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Talking Factsheet
GEARx strategy
Tom Gardner, Global Head of Institutional, interviews Amadeo Alentorn, Lead Investment Manager, Systematic Equities, on the GEARx strategy
Welcome, everybody, to this session on Jupiter Systematic Equities, and with a particular reference to the launch of the GEARx strategy, and evolution of the product offering within the Jupiter Systematic team that we are super excited to show to you today. I'm joined by Amadeo Alentorn, Head of Systematic Equities at Jupiter. I am Tom Gardner, Global Head of Institutional. Amadeo, you're one of the longest serving multi-factor teams in the market. Perhaps you could take us through the team and how long you've been working together.
Sure Tom. So, I've been part of this team for over 20 years. The seven of us have been working together for a long time. Some of my team members have been working with me for close to 20 years as well. And over this length of time, what we have done is we have applied a scientific approach to understanding global equity markets and how we can consistently extract alpha with a multi-factor dynamic model.
And as an asset base, you run about $13.8 billion. Could you take us through the split of that.
So, of that, around four and a half is in long short equity strategies, and nine and a half in long only strategies. Key to this is that we use the exact same investment process across the entire AUM. So, all of the research that we do, benefits all of the funds.
Great. And then I think I'm right in saying that you also utilise an external panel. Could you take us through the people on that and just highlighting a few key people?
A number of us in the team come from PhD and postgraduate research, and thanks to these relationships with these leading academics, we have continued to be able to be at the cutting edge of academic research across a number of different disciplines. This includes accounting, statistics, econometrics, AI, machine learning, econo-physics. Some of these individuals are very senior professors. For example, we've been working with Steve Satchel and Peter Pope for about 20 years. They are a bit like the grandads of the team, experts in econometrics and financial accounting. But then also in more recent years, we have onboarded academics, experts in newer disciplines like AI, machine learning. We have also launched a PhD program where we are fully sponsoring some, full time PhD researchers that are working on projects that we set up for them. So overall, we're able to do a lot more research thanks to these, academic programs.
And the GEAR strategy that the new strategy is based on, that's been going since 2009 with a very strong track record, can you take us through the track record of that.
GEAR was launched almost 16 years ago as a UCITS, Irish domiciled, daily liquid fund, with single leverage. So, for $100 of your investment, 100 long, 100 short, zero net. And with that, we have been able to deliver approximately cash plus five returns with a realised volatility of five. And that's running with a limit of six. In more recent years, we have achieved net Sharpe Ratio north of two. So very consistent returns and crucially with close to zero correlation with equity markets. So it is a genuine alternative to traditional assets.
One of the key aspects of your strategy and the team strategy is your proprietary factors. You have some slower-moving signals and you have faster moving signals. Could you just explain the differences between those?
So over the last 20 years, all the research we have done, has resulted in five factor families. Some of them are more fundamentally inspired. We've got components like valuation, growth, the quality of the management team. I mean, with those you could argue that we have systematised, intuitive, well understood ideas, but using lots of data and very robust models. But then what's also been very important is to recognise that those fundamental strategies may go through environments that are less useful. And that's where sentiment, as a collection of short-term indicators, can be very relevant, particularly in market environments where investors are not focusing so much on fundamental drivers. And then finally, we also recognise that price action or technical indicators can also help us complement analysis of a stock. We are deploying those five factor families across 7,000 stocks every day. Within each family there's a number of indicators. And eventually if you keep drilling down, you end up finding 40 million data points that get consumed every day to refresh those 7,000 stock analyses.
One of the key aspects that really sets the team apart, I think compared to the competition, is the dynamic weighting of those factor families. And I think it's fair to say that over the past 17 quarters, where you've delivered positive returns in every single one of those quarters, we've seen some sharp reversals, we've seen quite a lot of changing macro picture. Perhaps you can just take us through what that means and how that looks like in terms of the dynamism of the product.
So even if each of the five factor families is capturing an intuitive idea, what we are recognising very explicitly is that, over a full market cycle, some of them will be more or less useful. And that's where a dynamic approach
to weighting or timing comes in. What the model does is it looks at the current environment, it learns from history, assessing which of the five factor families was most useful in similar environments, and automatically those will get overweighted. A good example is what happened in 2022. At the beginning of that year, the models identified that the growth style of investing was under pressure and automatically tilted more towards value. That meant in the long
book, more exposure to value stocks in the short book, more exposure to expensive stocks. And that played out really well as markets were selling off and in particular expensive growth was penalised. But then later that year, in 2022, markets rebounded very strongly and it is in those inflection points that having a dynamic weighting scheme, as well as a very data intensive process to analyse sentiment in markets, help to rotate very quickly away from value that had worked really well into more sentiment-driven trend-growth, quality-type signals: and that resulted in a positive performance towards the end of that year, as well as in 2023. So, over the last three, four years, we've gone through very rapid cycles in markets, a lot of macro uncertainty, and it's been a great environment to highlight the benefits of dynamic weighting of styles, to provide a more consistent alpha generation.
Great. So, what we're doing in the in the Cayman vehicle is we're taking the team's long-standing philosophy process, the dynamic weighting, the factor families, and we're putting that all together into a Cayman vehicle.
Could you take us through the Cayman vehicle and how that compares to the traditional UCITS strategy that's been going since 2009?
So, it's very simple. With GEARx, everything will be effectively two times. So we're going from running GEAR with a volatility limit of six to GEARx having two times that volatility at 12. Leverage in GEAR to 400. So GEARx will be $200 long, $200 short for $100 invested. With this kind of structure, we are aiming to give you expected returns of cash plus ten, relative to the cash plus five approximately that GEAR had generated: and then realised volatility going from 5% in GEAR to an expected realised volatility of 10%. All the other various portfolio construction parameters will also double in size, so stock level limits going from 1% to 2%. Sector industry net positions from 10% to 20% max. And this is what allows us to scale up both expected returns and expected volatility.
Thank you Amadeo. So, we're super excited to be launching this product.
We're super excited about the evolution of the product set within the systematic team. If you require any more details, please contact me on the details on screen now.
Thank you.
Why GEARx?
GEARx is a Cayman-domiciled market neutral strategy which adopts a similar investment process to the well-established Ireland-domiciled Jupiter Merian global equity absolute return (GEAR) strategy, which has been running since 2009. Both are market neutral, holding a long and a short book in balance and targeting a beta of approximately zero. The investment process is designed to generate alpha with low correlation to both equity and bond markets.
The main differences lie in the constraints applied; for example, GEARx targets twice the targeted maximum annualised volatility limit of GEAR. While the GEAR strategy has a maximum annualised volatility limit of 6%, GEARx has a maximum annualised volatility limit of 12%. Additional main differences in the investment process are summarised in the table below.
GEAR Strategy | GEARx Strategy | |
Maximum annualised volatility limit | 6% | 12% |
Expected return | Cash +5% | Cash + 10% |
Typical gross leverage | 200% | 400%1 |
Net exposure | 0% approx. – reset to 0% daily | 0% approx. – reset to 0% daily |
Beta | 0% approx. – reset to 0% daily | 0% approx. – reset to 0% daily |
1 Maximum gross leverage is 500%.
Expected returns are for illustrative purposes only and subject to change. Expected returns reflect Jupiter views regarding the performance that expected investments may achieve over the course of the anticipated hold period based on Jupiter’s experience with the current GEAR strategy. The overall expected return presented herein is neither a guarantee nor a prediction or projection of future performance. While Jupiter believes that assumptions made in calculating the expected returns are reasonable, due to various risks and uncertainties, actual events or results or the actual performance may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated. Expected returns are presented net of management fees and other costs expected to be borne by investors. There can be no assurance that any expected return will be met. There is the potential for loss as well as profit. Performance is net of all fees and expenses including transaction costs and includes the reinvestment of dividends (in USD).
In order to seek the targets above, the net asset value (NAV) constraints of GEARx are also double those of GEAR, as shown in the table below.
NAV Constraints
Strategy | GEAR | GEARx |
Net countries | +/- 2% | +/- 4% |
Net regions | +/- 0.5% | +/- 1% |
Net sectors | +/- 10% | +/- 20% |
Net industries | +/- 10% | +/- 20% |
Single stocks | +/- 1% | +/- 2% |
Cayman domicile
Cayman provides a stable, tax-neutral platform, with a sound legislative and judicial system. The GEARx strategy is provided through vehicles suitable for US and non-US investors. Please contact us for more information.
Why market neutral?
“Diversification is the only free lunch in investing” is a quote attributed to Nobel laureate, economist Harry Markowitz, the creator of Modern Portfolio Theory. Holding different kinds of assets can help reduce portfolio exposure to any single risk. A diversified portfolio should have a wide spread of investments across various asset classes.
This means investors should consider broadening their portfolios beyond long-only equities and long-only bonds. They should consider alternative asset classes, such as market neutral equity.
An equity market neutral approach, such as GEARx, seeks to avoid the directionality of markets. It does this by holding a long book and a short book in balance. The strategy seeks to generate returns from alpha rather than beta. In a down market, the short book may make a positive contribution even if the long book is negative. Similarly, in an up market, the long book may make a positive contribution even if the short book is negative. When one book is positive and the other negative, the relative difference between them determines the strategy’s return. This approach can result in returns uncorrelated with broader equity markets, enhancing portfolio diversification for investors.
Continuous monitoring of the market environment
The five stock selection criteria are dynamically weighted, based on continuous observation of the market environment.
For example, by March 2022 market sentiment had become almost as pessimistic as it was when the COVID pandemic was declared in March 2020.
Dynamic weighting scheme
Based on observations of the market environment, the weightings to each of the stock selection criteria are adjusted. The strategy rotates between different investment styles. This allows the strategy to better navigate environments where one particular investment style is out of favour. Different investment approaches work at different times across market cycles.
Fundamentals-driven price discovery can often be distorted by market sentiment and technical — and all are potential sources of returns. The dynamic strategy weighting adjusts exposure to strategies based on historical performance in similar environments.
Research by the team shows that dynamically weighting the five stock selection criteria may offer advantages over an equal-weighted proxy.
Meet the team
Systematic Equities Team
Experienced investors, steeped in academic and applied research
Amadeo Alentorn PhD, CFA
Head of Systematic Equities
Industry start: 2005
Joined team: 2005
Sean Storey, PhD
Investment Manager
Industry start: 1999
Joined team: 2017
Yuangao Liu
Investment Manager
Industry start: 2007
Joined team: 2007
Matus Mrazik
Investment Manager
Industry start: 2009
Joined team: 2014
James Murry CFA
Investment Manager
Industry start: 2007
Joined team: 2018
Tarun Inani CFA
Investment Manager
Industry start: 2013
Joined team: 2019
Zara Azad CFA
Investment Director
Industry start: 2016
Joined team: 2024
7
Team members
20
years of heritage
3
PhDs
5
CFA Charterholders
$14.5bn*
assets across systematic, factor-based strategies
Source: Jupiter & RoomZero, *AuM as at 30 April 2025.
In Collaboration with...
GEARx specific risks
- Lack of Operating History: The Fund is recently formed. There can be no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objectives. The past investment performance of the Manager or the Investment Manager cannot be construed as an indication of the future results of an investment in the Fund. The Fund is a newly established company with no track record upon which investors may base an evaluation. Although the Board will devote such time and effort as it determines to be reasonably required to implement the objectives of the Fund, there can be no guarantee that its undertaking will be successful.
- Risks related to Short Selling: The Fund’s investment portfolio may include short positions. Short selling involves selling securities that may or may not be owned and borrowing the same securities for delivery to the purchaser, with an obligation to replace the borrowed securities at a later date. Short selling allows the investor to profit from a decline in the price of a particular security. A short sale creates the risk of an unlimited loss, in that the price of the underlying security could theoretically increase without limit, thus increasing the cost to the Fund of buying those securities to cover the short position. There can be no assurance that the security necessary to cover the short position will be available for purchase. Purchasing securities to close out the short position can itself cause the price of the securities to rise further, thereby exacerbating the loss. In addition, if a sufficient number of market participants have entered into a short position, the short position may not react in the same way as a security would with no or limited short interest. In the case of a market downturn the short position may therefore not provide the investment return the Investment Manager expected.
- Prime Broker/Counterparty Risk: The Fund may appoint one or more Prime Brokers or Counterparties. With respect to the Fund’s right to the return of assets equivalent to investments of the Fund which a Prime Broker (if any) borrows, lends or otherwise uses for its own purposes, the Fund will rank as one of the Prime Broker’s unsecured creditors and, in the event of the insolvency of the Prime Broker, the Fund might not be able to recover such equivalent assets in full.
- Investment risk: whilst the Fund aims to deliver above zero performance irrespective of market conditions, there can be no guarantee this aim will be achieved. Furthermore the Fund may exceed its volatility limit. A capital loss of some or all of the amount invested may occur.
- Derivative risk: the Fund uses derivatives to generate returns and/or to reduce costs and the overall risk of the Fund. Using derivatives can involve a higher level of risk. A small movement in the price of an underlying investment may result in a disproportionately large movement in the price of the derivative investment. Derivatives also involve counterparty risk where the institutions acting as counterparty to derivatives may not meet their contractual obligations.
- Company shares (i.e. equities) risk: the value of Company shares and similar investments may go down as well as up in response to the performance of individual companies and can be affected by daily stock market movements and general market conditions.
- Stock Connect risk: the Fund may invest in China A-Shares through the China-Hong Kong Stock Connect (“Stock Connect”). Stock Connect is governed by regulations which are untested and subject to change. Trading limitations and restrictions on foreign ownership may constrain the Fund's ability to pursue its investment strategy.
For a more detailed explanation of risks, please refer to the "Risk Factors" section of the offering memorandum.
Important information
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For professional investors in US Offshore only
Past performance is not a guide to future performance and may not be repeated. Investment involves risk. The value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amount originally invested. Because of this, an investor is not certain to make a profit on an investment and may lose money. Exchange rates may cause the value of overseas investments to rise or fall.
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Please note that Jupiter GEARx Fund Limited has been entered into the List of Restricted Schemes by Monetary Authority of Singapore) as defined in regulation 2 of the Securities and Futures (Offers of Investments) (Collective Investment Schemes) Regulations 2005) under paragraph 3 or 4 of the Sixth Schedule of the Regulations. This document is not to be distributed to the retail public of Singapore.
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