How Manulife's Asset Allocation portfolios actively navigate economic risks

As expectations for future financial market returns get crushed by a perfect storm of economic factors, investors will need every opportunity available to reap alpha within their portfolios. To that end, in our view, Manulife’s multi-asset portfolios are driven by a robust strategic asset-allocation process that’s been refined over 20 years. It also potentially benefits from diversification into asset classes that many other portfolio managers don’t have access to, as well as the ability to quickly respond to market risks that arise through rebalancing in its opportunistic sleeve.

“Since inception, our asset allocation portfolios have garnered an overall four- and five-star ratings from Morningstar1. We are pretty much in the top quartile across the board,” Robertson says. “Through our partnership with Dimensional Fund Advisors, our strategic beta ETFs have certainly been a big help over the course of 2022.”

“We think these represent a fantastic one-ticket solution for advisors looking for a well-diversified, actively managed portfolio,” Robertson adds. “We’ve got a team of 60 investment professionals2 monitoring, rebalancing, and actively managing the portfolio on a daily basis. That allows advisors to provide value added by keeping clients invested and on track, with the confidence that these portfolios may be able to deliver the type of return profile their clients are looking for.”

1 Morningstar Ratings: The Star Ratings as of May 31, 2022 for Series F for the Funds shown, and the number of funds within their categories for each period are as follows: Manulife Conservative Portfolio within the Global Fixed Income Balanced category: 3-year period, 626 funds, 4 stars, 5-year period, 484 funds, 4 stars. Manulife Moderate Portfolio within the Global Fixed Income Balanced category: 3-year period, 626 funds, 5 stars, 5-year period, 484 funds, 5 stars. Manulife Balanced Portfolio within the Global Neutral Balanced category: 3-year period, 1,272 funds, 4 stars, 5-year period, 1,004 funds, 4 stars. Manulife Growth Portfolio within the Global Equity Balanced category: 3-year period, 1,045 funds, 4 stars, 5-year period, 860 funds, 4 stars. Series F is generally designed for investors who have a fee-based or wrap account with their dealer. Series F performance is net of fees and expenses. Advisor Series is also available and includes a 1.00% trailing commission. The Morningstar Rating, commonly referred to as the Star Rating, relates how a fund has performed on a risk-adjusted basis against its Morningstar category peers and is subject to change every month. Calculations are based on the funds in each Morningstar Category to better measure fund manager skill. Funds are ranked by their Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return scores with the top 10% of funds in a category receiving 5 stars, the top 22.5% receiving 4 stars. A fund in the middle 35% receiving 3 stars, a fund in the next 22.5% receiving 2 stars and a fund in the bottom 10% receiving 1 star. The overall Star Rating for a fund is a weighted combination of its 3, 5 and 10 year ratings. Overall ratings are adjusted where a fund has less than 5 or 10 years of history. Please refer to www.morningstar.ca for greater detail on the calculation of the Star Ratings. © 2022 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The information contained herein: (1) is proprietary to Morningstar; (2) may not be copied or distributed; and (3) is not warranted to be accurate, complete or timely. Neither Morningstar nor its content providers are responsible for any damages or losses arising from any use of this information. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.