Portfolio managers of equity funds face many challenges when it comes to communicating the value and strategy of their funds to investors.
One crucial aspect of this communication is demonstrating the fund’s exposure by geography and business sector. While this breakdown is valuable for showcasing the breakdown of our funds, it often simplifies a more complex reality.
Exposures across geographies and sectors do not operate in isolation; rather, they interplay and compound each other, creating a dynamic that can significantly impact a fund’s performance. This complexity is further amplified when portfolio managers focus on innovative businesses, leading to a fund strategy where, like the Dominion Funds, innovation, exposure to emerging markets, and attractive valuations compound on each other to produce exceptional returns.
The necessity of showing splits in fund exposures by geography and sector stems from the basic requirement to manage risk and to align with investors’ preferences and investment goals.
Geographical diversity can safeguard against regional economic downturns, political instability, or currency fluctuations. Sectoral diversity, on the other hand, helps in mitigating risks associated with industry-specific downturns. By providing this split, we offer a clear picture of how our funds are positioned to tackle various macroeconomic challenges.
But this segmented view oversimplifies the underlying dynamics. For instance, a technology sector investment in an emerging market does not just carry the inherent risks and rewards of the tech industry and the emerging market independently. Instead, these factors interact in a way that might amplify or mitigate risks and opportunities. Emerging markets, with their rapid growth, can offer a fertile ground for technology companies to scale at an unprecedented pace, thus compounding the investment’s growth potential.
Introducing a focus on innovative businesses into this mix adds another layer of opportunity. Innovation-driven investments often embody high growth potential and can be pivotal in driving a fund’s performance. When these investments are in emerging markets, they tap into vast, untapped consumer bases and leapfrog traditional developmental stages with groundbreaking technologies. This combination can lead to significant market revaluation, offering attractive entry valuations that can substantially appreciate over time. We have a number of these investments in our funds which we view as very exciting long-term opportunities.
Moreover, innovation itself is often a cross-sectoral theme, transcending traditional industry boundaries. Investing in innovation requires a nuanced understanding of how new technologies or business models can disrupt or create markets. This perspective allows portfolio managers to identify opportunities that others may overlook, particularly in sectors that are ripe for innovation but have not yet attracted mainstream attention.
The interplay between geographical and sectoral exposures, compounded by a focus on innovation, creates a fertile ground for achieving exceptional returns. This dynamic is particularly potent in emerging markets, where the pace of change and the scale of opportunity can be significantly greater than in more developed counterparts. But this complexity also demands a sophisticated investment approach, one that goes beyond simple allocation models to understand the deep interconnections between sectors, geographies, and the transformative power of innovation.
Through this lens, equity fund managers can craft portfolios that not only navigate the complexities of the global market but also harness these interactions to deliver superior performance.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author at the date of publication and not necessarily those of Dominion Capital Strategies Limited or its related companies. The content of this article is not intended as investment advice and will not be updated after publication. Images, video, quotations from literature and any such material which may be subject to copyright is reproduced in whole or in part in this article on the basis of Fair use as applied to news reporting and journalistic comment on events.
