What would you do if you had to manage an investment fund in times as difficult as the current ones? Surely, he would pose major dilemmas: Do I go ahead with my convictions? Do you sell part of the portfolio? Do you take advantage to buy more titles on the market? A difficult task for them, managers have no choice but to face. Especially when what lies ahead is not an investment fund linked to indexes and, therefore, requires active management.

This summer has been a litmus test for them, and fall will not be different. So we are down to detail to explain what were the reactions and decisions of five of them expert managers with very different ways of dealing with these times so scrambled.


The more defensive
Ricardo Gil, manager of the Kilimanjaro BK (one of the Spanish funds more resistant to crisis, up 5.8% this year), has rethought the positioning of the substance on risky assets. Beyond this, Gil understands that “the lack of definitive figures for the slowdown is difficult to make decisions in depth,” and has focused in particular on reducing exposure to more cyclical part of the portfolio (especially industrial). “The most important movement has been started to ride short position in German five-year bonds, which we believe has been granted an excessive risk premium rates below the 1.5 to 1%”, explains the manager of this fund global.

Is also a defensive bet they have adopted and Olivier Tinguely Luis Bononato, consultants Global Allocation Fund (a fund of author, whose objective is to obtain a higher return than the European stock exchange with a similar or lower risk). “This summer we drastically reduced portfolio risk, especially in equities, as we became more difficult to understand the situation, “they say. Currently betting on fixed income, especially for mortgage bonds and, in general, the longer term, the better. “We have a diversified portfolio of fixed income with mortgage bonds, convertible bonds, preferred and subordinated bond some banks and some high-quality mortgage-backed securities and even some Greek debt,” say Bononato and Tinguely. The fund’s current exposure to Equity is not minimal: it is null, 0%.

Ricardo Cañete, director of equities and head of product Mutuactivos Mutuactivos dynamic, also tells us about his decision to “replicate candles” for the moment. Specifically, this product portfolio management have reduced the exposure to stock from 34% to 13%. Today, the Mutuactivos Manages Dynamic mode is “preservation of capital”, in funds such as the FI and Mutuafondo Mutuafondo Short Term Bills and investing in government bonds, mortgage bonds and financial bonds and corporate.

Seize the moment
But not all defensive in the Spanish industry of funds. Alberto Espelosín, Alpha Ibercaja manager, and Jose Antonio Mendez, head of the Global March, take advantage of the current uncertainty “chasing” values ​​that have long wanted to have in its portfolio and now offer more attractive prices. “We felt that the market was too negative,” says Espelosín. Just do your fund portfolio is now more focused on what they know best.

“We have continued to buy companies with a strong financial position and pricing power, and those with a high dividend yield,” he says. They have also begun to take positions in the financial sector, “something we had not done in the past two or three years, “he added. Today, the portfolio has an important defensive side, with values ​​such as BEA Systems , Thales, or Metro .

For his part, Jose Antonio Mendez acknowledges that by the end of August, exposure of the Global March and the stock exchange was 90%, while earlier this year had been declining, reaching historically low levels, around 80%. ” The sharp declines experienced during the month of August have been used to selectively increase the burden on companies where the separation between the share price and underlying business value has been wider, “says Mendez. In fact, in August, the only movements in the portfolio have been shopping. By sector, are now his favorite food, technology and industrial goods.

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