FE fundinfo Crown Fund Ratings help Aussie advisers meet best interest duty

The FE fundinfo Crown Fund Ratings are a quantitative measure covering over 200,000 live funds that FE fundinfo collects worldwide. 

The ratings help to distinguish between funds that are strongly outperforming their benchmark and those that are not. 

Rebalanced twice a year in February and August, the rating takes into account three key measurements: alpha, volatility and consistently strong performance. 

The top 10% of the funds are awarded five crowns, the next 15% receive four crown and each one of the next three quartiles are given one less crown.

FE fundinfo Crown Fund Ratings are frequently used by professional advisers to screen for the best performing funds in a sector and at a factsheet level are used as part of an adviser’s paper trail to show thorough and rigorous research has been undertaken.

The ratings apply to all the main FE fundinfo universes including Australian Managed Investments, Superannuation, Retirement Income and Investment Bonds, and aim to identify funds that have, over recent times, displayed superior performance in terms of:

• Stock picking;
• Consistency of outperformance against a credible benchmark; and
• Achievement of results at a relatively low risk.

Our view is that certain types of performance are more valuable than others. The drivers behind performance recognised by FE fundinfo Crown Fund Rating are those that we believe are intrinsically more valuable to investors in nature because of their solidity.

Our team of experts are continually enhancing the ratings methodology to ensure quality and provide better fund insight. We most recently change our fund benchmarks to a more closely targeted benchmark for sectors that were too diverse. This has improved the quality of the calculations and has removed dependence on the nature and size of fund sectors.

To find out which funds have been awarded the highest rating of five crowns, visit our Investment Centre powered by FE fundinfo.

FE fundinfo Crown Fund Ratings are not individual fund recommendations, and should not be seen as specific advice, but a quantitative rating to provide a basis for refining and monitoring a list of funds that would be suitable for consideration.

Due to the focus on alpha, FE fundinfo Crown Fund Ratings are by definition aimed at the active investor.