We use cookies to give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings we’ll assume you are happy with this. You can find out more about how we use cookies and how to change your settings here.
 

Octopus blog

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43

Important information

The ideas and conclusions within these blogs are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Octopus. They are for general interest only and should not be taken as investment advice or as an invitation to purchase or sell any investment. For our full terms and conditions, please click here.

Diversification within asset classes

Colin Lunnon - 09 August 2010

Diversification is all about reducing risk through investing in a wide range of different assets. Managers of multi manager funds can work to achieve diversification as they're investors across various asset classes, and manage differing external specialists in these asset classes. There are also certain subtleties embedded within the idea of diversification that they can exploit. The standard approach when spreading investments is to use the diversification benefits that exist between asset classes. However some multi manager funds look to the opportunities within asset classes.

Here, deciding on an appropriate benchmark that gives a representative target to be compared against needs careful thought. For traditional asset classes, with their long history of analysis, there are well recognised indices capturing the majority of the returns through time. These work well because it is the movement through time that is important when diversifying between asset classes, such as bonds, equities, property, etc. But for diversification within asset classes, it is the spread of returns at a point in time which counts.

An example of how of diversification within asset classes works would be a long-short equity fund with a portfolio that is long cyclical stocks and short defensives. (Funds that go ‘short' as well as ‘long' are looking to benefit from share prices falls as well as rises). In this situation, the return is driven by the movement - and resulting difference - in the share price values for cyclical and defensive companies. The magnitude of the deviation will also be critical to returns. When stocks correlate very closely (as they are at the moment with all values being underpinned by the same macroeconomic concerns), the potential is constrained and returns delivered will likely be lower. As differentiation increases, so does the opportunity.

Unfortunately, independent indices measuring this phenomenon do not really exist. For this reason, we fall back to the overall objective we believe clients are interested in to define the benchmark. This constitutes a positive return over a realistic timeframe and/or a building block that naturally acts to aid diversification with other assets (in particular bonds and equities). As ever, cash is king.

Octopus Investments Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Terms and Conditions of use. ©2013 Octopus Investments Ltd. All rights reserved.