Xtrackers RREEF Global Natrl Res ETF's Average Process Pillar and People Pillar ratings result in a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Neutral. The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the lowest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy gets an Average Process Pillar. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained an underweight position in liquidity exposure and momentum exposure compared with category peers. Low liquidity risk exposure is attributed to stocks with a low trading volume, limiting managers' flexibility. And low momentum exposure is rooted in holding stocks that are not currently on a winning streak and instead holding those that managers believe are undervalued. The strategy’s management team earns an Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an 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

Shell PLC

Nutrien

TotalEnergies SE

BHP Billiton

Exxon Mobil

Corteva Inc

Freeport-McMoRan

Cenovus Energy

ConocoPhillips

Barrick Gold

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. Xtrackers RREEF Global Natrl Res ETF earns an Average Process Pillar rating. 

The leading factor in the rating is the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 59%. 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. The size of the portfolio management team also supports the process. With seven portfolio managers, the fund is well-staffed. Lastly, the process is limited by the parent firm's five-year retention rate of 64%, which suggests it could do more to hold onto its portfolio managers.

 This strategy skews toward larger, more undervalued companies than its average peer in the Natural Resources Morningstar Category. Analyzing additional factors, this strategy consistently held some companies with relatively lower trading volume compared with Morningstar Category peers in the last few years. Less-liquid stocks might offer strong returns to compensate for their risks, but they can be harder and more expensive to trade in bear markets. In the latest month, the strategy was also less exposed to the Liquidity factor compared with Morningstar Category peers. This strategy has had lower exposure to momentum stocks over peers in recent years. Momentum tends to be a powerful force in asset markets, as stocks that have done well recently usually continue to do so in the short term. As top performers change, this can sometimes be hard to capture without higher trading costs. Similarly, in recent months, the strategy also had less exposure to the Momentum factor than peers. In addition, this strategy has not maintained a defensive tilt, demonstrated by low exposure to the quality factor. This means the fund avoids holding firms that are consistently profitable, growing, and have solid balance sheets. Lacking this ballast, the fund's prospects could rest on its ability to beat peers during economic booms. In recent months, the strategy also had less Quality 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 consumer cyclical and energy relative to the category average by 7.1 and 6.9 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are industrials and utilities, underweight the average by 10.6 and 3.3 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio is positioned across 67 holdings and is relatively concentrated. In particular, 37.4% of the fund’s assets are housed within the top 10 holdings, as opposed to the typical peer's 25.3%.

Average

Process

Xtrackers RREEF Global Natrl Res ETF earns an Average People Pillar rating. The team is backed by Shlomo Bassous, the longest-tenured manager on the strategy, who brings over 25 years of listed portfolio management experience. The average Morningstar Rating of the strategies they currently manage is 3.7 stars, demonstrating encouraging risk-adjusted performance. A large cast of six additional named managers adds to the team's appeal, averaging 15 years of listed portfolio management experience.  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.

People

In the past two years, DWS has been under heavy scrutiny from the SEC and German authorities owing to greenwashing allegations that were initially raised in August 2021 by the firm’s former chief sustainability officer Desiree Fixler. The SEC announced on Sept. 25, 2023, that it has fined DWS USD 19 million for failing to implement procedures to ensure that all investment staff members were following its environmental, social, and governance policies. This relates to funds where ESG factors were analyzed alongside other financially material factors, but where managers retained discretion over ESG outcomes. In addition, the firm was ordered to pay USD 6 million for deficiencies in its anti-money-laundering processes that were uncovered in a separate investigation. The investigation by the German authorities into the firm's ESG disclosures is still ongoing.  
The SEC findings underline that despite strong senior management commitment, it takes a considerable amount of time and resources to embed sustainability across all levels of an organization for firms without a long-standing sustainability heritage. Overconfidence and failure to deal with internal criticism adequately appear to have contributed to DWS' misleading statements on ESG matters. While it's difficult to quantify the financial damage to clients and no misstatements were detected in financial disclosures or prospectuses, we believe the firm’s shortcomings have the potential to adversely affect investor outcomes. Hence, we welcome DWS' efforts to strengthen governance around ESG integration and communicate more conservatively about its ESG capabilities.
Questionable and unsteady leadership has contributed to the DWS' woes. Previous CEO Asoka Woehrmann, who had spearheaded the firm's ESG push, stepped down in June 2022 as a result of the ESG investigations. His credibility had already been harmed following his use of personal email for business purposes and a large payment made to him by a client when he was head of Deutsche Bank's private-client business before being appointed as DWS' CEO in 2018. His successor Stefan Hoops is the firm's sixth CEO in the past 10 years, highlighting the instability in the firm's top leadership. This appointment also shows the continued influence of its parent company, even after the partial IPO in 2018. Hoops has spent most of his career at Deutsche Bank but has no asset-management background.
Despite all these negative headlines and shaky leadership, DWS has managed to remain quite stable in its investment ranks. The firm has also made strides to gain greater independence. For example, since 2020, bonuses have been linked to the firm's own performance rather than to that of the bank as a whole, which supports alignment and talent retention. Variable remuneration takes into account performance of up to five years.
DWS' vast fund lineup covers all asset classes, including passive strategies, which are offered under the Xtrackers brand. Many offerings don't distinguish themselves, but there are genuine areas of strength among active strategies, and fees are competitive across many funds. While the product development process has been streamlined, and although the firm has launched new strategies at a slower pace, lineup turnover remains a concern as a culture of asset-gathering prevails. New offerings are partly related to an expansion of ESG capabilities, but the firm is also building out its thematic equity, multi-asset, alternatives, and exchange-traded fund range. 
At this stage, we continue to believe that DWS' strengths justify a Parent Pillar rating of Average despite several weaknesses in its stewardship practices, but we will closely monitor the company for further disruption.

Parent

Xtrackers RREEF Global Natural Resources ETF

NRES is actively managed, investing in equity and equity-related securities of companies within the global natural resources sector. The fund aims for capital growth and income generation.

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The week ending March 1 brought 17 new ETFs into the market, including funds from Fidelity, First Trust, Innovator, AllianzIM, YieldMax, Miller Value Partners, and newcomer Regan Capital. DWS also rolled out its first actively managed ETF with the launch of the Xtrackers RREEF Global Natural Resources ETF (NRES) on the Nasdaq.

This Week in ETFs: DWS Adds First Active ETF

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DWS, one of the world's leading asset managers, announced today the listing of its first actively-managed exchange-traded fund (ETF), the Xtrackers RREEF Global Natural Resources ETF (NASDAQ: NRES) (the “Fund”). The Fund is designed to provide investors with exposure to global natural resources (GNR) companies primarily through investments in equity and equity related securities. The Fund seeks total return from both capital appreciation and current income and, as an.

Xtrackers by DWS Launches its First Active ETF: NRES

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