocks from a universe of 1500 frontier and emerging markets securities. The managers are John Goetz, Pzena’s president and co-CIO, Allison Fisch and Caroline Cai. While Pzena does have an international strategy, their website doesn’t suggest the existence of an EM one. The initial expense ratio will be 1.75% and the minimum initial investment is $5000, reduced to $1000 for IRAs.
Pzena Long/Short Focused Value Fund
Pzena Long/Short Focused Value Fund seeks to provide long-term capital appreciation by investing long in “classic value” shorts and shorting “a broadly diversified basket of stocks that the Adviser believes to be expensive relative to their earnings history.” The managers are Antonio DeSpirito, III, TVR Murti and Eli Rabinowich. The initial expense ratio will be 2.73% and the minimum initial investment is $5000, reduced to $1000 for IRAs.
Scout Equity Opportunity Fund
Scout Equity Opportunity Fund seeks to provide long-term capital gains by investing in a largely-domestic, all-cap portfolio. Direct foreign investment is limited to 20% of the portfolio. The manager is Brent Olson, who just joined Scout from Three Peaks. From 2010-13, he co-managed Aquila Three Peaks Opportunity Growth Fund (ATGAX). While I can’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship, ATGAX vastly underperformed its mid-cap growth peers for the decade prior to Mr. Olson’s arrival and substantially outperformed them during his tenure. The fund provides Scout with a successor to its mild-mannered Scout Stock Fund, which is liquidated in March 2013. The initial expense ratio has not been announced; the minimum initial investment is $1000, reduced to $100 for IRAs and accounts with an AIP provision.
Victory Emerging Markets Small Cap Fund
Victory Emerging Markets Small Cap Fund ( I shares) seeks to provide long-term capital appreciation by investing in, well, emerging markets small cap stocks. They claim “a ‘bottom-up’ approach to identify companies that it believes have long-term growth prospects, are proven franchises, have sustainable margins and are financially stable.” The managers are Margaret Lindsay, Victory’s CIO for non-U.S. small cap equity, Tiffany Kuo and Joshua Lindland. Their EM small cap separate accounts have substantially outperformed their benchmark with relatively low volatility over the past five years. The initial expense ratio will be 1.50% and the minimum initial investment is $2500, reduced to $1000 for IRAs.
