WisdomTree Efcnt Gld Pls Gld Eq Stgy ETF’s management team is rated Average, but a solid investment process still helps this strategy retain its Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze. The portfolio maintains a sizable cost advantage over competitors, priced within the least expensive fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy's sensible investment philosophy merits an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained an overweight in liquidity exposure and volatility exposure compared with category peers. High liquidity exposure is attributed to stocks with a high trading volume, lending managers more flexibility. And high volatility exposure is rooted in stocks that have a higher standard deviation of returns. The strategy’s management team earns an Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm a Below Average Parent Pillar rating. People Pillar and Parent Pillar ratings for this strategy are indirectly assigned by a Morningstar analyst rather than algorithmically derived. Please see the notes following each pillar section for more details. The details of assigning methods can be found in each pillar section.

Analyst Rating

Microsoft

Apple

NVIDIA

Amazon

Alphabet

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. - Ordinary Shares - Class B

Eli Lilly

JPMorgan Chase & Co

Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category benchmark on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. WisdomTree Efcnt Gld Pls Gld Eq Stgy Fd earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. 

The leading factor in the rating is its parent firm's excellent long-term risk-adjusted performance, as shown by the firm's average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 3.4 stars. The parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 57% also supports the rating. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and beat their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. Their impressive success ratio suggests that the firm does well for investors and that this fund may benefit from that. Lastly, the process is limited by the instability of talent across its parent firm. The firm's asset-weighted manager tenure of three years suggests it could do more to retain portfolio managers.

 This strategy skews toward smaller, higher-growth companies compared with its average peer in the Large Blend Morningstar Category. Analyzing additional factors, the fund has held stocks with higher trading volumes compared to Morningstar Category Peers in the past few years. Such stocks may have less potential upside than illiquid holdings, but they are easier to trade during market downturns. In recent months, the strategy was more exposed to the Liquidity factor compared with its Morningstar Category peers as well. This strategy has also exhibited a tilt toward high-volatility stocks over these years, meaning it has invested in companies that have a higher historical standard deviation of returns. Such exposure tends to pay off when markets are hot and to be costly when they are not. Compared with category peers, the strategy also had more exposure to the Volatility factor in the most recent month. Additionally, this strategy has had lower yield exposure than peers, with the portfolio holding fewer stocks with high dividend or buyback yields over these years. Its preference for stocks with lower yields may well lead to a growthier portfolio. However, growth stocks court additional risks if their forecasts do not come to fruition and are often more volatile than companies with stable dividends. In recent months, the strategy also had less Yield factor exposure than its peers. More information on a fund and its respective category's factor exposure can be found in the Factor Profile module within the Portfolio section. 

 The portfolio is overweight in technology by 3.7 percentage points in terms of assets compared with the category average, and its communication services allocation is similar to the category. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are industrials and healthcare; however, the allocations are similar to the category. The portfolio is composed of 496 holdings and is diversified among those holdings. In its most recent portfolio, 36.5% of the strategy's assets were concentrated in the top 10 fund holdings, as opposed to the category average's 48.8%. And in closing, in terms of portfolio turnover, on a year-over-year basis, 20% of the fund's holdings have turned over, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Above Average

Process

WisdomTree Efcnt Gld Pls Gld Eq Stgy Fd earns an Average People Pillar rating. Marlene Walker-Smith, the longest-tenured manager on the strategy, boasts 12 years of listed portfolio management experience. The average Morningstar Rating of the strategies they manage is 3.5 stars, demonstrating above-average risk-adjusted performance relative to category peers. Marlene Walker-Smith has an adequate backdrop of support, drawing on four additional listed managers, averaging five years of listed portfolio management experience. As a team, they manage 113 investment vehicles together, with a Bronze asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating the potential to deliver positive alpha in aggregate. None of the managers here invest any money in the strategy, which is disappointing, as such investments help align managers' interests with fundholders. 

 Note: The People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. The longest-tenured manager of the fund also manages a different product rated by an analyst. Their analyst-assigned People Pillar rating is combined here with the People scores (algorithmic or analyst-assigned) for the fund’s other managers on a tenure-weighted basis.

Average

People

WisdomTree is improving, but its shaky global fund lineup and uncertain trajectory hold its rating to Below Average. 

WisdomTree’s research organization has long been a strength. Under CIO Jeremy Schwartz, the team has generated creative, economically sound ideas and evolved them into investable products, like the efficient core series. A recent focus on investor education spawned the Portfolio Analysis Tools Hub, an online platform that taps the team’s brainpower to help investors make better investment decisions.

The firm’s product lineup is a mixed bag. To complement its core lineup of fundamentally weighted strategies, WisdomTree has recently launched funds targeting established factors instead of trendy themes—an encouraging reorientation. Yet the shutdown of WisdomTree U.S. Growth and Momentum ETF calls WisdomTree’s commitment to these funds into question, and vestiges from its laxer product-development era look ripe for closure. Its European lineup features risky trading tools that are hard for investors to use well. 

WisdomTree’s future may hinge on WisdomTree Prime, its blockchain-based digital wallet. The launch reflects founder and CEO Jonathan Steinberg’s conviction in the disruptive potential of the blockchain. Prime shouldn’t hurt WisdomTree fund investors (most funds on the platform are zero-fee), but it may distract the firm from shoring up its core offering.

Below Average

Parent

Wisdomtree Trust-Wisdomtree Efficient Gold Plus Equity Strategy Fund

GDE is actively managed to provide leveraged exposure, in approximately equal proportion, to US-listed gold futures and US large-cap equities.

It may not be a repeat of the global financial crisis. Hopefully it won't be, but recent stress in the global banking system is chasing many market participants to familiar safe haven assets.

Bank Calamity Renews Gold's Safe Haven Status

‘GDE' is the fifth in WisdomTree's line of dual-asset class funds.

WisdomTree Launches Gold, Equity Combo ETF

(Kitco News) - WisdomTree targets investors worried about rising inflation and low interest rates though new gold fund.

WisomdomTree uses gold as inflation hedge in new equity/gold ETF

WisdomTree Investments announced today in a press release the launch of its newest fund, the actively managed WisdomTree Efficient Gold Plus Equity Strategy Fund (GDE). The fund utilizes an investment strategy that offers exposure to U.S. large-cap equity securities that are typically market cap-weighted alongside U.S.-listed gold futures contracts for capital efficiency.

News for Wisdomtree Trust-Wisdomtree Efficient Gold Plus Equity Strategy Fund ETF (GDE)