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August 03, 2010 at 08:00 PM
Natixis Global Associates (NGA) launched the Westpeak ActiveBeta Equity Fund in conjunction with Westpeak Global Advisors on Tuesday, August 3. The mutual fund will seek to outperform the S&P 500 Index by employing a quantitative value and momentum strategy that uses Westpeak’s proprietary portfolio construction process.
Khalid Ghayur, Stephen Platt and Stephen Komon of Westpeak will manage the new product.
According to an NGA announcement, the fund uses a disciplined quantitative portfolio construction technique in which every month all stocks in the S&P 500 Index are ranked independently according to value and momentum signals, NGA said in an announcement. Value signals include price-to-book, price-to-sales and price-to-cash flow (or earnings). The momentum indicator is a stock’s trailing 12-month return.
The fund takes positions in high value, high momentum and high value and momentum stocks. Typically, it will invest in about 65% of the names in the S&P 500 Index (some 325 stocks), taking small positions in each relative to the index. The portfolio’s weighting of a single security is generally no more than 1% higher than the index and no less than 1.2% lower than the index. The fund’s approach is entirely transparent, the announcement said. It does not use a portfolio optimizer or “black box.”
