Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Nordea’s Alpha 10 MA Fund exceeded its target return of 5-to-7 percent gross of fees in five of the past six years. Seven months into 2021, the fund managed by Nordea’s multi-asset investment team, headed by Asbjørn Trolle Hansen, is exceeding its target return yet again after its net-of-fees return of 3.7 percent for July brought the 2021 advance to 8.7 percent.

Alpha 10 MA Fund is part of Nordea’s three-member Alpha fund family, with the three funds sharing the same investment approach but exhibiting different risk-return profiles. “The funds are multi-strategy, risk premia-based liquid alternative investment solutions,” Asbjørn Trolle Hansen (pictured), Head of Multi Assets at Nordea, previously told HedgeNordic. “This fund range uses a number of low correlated investment strategies to provide dynamic exposure to multiple return drivers within a universe consisting of a subset of mainly equities, fixed income and currencies,” he elaborated. In pursuit of diversification to traditional asset classes, Nordea’s multi-asset team is splitting up about 30 different risk premia strategies into six buckets or “SuperStrategies.”

“This month was quite similar to the last one, as risk-off risk premia posted an overall strong performance.”

“This month was quite similar to the last one, as risk-off risk premia posted an overall strong performance, stemming from flat to strong individual contributions,” Nordea’s multi-asset team comments in a monthly update to investors. “The risk-on ones did well too. The Equity Premia SuperStrategy was the largest contributor, with sturdy outcome posted by its defensive ‘Low Risk Anomaly,’ which was followed to a lower extent by the risk-on ones, as its ‘Momentum and Growth’ component benefitted from positive trends in US markets compared to the emerging ones.”

“The Strategic Risk Balancing SuperStrategy was the second contributor to performance, as, once again, all its components posted positive contributions. Among them, the defensive currency strategy stood out, delivering overall positive returns,” writes the multi-asset team. “Finally, our Currency SuperStrategy posted a small positive contribution too, mainly owed to its carry component,” the team continues. “The other risk premia used posted small negative to flat contributions over the month, with no specific outlier.”

“The other risk premia used posted small negative to flat contributions over the month, with no specific outlier.”

Nordea’s Alpha family of funds collectively oversees €8.8 billion in assets under management at the mid-point of the year. Alpha 15 MA Fund, the most aggressive member of the family that targets higher returns and exhibits higher volatility, gained 5.5 percent in July to take the performance for the first seven months of 2021 to 13.4 percent. Alpha 7 MA Fund returned 2.5 percent in July and is up 5.7 percent year-to-date through the end of July.