FE TRUSTNET
defensive names, the other full of
cyclical ones, and attempting to
outperform with their defensives
relative to defensives and cyclicals
relative to cyclicals.
“This approach helps with individual
stock selection as you separate out
the ‘economic’ drivers from the
‘business’,” they added.
FACT BOX
MANAGERS: Carlos Moreno & Thomas Brown / LAUNCHED: 14/12/2015 / FUND SIZE:
£753m / OCF: 0.94%
FE CROWN RATING
PERFORMANCE OF FUND VS SECTOR SINCE LAUNCH
IA Europe ex LF Miton European
UK (47.04%) Opportunities (103.39%)
120%
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
O
l
-20%
E
“Any process that sounds
computable, you’re trying to take a
computer head on,” he added. “It’s
a mistake. The short term is brutally
efficient. Any obvious valuation
anomaly will be jumped on.”
Another way Moreno and Brown
differentiate themselves from their
peers is by looking at the full universe
of stocks rather than just the top half –
and then visiting these companies in
their own office, rather than waiting
for them to come to London.
“If you go and see them in their office,
they’re a lot more relaxed, they’re a lot
more expansive,” Brown added.
“This goes back to what Carlos was
saying, thinking about not just the
next quarter’s numbers, but the really
difficult imponderable that we spend
most of our time thinking about.
“Being willing to jump on an
easyJet flight out of Gatwick is not
high glamour, but super easy and
super cheap.”
LF Miton European
Opportunities
The managers do not take into
account the macro picture when
picking stocks, admitting they do not
have any sort of edge in this regard.
Instead they run the fund in what
they call an “economically neutral”
fashion.
This involves building two equally
sized baskets of stocks, one full of
Carlos Moreno and Thomas Brown warn against focusing too
heavily on short-term news-flow, saying this would make it almost
impossible to gain an edge over their peers
quity investors are often
reminded about the
importance of taking a
long-term approach, but the fund
managers they entrust their money
to don’t always follow this advice. For
Carlos Moreno and Thomas Brown,
managers of the LF Miton European
Opportunities fund, focusing too
heavily on what is happening to a
company over the next quarter or so
is why so many of their peers fail to
pull away from the benchmark.
“We tend to look into the far future
because you can have a differentiated
view then,” said Moreno.
“If I had to guess what you’re going
to do next week, the chances are all I
need to do is work out what you are
doing this week. In five years’ time
there are much wider possibilities.”
And the manager said this longer-
term outlook is becoming ever
more important with the pace of
technological advances.
[ FUND ]
30 / 31
In focus
Source: FE Analytics
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