Six Morningstar funds once again receive five crown rating
Morningstar Investment Management has again been named one of the best performers over the last three years, with six of its funds awarded a five-crown rating for the second period in a row according to FE’S Crown ratings
The funds that were awarded with five Crown ratings were: Morningstar Balanced A, Morningstar Growth A, Morningstar Growth Real Return A, Morningstar High Growth A, Morningstar High Growth Real Return A and Morningstar Multi Asset Real Return.
Morningstar’s chief investment officer, Andrew Lill, said the firms consistent philosophy and universal investment strategy is to credit for an incredible 40 per cent of funds receiving five crowns.
Lill said the firm’s multi-asset funds and active management strategy was important, but the real key was their successful investment philosophy.
“Our philosophy is based on long term valuation driven asset allocation,” said Lill. “We try and buy asset classes when they’re relatively cheap, and we’re prepared to sell asset classes when they look relatively expensive,” he added.
Lill stressed that Morningstar is not your traditional fund manager, and that the company has made decisions that are very different to the investment norm. He noted Morningstar’s investment in European banks in the wake of the Brexit vote as an example.
“The two important sectors that we’ve chosen have been energy companies and banks. While that was helpful, the timing was even more helpful,” he said. “We bought European banks immediately after the Brexit vote when the market was very worried about the potential for European and UK banks as a result. That was a good time to buy in the end, as they subsequently performed well.”
Morningstar’s investment in oil in the European energy companies also proved fruitful, which contributed to some great performances for their funds.
“We bought them when oil was priced below $30, which drove returns later when oil returned to its long time normal of $60,” explained Lill.
“Basically, these three areas [emerging market equities, European banks and European energy companies] have driven returns,” he said.
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