The combination of a middling Process Pillar rating and a Below Average People Pillar rating limit  DGA Absolute Return ETF to a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Neutral.  Fees are a weakness here. The strategy's lofty fees are a high hurdle to clear, as it is priced within the highest quintile among peers.  

 The longest-tenured manager has a wealth of experience, but due to other weaknesses, the strategy earns a Below Average People Pillar. The strategy earns an Average Process Pillar rating.  The strategy's parent organization is industry standard, albeit with some strong attributes like modest portfolio manager turnover, but is held back by portfolio managers with limited tenures at the firm. This earns the firm an Average Parent Pillar rating.

Analyst Rating

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Morningstar's evaluation of this fund's process aims to determine how repeatable, consistent, and reliable it is, and whether management maintains a competitive advantage. DGA Absolute Return ETF earns an Average Process Pillar rating. The largest contributor to the rating is the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 100%. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and outperformed their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. The firm's five-year retention rate of 100% also bolsters the process. Lastly, the process is limited by high costs across its parent firm's funds, whose fees rank in their category's highest-cost quintile on average. While this fund's costs are most relevant to investors, the pattern at the broader firm suggests it could do more to keep fees low.

 Its equity sleeve maintains a persistent bias to growth stocks versus the category average. Although in terms of market-cap exposure, it moves close to the rest of the pack. The strategy has three region or sector biases compared to category peers. The most meaningful is its consistent underweight in the Developed Europe region. It also routinely positions more assets in developed markets regions. Finally, the strategy has consistently been underweight in the basic materials sector. 

 The portfolio is overweight in technology and communication services relative to the category average by 10.8 and 2.6 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are real estate and energy, underweight the average by 6.0 and 3.8 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio is overweight in North America by 34.1 percentage points compared with the category average, and Emerging Europe's allocation is similar to its peers. The regions with low exposure compared to their category peers are Developed Europe and Japan, underweight the average by 13.9 percentage points and 6.3 percentage points, respectively.

Average

Process

DGA Absolute Return ETF earns a Below Average People Pillar rating. The team is strengthened by the firm's five-year retention rate of 100%. However, the rating is held back by the managers' failure to consistently outperform peers at the funds they run, as measured by their combined three-year manager excess returns. The number of months that the management team has been running this vehicle together also holds the rating back. Since this is a newly incepted product, more time is needed to monitor the team's capability at executing the strategy.


The team is backed by Charles A. Ragauss, the longest-tenured manager on the strategy, who brings 11 years of listed portfolio management experience. The strategies they currently manage have an average Morningstar Rating of 2.5 stars, demonstrating disappointing risk-adjusted performance compared with category peers. Charles A. Ragauss draws on only two other listed supporting managers. Although, together they are adequately equipped, with eight years of average listed portfolio management experience.

Below Average

People

Days Global Advisor's short track record of seven months has not stopped it from demonstrating that it can be trusted as much as the next asset manager. As a result, it earns an Average Parent Pillar rating. The firm currently manages one vehicle across a bench of three strategy managers.  The firm's earliest portfolio manager hire, Charles A. Ragauss, has 11 years of industry experience with somewhat mixed or negative results. 
 
   

 As Days Global Advisor builds and continues to develop a track record, its rating will be adjusted accordingly.

Parent

DGA Absolute Return Etf

HFF, Inc. engages in the provision of commercial real estate and capital markets services. The company was founded by John P. Fowler in 1982 and is headquartered in Dallas, TX.

HF is an actively managed fund-of-funds that investments in unaffiliated ETFs without any limitation to geography or asset classes. The fund aims for long-term capital appreciation and preservation by applying an absolute return approach through a proprietary, analytical investment model.

Days Global Advisors has listed the actively managed DGA Absolute Return ETF (NYSE Arca: HF) on the New York Stock Exchange. HF seeks to capitalize on the tendency of stock prices to trend in the same direction over short- to medium-term periods.

DGA Absolute Return ETF Tracks Global Price Momentum Changes

Jones Lang LaSalle

Jll purchases HFF in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $2 billion.

News for DGA Absolute Return Etf ETF (HF)