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

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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

Quantitative Analysis

EM Energy allocations are at record lows.  A big exodus in the first half of 2020 pushed allocations to their lowest levels since our records start in 2008.   The aggressive scaling back of positioning had a dramatic effect on prices, with the MSCI EM Energy sector suffering one of the worst 12 month periods of underperformance in nearly 2 decades.  But the ownership picture is beginning to stabilize.  On a stock level, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/lukoil-pjsc-2bfe0130-461e-4ff3-af12-93bec12e6325" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:27148:1" rel="noopener">LUKOIL (LKOH RM)</a> appears to be the GOAT, with its backing of almost half of the funds in our analysis, well spread across the style spectrum in addition to being a net overweight.  <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/reliance-industries-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:198:1" rel="noopener"> Reliance Industries (RIL IN)</a> is also a high conviction stock, held by fewer funds than Lukoil but in greater size.  It also represents a significant underweight to many EM investors.  The most depressed stock of the larger holdings is <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/cnooc-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:175:1" rel="noopener">CNOOC Ltd (883 HK)</a> , once held by over 60% of the funds in our analysis, now by just 24%.Analysis taken from our EM research, covering the collective allocations of 242 Global Emerging Market active funds, with combined AUM of $460bn

EM Energy allocations are at record lows.  A big exodus in the first half of 2020 pushed allocations to their lowest levels since our records start in 2008.   The aggressive scaling back of positioning had a dramatic effect on prices, with the MSCI EM Energy sector suffering one of the worst 12 month periods of underperformance in nearly 2 decades.  But the ownership picture is beginning to stabilize.  On a stock level, LUKOIL (LKOH RM) appears to be the GOAT, with its backing of almost half of the funds in our analysis, well spread across the style spectrum in addition to being a net overweight.   Reliance Industries (RIL IN) is also a high conviction stock, held by fewer funds than Lukoil but in greater size.  It also represents a significant underweight to many EM investors.  The most depressed stock of the larger holdings is CNOOC Ltd (883 HK) , once held by over 60% of the funds in our analysis, now by just 24%.Analysis taken from our EM research, covering the collective allocations of 242 Global Emerging Market active funds, with combined AUM of $460bn

EM Energy: Big Underperformance - Positioning at Record Lows, but Stabilizing.