How to Profit from a Falling Market

Despite a recent correction, many bears are calling the end of the US stock market's fortune. If you believe the market may lose value, consider funds that can profit from share price falls

Emma Wall 26 November, 2014 | 10:15AM
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Emma Wall: Hello and welcome to the Morningstar Series 'Why Should I Invest with You?' I'm Emma Wall and here with me today is Stephen Moore, Manager of the Artemis U.S. Extended Alpha Fund. Hello Stephen.

Stephen Moore: Hi.

Wall: So bit of a mouthful Artemis U.S. Extended Alpha.

Moore: Isn’t it.

Wall: What exactly does Extended Alpha mean?

Moore: Extended Alpha takes a long-only fund and it adds on a short-book which usually equates to about 30% of the exposure of the fund. And then it takes the cash from that and invests it back into the long-book for fund. So you end up with, what is called a beta one fund, which means that it matches overall market exposure, but with the added benefit of generating alpha on the new short positions that you've added as well as increasing the size of the long positions and so generating additional alpha associated with that.

Wall: So for the layman that means that if stocks go down, you can still profit.

Moore: Yes. If the stocks that we're sure of go down, we can absolutely profit. The idea is that there is more capacity for alpha generation. And in addition to that, if you introduce short positions and you can offset that against long positions that reduces the overall risk of the portfolio. The overall volatility of the portfolio and that’s something that we've very much benefitted from historically.

Wall: So smoothing volatility and benefitting from falling stocks are two things are probably good to hear for people who are nervous about U.S. stock market. There it’s a lot of – I mean it's even rumored any more everybody has been saying the U.S. stock market is due correction, for about the last year. I mean where do you stand on that?

Moore: Well it had a correction and it was definitely something that we were concerned about and U.S. markets fell peak to trough 10%, that’s a pretty healthy correction. The opportunities for investing in the U.S. are still reasonable, but certainly not what they were a couple of years ago when valuations were a lot lower.

I think that the prospects for the U.S. market are pretty good relative to other asset classes around the world. But the truth of the matter is we've had an everything rally and asset prices have increased in valuations substantially. So I think the prospects for a general correction are actually higher than they were associated with higher valuations. But the U.S. equity market on a relative basis is still I think very attractive place to invest your money.

Wall: So just be prepared perhaps for bit of a bumpy ride.

Moore: Yeah, I think no question. Lower returns generally and high volatility are probably reasonable expectations.

Wall: Stephen, thank you very much.

Moore: Thank you.

Wall: This is Emma Wall for Morningstar. Thank you for watching.

 

The information contained within is for educational and informational purposes ONLY. It is not intended nor should it be considered an invitation or inducement to buy or sell a security or securities noted within nor should it be viewed as a communication intended to persuade or incite you to buy or sell security or securities noted within. Any commentary provided is the opinion of the author and should not be considered a personalised recommendation. The information contained within should not be a person's sole basis for making an investment decision. Please contact your financial professional before making an investment decision.

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Securities Mentioned in Article

Security NamePriceChange (%)Morningstar
Rating
Artemis US Extended Alpha I Acc GBP4.26 GBP-1.12Rating

About Author

Emma Wall  is former Senior International Editor for Morningstar

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