Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – The Solidar Smartbeta Trend fund, the Swedish systematic equity fund run by Solidar AB, enjoyed another successful month in April following a good run since September last year, returning +3.32% and bringing it up to +9.79% YTD. This is by comparison to +0.60% on the NHX for April as of May 10 (+2.23 YTD). The result is also the fund’s best since May last year, despite its cautious exposure.
Incepted in 2007, the Solidar SmartBeta Trend Fund has SEK 198 million in AUM and is managed with a systematic model with the objective of exploiting the stock market’s major upswings, protecting capital during downturns. The management model consists of tens of different sub-models that combined result in the fund’s total asset allocation. This allocation can be divided into the main categories of individual shares, stock index futures and interest. The fund’s proprietary systematic models have the twin functions of dynamically selecting shares to be included in the portfolio and varying total stock market exposure by varying exposure to index futures.
The fund’s equity market exposure was reduced from 95% to 50% in March, prompting a reallocation of its equity portfolio and its net exposure temporarily reduced to 43% in April. With the fund’s management models indicating a strengthening of stock market trends, particularly during the market’s uptick following the first round of the French presidential election, stock exposure was instead increased to 90%, while retaining high readiness to retool should the stock market retreat (now unlikely in the short term given the win for Emmanuel Macron in the second round of the French election).
In a comment to the month’s performance, portfolio manager Krister Sjöblom underlined that the fund continues to enjoy good returns and relatively low volatility, cementing its place among the top-yield of hedge funds in the Swedish market across all time horizons between one month and 5 years on the back of April’s strong performance, providing a “new all-time high” for the trend.
