Friends Provident International (FPI) has added a trio of funds designed for volatile stock market conditions to its offshore bond platform.
The Credit Agricole Asset Management (Caam) Volatility World Equities Fund uses stock market volatility as a source of generating returns.
According to FPI, Caam’s fund managers “optimise exposure to fluctuations in the one year implied volatility of the world’s most important equity indices to generate performance for investors uncorrelated to the movement of the wider asset class.”
The fund, said FPI, benefit both from periods of high and low volatility.
The other new fund links FPI has established are with JPM products. JPM Highbridge Statistical Market Neutral Fund seeks to generate returns in all market conditions through long and short positions in mid and large cap stocks. The fund’s market neutral strategy aims to reduce volatility by cutting out general market movements.
JPM Global Capital Preservation Fund aims to beat cash by investing across asset classes. Risk controls are designed to keep the fund’s volatility below that of a direct investment in global equities.
Jim Henning, funds marketing and research manager for FPI, said: “These investment-linked fund options are designed to appeal to a range of investors from the risk averse through to the more sophisticated risk-seeking investor.
"While nobody can predict short term market trends, these new additions help advisers seek out more diverse sources of return over the longer term and complement our traditional long-only investment-linked fund strategies.”
