“The growth rally that started mid-way through last year continued into the first quarter of 2013, despite more jitters emanating from Europe,” said Morningstar Senior Research Analyst Julian Robertson.

“It was a challenging period for fund managers, as the average manager in the majority of categories failed to surpass benchmarks. Large- and small-cap Australian share fund managers were the main exception. Among fixed income funds, credit and emerging market exposures did better, although returns across the fixed interest spectrum were meagre.”

Key Findings

• Value-style fund managers did best on average among the large-cap Australian share funds, although most of their growth counterparts also outperformed the index. Well over half (68 of 102) of large-cap Australian share funds managed to beat the market in the first three months of 2013.    
• Value-style options also came out on top in the Australian smaller companies category, the 9.43 percent quarterly average return easily outpacing the S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries Index’s 1.61 percent. The market’s result was hampered by the poor performance of small resources companies, which fell over the quarter. Only four of the 46 options in this category were unable to beat the index.
• The major international sharemarkets posted positive gains in the March quarter. Japan was a leading light in powering ahead 19.27 percent as measured by the Nikkei 225 Average Index, but the emerging markets lagged (down 2.03 percent). Only 26 of the 73 international share funds in this survey exceeded the benchmark and all styles underperformed on average. 
• The March quarter was another excellent one for global listed property, which gained nine percent. Australian listed property recorded a less impressive but still reasonable gain of 5.3 percent. Domestic property trust funds struggled to beat their benchmark in general. Internationally, no manager beat its yardstick and on average lagged by over two percent.  
• Returns from multi-sector growth funds were solid, posting an average return of 5.24 percent for the first quarter of 2013.

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“Growth assets enjoyed a healthy Christmas rally and closed out the year on a resoundingly strong note,” said Morningstar Senior Research Analyst Julian Robertson.

“Market conditions meant that value-style share funds did best over the December quarter, while income-seekers continued to chase Australian listed property in a falling interest rate environment. Among fixed income funds, credit and emerging market exposures did particularly well, reflecting the more benign investment backdrop in the final quarter of the year.”

Key Findings

• Value-style fund managers did best on average among the large-cap Australian share funds, although most of their growth counterparts also outperformed the index. Just over half (55 of 102) of large-cap Australian share funds managed to beat the market in the final three months of 2012.
• Value-style options also came out on top in the Australian smaller companies category, the 6.10 percent quarterly return easily outpacing the S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries Index’s 2.04 percent. The market’s result was hampered by the poor performance of small resources companies, which fell 8.95 percent over the quarter. Only four of the 46 options in this category were unable to beat the index.
• The major international sharemarket sectors to post positive gains in the December quarter were financials, consumer discretionary, and industrials, reflecting the improved outlook for banks and the broader economic environment. Value-style funds were again the best performers in general. Forty-six of the 73 international share strategies outperformed the index over the three months.
• The December quarter was another excellent one for Australian listed property, which gained 6.95 percent and ended the year with a 32.79 percent gain. This was easily the best-performing major asset class, driven largely by investors’ thirst for income in a falling interest rate environment. Active fund managers however again failed to beat the index in general over this three-month period and all other trailing periods in this survey. 
• Many Australian fixed income funds had a favourable three months, 25 of the 44 in this survey outperforming the UBS Composite Bond Index’s meagre 0.21 percent. Fund managers with tilts to credit did best as credit spreads narrowed in a risk-on environment. This was echoed in global fixed interest, where credit-related securities and emerging market debt did well.
• The returns from multi-sector growth funds were reasonable, the average return 3.82 percent for the final quarter and a creditable 15.71 percent for the 2012 calendar year.

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The enhancements include simplified share and managed funds trading, significant enhancements to template (model portfolio) functionality and online corporate actions for eWRAP super and pension accounts.

Head of Asgard, Craig Lawrenson, said Asgard had worked closely with advisers to ensure the changes would result in a simpler, more intuitive and user-friendly trading experience for advisers.

“We continue to invest in the eWRAP platform so that it streamlines portfolio administration and continues to deliver the features and functionality that advisers need to reduce the cost of providing advice.

“We have over $6.2 billion of funds under administration currently using templates, and these new enhancements to our templating functionality will mean advisers can now create templates comprising cash, managed funds and equities which they can link to multiple clients.
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In addition they‟ll now have the added ability to set portfolio preferences at an individual client level to tailor the template to the individual needs of the client.
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“They’ll benefit from greater portfolio administration efficiency, be able to keep clients’ portfolios on track with our automatically-generated rebalance instructions and it’ll be easier to customise templated portfolios to ensure they reflect the needs of different clients. The new features mean clients can be advised individually but where appropriate execution can occur collectively.”
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Mr Lawrenson said enhancements to share trading within eWRAP were particularly timely as the inclusion of equities in portfolios continued to see a resurgence. Simplified share and managed funds trading, and online corporate actions have also been introduced for Asgard’s Managed Profiles platform. Both eWRAP and Managed Profiles are accessed through Asgard’modes award-winning AdviserNET which recently won the “Best Navigation and User Interface‟ award in the 2010 Investment Trends Platform Report.

Details of the enhancements

Simplified share trading.

The new-look trading screen will consolidate the existing buy investments and sell investments screens into a single screen allowing advisers to:

• Buy and sell managed investments and shares for a single client, on the one screen
• Take advantage of real-time trading
• Place trades using pre-settlement sale proceeds
• Have access to market and company research.

Smarter portfolio management.

Advisers will be able to create templates for cash and equities investment leading to more effective and efficient portfolio management. Additionally, advisers will be able to create a combination of portfolio templates. Template preferences will be able to be set depending on individual client need. For example, templates can:

• Include or exclude assets
• Substitute one asset for another
• Lock an asset so it can‟t fall below a limit an adviser nominates
• Specify a minimum trade or holding value before a buy or sell can occur.

Online corporate actions.

Advisers will be able to manage corporate actions online and participate in dividend reinvestment plans.

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CMC Markets and optionsXpress Australia, a leading online derivatives trading firm, today announced a new partnership for CFDs and share trading that is set to transform the education and broking experience for investors.

The partnership includes the entire optionsXpress Australia family: HUBB Financial, Safety in the Market, optionsXpress and Optionetics.

optionsXpress has chosen to partner with CMC Markets because of the advanced and flexible nature of CMC Market’s Application Programming Interface (API) and wide range of investment tools and products. CMC Markets will provide optionsXpress with the flexibility to offer multiple front ends based on the needs of the individual client.

The partnership means that all optionsXpress Australia clients will automatically have access to trading solutions such as CFDs and shares, and can act on whatever trading signals are generated by optionsXpress’ state of the art Profit Source and Integrated Investor platforms encompassing signals based trading.

“This partnership expands the relationship between the Australian subsidiaries of both firms, which have been delivering unique investment opportunities for traders in Australia for several years now. The agreement we now have in place delivers on optionsXpress’ goal of making it easy for everyday investors to trade derivative products,” said John-Paul Drysdale, Managing Director of optionsXpress Australia.

“We are proud to offer CFDs to optionsXpress Australia’s traders and investors, and to be able to give our clients an important asset class as part of their plans to grow their wealth,” said Mr Drysdale.

“The appeal of working with optionsXpress is that they have a large and loyal client base, both domestically (with HUBB Financial) and overseas. The fact that optionsXpress’ clients were clearly dedicated to the company, across several continents, was a very positive sign to CMC Markets,” said Jamie Clinnick, Head of Partners (Wholesale) Australia and New Zealand at CMC Markets.

“CMC Markets is a strong advocate of trading and investment education and this partnership gives CMC Markets even stronger education options to potentially offer to its own clients, that optionsXpress can support,” said Mr Clinnick.

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