Long Short 140/40 – Sir John Ross

Leveraged portfolios allow you to get a greater exposure to what you’re investing in. Think of it in the same way that you would invest in property. If you wanted to buy a R1 million house, you’d only have to put down a percentage of that amount as a deposit, while still owning the property and reaping the benefts of it’s gain in value respectively. Leveraging investments work the same way; the amount you invest is a percentage of the exposure you get in the market.

Our Leveraged Equity portfolio follows a quantitative long-short leveraged strategy, investing in the most liquid shares on the JSE. These portfolios are constructed by analyzing the relationship between risk factors over various economic and market cycles and then allocations are made into a combination of our four equity factor building blocks, being Value, Quality, Stability and Momentum. This portfolio will take long and short positions, meaning investments are made into companies in which the share price is expected to grow, as well as in companies in which the share price is expected to fall, and may also retain amounts in cash or cash equivalents pending reinvestment if this is considered appropriate to maximise returns.The investment is permitted to invest in foreign instruments and its investment strategies will be mainly focused on South African equities, but supplemented by other opportunities such as offshore investments, subject to applicable legal limits. Portfolio short positions are primarily broad market indices and are targeted.

For this portfolio, the aim is to reach an average Beta market exposure of 100% by leveraging targeted shares to 140% of portfolio exposure and reducing Beta through market short positions.

Our data driven market timing models and market risk factors are used to determine optimal exposure levels and to facilitate sector and share weights, investment style and sector rotation to fully capture excess returns.