Der Austausch von BlackRock Portfolio Analysis and Solutions (BPAS) mit Kunden ergab, dass die Portfolios erfolgreicher Investoren sich in folgenden Aspekten abheben:
- mehr Indexbindung
- mehr illiquide und „echte“ Alpha-Strategien
- gezielte und anpassungsfähige Methoden zur Kombination dieser Lösungen
Im Einklang damit beobachten wir bei Anlegern eine konstante Verlagerung auf Indexstrategien, wobei sich sowohl bei Anbietern als auch bei Endanlegern die Sicht auf die Rolle und den Wert von Indexinstrumenten zu wandeln scheint.
Zu neuen Ufern mit mehr Indexanlagen
Die Zuflüsse in Indexfonds haben rasant zugenommen und steigen weiter. Dank des ETF-Wachstums der letzten zehn Jahre profitieren inzwischen immer mehr Anleger von den Qualitäten, die schon die Investoren der ersten Stunde an ETFs schätzten: Präzision, Flexibilität und Preis.
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Zeit sparen
Der Aufbau eines Portfolios braucht Zeit. Je mehr Produkte es gibt, desto länger dauert es, das Angebot zu durchforsten und die besten Lösungen auszuwählen.
Indexanlagen können Ihnen helfen, Kapazitäten freizusetzen, die eine kontinuierliche Suche nach neuen Managern bindet. So gewinnen Sie Zeit, die Sie nutzen können, um in bestimmten Bereichen des Portfolios echtes Alpha zu finden.
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Risiken steuern
Einer der zentralen Faktoren für einen erfolgreichen Portfolioaufbau ist ein umfassendes Verständnis der Anlagerisiken – denn im Gegensatz zu Erträgen lassen sich Risiken leichter vorhersagen und steuern.
Indexanlagen ermöglichen Ihnen, Ihr Portfoliorisiko besser zu kontrollieren. Denn sie können dazu beitragen, dass das tatsächlich umgesetzte Portfolio dem Zielportfolio (also der strategischen Asset-Allokation bzw. der Sicht des Chief Investment Officer (CIO)) besser entspricht.
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Kosten senken
Die höhere Kostentransparenz und das bessere Verständnis der Ertragsfaktoren führen dazu, dass viele Anleger heute Indexinstrumente bevorzugen.
Indexanlagen erlauben Ihnen nicht nur, die allgemeinen Portfoliokosten zu senken, sondern auch, effizientere Wege zu ähnlichen Ergebnissen zu finden.
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Welche Lösungsansätze verfolgen Ihre Konkurrenten beim Portfolioaufbau?
Anhand unserer Fallbeispiele aus der Praxis erhalten Sie nicht nur interessante Einblicke, sondern erfahren auch, wie das BlackRock Portfolio Analysis & Solutions (BPAS)-Team Ihnen beim Aufbau eines besseren und stärker diversifizierten Portfolios helfen kann.
Zur Fallstudie
BlackRock Portfolio Analysis and Solutions (BPAS) ist ein Team aus hochqualifizierten Portfoliostrategen, die branchenführende Instrumente, Analysen und Erkenntnisse bereitstellen – damit unsere Kunden bessere Anlageentscheidungen treffen und den Portfolioaufbau aus einer anderen Perspektive betrachten können.
3Quelle: BlackRock Portfolio Analysis and Solutions, von Januar 2017 bis April 2021.
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Save time with indexing
It takes time, skill and effort to determine which managers deliver true alpha, and to continually monitor and review their performance.
As the number of products available to investors increase, the cost compounds. There are currently 136,752 different funds within Europe1, a growth of 43% from 2009. There is also a large dispersion of assets under management (AUM), which suggests there is no single consistently performing manager.
Index for alpha
In reality, there is no ‘right’ choice, at least not in the long term. Based on an extensive study of 4,500 alpha managers across 21 asset classes between 1997 and 20172, BlackRock Investment Institute (BII) looked at performance persistency of alpha managers within the top quartile over 5 year periods. A meaningful persistency probability would be above 25%. Interestingly, this is only the case for a few asset classes based on the set of confidence bands. The probability highlighted that the selection of a ‘good’ manager could not be set apart from a random probability.
Research from SPIVA3 showed that few firms remain at the top over the long run. Over 5 years, only 27% US equity managers within the top quartile in 2013 remained in the top quartile in 2018. For high yield funds the figure was 28%.
In other words, to build portfolios with consistently top performing managers involves high turnover. This constant search, selection, performance assessment and reselection is a considerable governance cost that should be taken into consideration.
Investors who do not have the capacity to research and regularly monitor their alpha seeking managers may be better to consolidate the number of alpha seeking managers in their portfolio and consider greater index selection. These choices will help to make portfolio monitoring more efficient and minimise implementation, transaction and increasing governance costs.
1 Source: Morningstar, as at March 2019. The number includes share classes.
2 Source: BlackRock Investment Institute, “Blending alpha-seeking, actor and indexing strategies: a new framework”, July 2018
3 Source: S&P Persistence Scorecard, S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, CRSP as at September 2018. High yield surveyed 144 different managers; whilst US equity managers surveyed 1988 managers.
Manage risk with indexing
One of the keys to successful portfolio construction is understanding the risks of your investment, because these can be more easily predicted and controlled. This goes beyond looking at product in a siloed approach but understanding the risk in the whole portfolio.
Often, portfolio construction practices separate asset allocation decisions from product choices. This assumes that by fitting products into an asset allocation, the risk of the portfolio will be controlled. In reality, two of the exact same asset allocations can have different risk profiles. For example, a 60/40 stock and bond portfolio4 based on index asset allocation, this would have 5 year annualised risk 7.2% in usd terms, while product implementation could cause this risk to vary from 3.5% to 11.5%5 (depending on the manager).
The blackrock portfolio analysis and solutions (bpas) team leverage the power of blackrock’s risk management platform, Aladdin to help clients understand the risk factor exposures within their portfolios. Through these interactions, we identify that often there is misalignment between risks, the bets that clients have stated they want to take and those they are actually taking. This can be because:
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Manager style drift
i.e. The evolution of alpha seeking manager choices and the strategies overtime, particularly in non-transparent vehicles. -
Over diversification of managers
i.e. Products have been chosen for a specific purpose but may contradict views expressed elsewhere in the portfolio.
Index for control
When it comes to implementing a strategic asset allocation view on a specific market or asset class, indexing can help to control risk and reduce the misalignment between the target portfolio and the implemented portfolio. It allows investors to free up risk budget to express potentially riskier tactical views and to efficiently balance risk with the potential reward.
4 Source: 60/40 Portfolio based on 60% MSCI World Index and 40% Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Bond Index. Source: BlackRock, Morningstar from April 2014 - April 2019. Assumes USD-based investor. Data frequency = Monthly. 5 Source: Analysis based on all European domiciled active managers, with a 5-year track record and benchmarked to MSCI World and Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Bond Index. Source: BlackRock, Morningstar from 30 April 2014 – 30 April 2019. Assumes USD-based investor. Data frequency = Monthly.
Drive Performance with Indexing
There is more pressure than ever to reduce portfolio costs. Transparency and increased scrutiny on fees are changing revenue models, while technology is creating ‘robo’ advisers and automated offerings that deliver simple and cost-efficient solutions.
“I think costs are a huge issue – clients talk about Value for Money now, that’s something that we didn’t use to have conversations around, but it’s just because costs are under the microscope across every part of the value chain. So clients squeeze us, we squeeze managers.”
- UK Wealth Manager
There is no surprise that indexing is chosen to help lower costs. The average underlying management fees are:
Beyond this, it is also important to consider the cost efficiencies of indexing. By this we refer to the concept of strategic market and style factor tilts that account for a large portion, often more than 90%, of returns generated by traditional long only equity managers. Unless a manager can capture idiosyncratic returns in excess of their management fee, it can often be more cost efficient to implement through indexing.
This is also relevant in large fund-of-fund portfolios where there are multiple active funds - often several within the same asset class. The diversification across many managers have unintendedly cancelled out positions and the potential for idiosyncratic returns, resulting in ultimately a more expensive version of the benchmark.
Index for returns
In the end, what matters most is the returns net of fees. The latest SPIVA8 report states that, net of fees, many alpha managers can underperform if they do not express strong conviction in tilts or exposures different to the benchmark.
Indexing can be an efficient way to express strategic views and control how you tilt between asset classes and factors, whilst freeing up fee budget to invest in high octane alpha and alternatives where true alpha is more likely to be rewarded.
Overall, we see that a portfolio with greater indexing coupled with true alpha-seeking and alternative managers’ results in better returns for investors.
6 Source: BlackRock Portfolio Analysis and Solutions (BPAS) Insights. Based on portfolios received from Jan 2018 – December 2018.
7 Source: BlackRock Global Business Intelligence Report, as at April 2019. Based on ETFs listed in Europe only.
8 Source: S&P Persistence Scorecard, S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, CRSP as at September 2018.