New share portfolio added to Fiducian stable

A new Emerging Leaders Share Portfolio has been added to Fiducian Portfolio Services’ product line-up.

Spread across a variety of sectors, the bulk of the 14 stocks are defensive, but also comprise a number that give exposure to commodities, cyclicals and listed property.

There is also a small number of recovery stocks.

The decision to add a fourth portfolio was taken because of the recognition that it could give access to mid-capitalisation and small-capitalisation stocks, with Fiducian feeling that these can deliver strong growth if the right companies are selected.

Within the portfolio construction criteria it followed, Fiducian divided the stock into four quadrants including commodities, cyclical and listed property.

Despite some speculation that the commodity market is overvalued, Jai Singh, Fiducian’s manager of investment projects, said the financial planning firm was quite confident that demand for commodities would not diminish any time soon.

However, he said it was cautious about commodity valuations that are in some cases overvalued, which meant it was not overweight on commodities, and would review stocks on a case-by-case basis.

The stocks are ranked between numbers 70 and 200 on the Australian Stock Exchange by market capitalisation.

Stock selection criteria include a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, which has resulted in strong performance during the first two months of operation. It is expected the portfolio will achieve its objective of a fully franked dividend of around 5 per cent.

According to Singh: “Given these companies hold a strong market position in their area of interest and a healthy prospect for earnings revision through capital initiative or organic growth, we believe they should represent good value over the long-term.”

Fiducian said it continues to differentiate itself from other managed discretionary accounts by offering a choice of three portfolios within both its investor directed portfolio service and superannuation platforms: growth, imputation, and property securities.