Managed Funds Platinum Unhedged Fund

With all the negativity towards Platinums funds (other than Platinum Asia) - especially the hedging issues they seem to have with the Platinum International fund ... I thought I might have a closer look at the new Platinum Unhedged fund which opened to the public a couple of months back (March 2007 I think).

Normally I wouldn't consider such a new fund without any track record - but I was browsing through the Platinum website and noticed that the unit price history for the fund was a lot longer than I expected !! On closer inspection it appears that this fund has actually been trading for well over 2 years now - it started back at the end of January 2005 !!!

Anyway - I decided to run it through my system and build a chart for it ... it has performed better than I expected (for an international fund), and certainly far better than the Platinum International fund has in the past 12 months / 2 years.

I've attached charts for both below.

FY returns for the two funds:

Platinum Unhedged vs Platinum International
2005/06: 42.08% vs 25.46%
2006/07: 13.08% vs 5.57%

Quarter-by-quarter returns:

Platinum Unhedged vs Platinum International
2005Q2: -4.11% vs -2.69%
2005Q3: 13.79% vs 11.27%
2005Q4: 14.10% vs 10.75%
2006Q1: 14.52% vs 8.11%
2006Q2: -3.70% vs -5.26%
2006Q3: 3.77% vs 1.77%
2006Q4: 2.02% vs -0.57%
2007Q1: 0.72% vs 0.65%
2007Q2: 6.46% vs 3.19%

To better understand the differences between the two funds - I suggest you look at the quarterly reports ... in particular, the March report has a real example of the differences in strategy:

http://www.platinum.com.au/images/pufqtr_0307.pdf
http://www.platinum.com.au/images/pufqtr_0607.pdf

Personally I think they are a little over-exposed to the US and Japan, but I'm certainly no expert ... at least they currently have some exposure (2%) to the Australian market, which I think is something the Platinum International fund lacks (I'm not sure whether they have a non-Australia mandate).

... anyway just thought I'd post these interesting findings. I've certainly added the fund to my watchlist - although it's not quite good enough to make my shortlist yet ... although it would currently rank 4th in my shortlist of funds and shows a buy signal - although I won't consider it yet (Navra is still easily outperforming it due to the strong Australian market).

 

According to INFOCHOICE | Investment | Margin Lending | Compare ... PLA0006AU is currently offered an LVR by BT, LevEq and Macq ... all 70%

I just checked St.George - they are now offering 60% LVR

Interestingly, LevEq are now offering 75% on Platinum International ... they rarely go to 75% (unlike St.George who offer 75% on a lot of funds). LevEq have also recently increased their LVR on Platinum Asia to 70%, up from 65%.