Hartford Large Cap Growth ETF's Average People Pillar and Process Pillar ratings result in a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Neutral. The portfolio maintains a sizable cost advantage over competitors, priced within the cheapest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy benefits from its experienced portfolio management team. This is a positive driver for the strategy's Average People Pillar rating. The strategy earns an Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained a considerable overweight position in liquidity exposure and quality exposure compared with category peers. High liquidity exposure is attributed to stocks with a high trading volume, lending managers more flexibility. And a low quality exposure is rooted in stocks with higher financial leverage and lower profitability. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an Above Average Parent Pillar rating, and this rating is inherited from vehicles belonging to the same branding entity and is indirectly assigned by an analyst.

Analyst Rating

NVIDIA

Amazon

Microsoft

Apple

Alphabet

Eli Lilly

iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF

Broadcom

salesforce.com

Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. Hartford Large Cap Growth ETF earns an Average Process Pillar rating. 

The most substantial contributor to the rating is the firm's five-year retention rate of 83% over the period. Management team experience, which averages 23 years at this fund, also bolsters the process. Lastly, the process is limited by the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 47%. 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 parent's relatively low success ratio suggests that the firm could do better across its fund lineup.

 This strategy skews toward smaller, more growth-oriented companies compared with its average peer in the Large Growth Morningstar Category. Examining additional factor exposure, this strategy has held more highly liquid stocks compared to Morningstar Category Peers in the past few years. This gives the managers more flexibility during bear markets to sell without adversely affecting prices. In recent months, the strategy was more exposed to the Liquidity factor compared with its Morningstar Category peers as well. This strategy has also favored low-quality stocks. This means the fund avoids holding companies that are consistently profitable, growing, and have solid balance sheets. Lacking this ballast, the fund's prospects could rest on its ability to surpass peers during economic booms. Similarly, in recent months, the strategy also had less exposure to the Quality factor than peers. Additionally, the managers have consistently taken on more risk, demonstrated by higher volatility exposure than peers. Such exposure tends to pay off when markets are hot and to be costly when they are not. In this month, the strategy also had more exposure to the Volatility factor over 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 and communication services relative to the category average by 9.5 and 7.2 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are financial services and industrials, underweight the average by 5.7 and 3.9 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio has 49 holdings and invests 52.9% of assets in its top 10 holdings, similar to the category average. And in closing, in terms of portfolio turnover, looking at year-over-year movements, 103% of the fund's holdings have changed, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Average

Process

Hartford Large Cap Growth ETF earns an Average People Pillar rating. Management team experience, which averages 23 years at this fund, influences the rating. The rating is limited by the managers' failure to consistently outperform peers at the funds they run, as measured by their combined three-year manager excess returns.

People

Hartford Funds’ investors benefit from access to strong subadvisors at a reasonable cost. The firm earns an Above Average Parent Pillar rating.

Hartford’s industry relationships are key to its success. It maintains a long-standing partnership with standout investment manager Wellington Management Company, which has run the firm's equity and fixed-income funds since 1996 and 2012, respectively. Wellington now subadvises more than half of Hartford’s $124.1 billion in fund assets. In 2016, Hartford launched strategic-beta exchange-traded funds with its acquisition of Lattice Strategies and partnered with Schroders to expand its investment platform’s offerings, especially in non-U.S. strategies.

Hartford leaves most investment decisions to its subadvisors but collaborates with them on product development, risk oversight, and distribution. The firm reorganized its sales efforts and grew its product-management capabilities in 2013. Firm leadership has since added further resources to its distribution and oversight teams, while merging and liquidating subpar offerings, and has introduced new strategies. 

Hartford has sought to provide more-competitive fees. The firm has launched share classes without embedded distribution charges and reduced fees on other share classes. Still, as most shares remain in average or costlier fee groups, there is room for improvement.

Above Average

Parent

Hartford Large Cap Growth ETF

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On Wednesday, Hartford Funds announced the listing of its first actively managed, semi-transparent exchange traded fund (“ETF”), which will be sub-advised by Wellington Management Company LLP. The Hartford Large Cap Growth ETF (CBOE: HFGO) seeks capital appreciation and is designed to deliver consistent, high active share, large-cap growth exposure that seeks to identify growth companies ahead [.

Hartford Funds Launches First Semi-Transparent ETF Product, HFGO

WAYNE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hartford Funds announced today the listing of its first actively managed, semi-transparent exchange-traded fund (“ETF”), which will be sub-advised by Wellington Management Company LLP. Hartford Large Cap Growth ETF (CBOE: HFGO) seeks capital appreciation and is designed to deliver consistent, high active share, large-cap growth exposure that seeks to identify growth companies ahead of the market consensus. This ETF is different from traditional ETFs. Traditional ETF

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