ANDOVER, ENGLAND -- (Marketwire) -- 06/13/11 -- WAY Group and Hasley Investment Management have joined forces with leading academics from London's prestigious Cass Business School to design and launch the new trend-following Global Momentum Fund.
The Fund - which is likely to pave the way for a new type of investment methodology in the UK retail market - is designed to offer exposure to 24 developed equity markets via low-cost exchange traded funds (ETFs).
The Momentum Fund compares indices with their moving averages on a monthly basis to determine whether investors should stay in a rising market - or move into cash to avoid market falls.
The Fund invests in equally weighted baskets of developed world equities, but will move into cash if sell signals flash red.
"When an index goes through the moving average at the bottom, it comes out of equities, and when it's above, it stays in," said Professor Andrew Clare of Cass, originator of the 'rules-based approach', along with colleague Professor Steve Thomas.
Back-testing for the Fund has determined that it should be able to match or beat a long-term buy-and-hold strategy, yet with two-thirds of the volatility.
"In a test from 2001 to 2010, the strategy achieved a compound annual return of 6.6 per cent with 9.6 per cent annualised volatility, compared with a 1.9 per cent compound annual return with 16.6 per cent volatility from the MSCI World index," added Professor Clare.
Investors have long struggled to find funds which consistently beat the index and this has led many toward buy-and hold (or passive) funds which can be bought at a more modest price. The difficulty here is that such funds will follow markets down as well as up and this fund will look to perceptively reduce this negative trait.
Eddie O' Gorman, of The WAY Group, said that the Fund is the first step in a series of launches likely to alter the UK investment landscape.
"There are some outstanding creative investment opportunities out there, and with this powerhouse of academic research as a dynamic driving force behind WAY/Hasley investment protocols, we believe investors will genuinely be provided with something fresh and beneficial to begin 2011."
(1) Professor Thomas is a graduate of LSE and Southampton Universities in
Economics and Econometrics and has published extensively in
international research journals for over 25 years. He was recently
ranked 11th in Europe for finance research since 1990. He has been a
finance professor at the University of Wales and Southampton University
prior to joining Cass, and a Visiting Professor at Queens University,
Canada, and the ICMA Centre, Reading University, UK. In 1990 he was the
Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England. For over 20 years he has
been editor of Interactive Data's (formerly FT) credit rating
publications; he has extensive experience in professional education and
training in all areas of economics and finance for banks and related
institutions and is an examiner for the Investment Management
Certificate of UK SIP.
(2) Andrew Clare is the Professor of Asset Management at Cass Business
School and the Associate Dean responsible for Cass's MSc programme,
which is the largest in Europe. He is also the co-founder and chairman
of Fathom Consulting, a leading London-based economic and financial
market consultancy. He was a Senior Research Manager in the Monetary
Analysis wing of the Bank of England which supported the work of the
Monetary Policy Committee. While at the Bank Andrew was responsible for
equity market and derivatives research. Andrew also spent three years
working as the Financial Economist for Legal and General Investment
Management (LGIM), where he was responsible for the group's investment
process and where he developed LGIM's initial Liability Driven
Investment offering. He has published extensively in both academic and
practitioner journals on a wide range of economic and financial market
issues. In a recent survey Andrew was ranked as the world's ninth most
prolific finance author of the past fifty years. Andrew has also
recently been appointed to the investment committee of the GEC Marconi
pension plan; this committee oversees the investments and investment
strategy of this GBP 3.2bn scheme.
Editor's notes
Incorporated in 1996, The WAY Group is a privately owned financial services group.
The founders of the company include ex-independent financial advisers who specialised in offering portfolio management services to private and corporate investors.
For further information about The WAY Group products and services please call 01202 890895, or visit www.waygroup.co.uk.
Hasley was formed in 2006 and now runs three OEICs and a total of four sub funds on behalf of Advisers and their clients. All the founding partners have long experience in managing investments and asset management businesses.
Their core investment belief is that in the medium term financial markets are unforecastable and that therefore diversification and an understanding of historic correlations is the key.
Academic research is deeply embedded in the investment process with two professors from the Cass Business School on the investment team.
Contacts:
Press enquiries:
Hasley Investment Management
Roderick Collins
01264 773155 / 07799 065425
www.hasley.co.uk
