Nuveen Winslow Large-Cap Growth ESG 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 second-lowest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy's investment process inspires confidence and earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained an underweight position in yield exposure and volatility exposure compared with category peers. Low yield exposure is attributed to holding fewer stocks with high dividend or buyback yields -- instead, typically holding companies with a stronger focus on growth opposed to returning capital. And low volatility exposure is rooted in stocks that have a lower standard deviation of returns. 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

Microsoft

Amazon

NVIDIA

Apple

Lam Research

Broadcom

Alphabet

Intuitive Surgical

salesforce.com

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. Nuveen Winslow Large-Cap Growth ESG ETF earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. 

The largest contributor to the rating is the stability of the management team. Specifically, the fund has not seen a manager change in the last three years. The parent firm's risk-adjusted performance, as shown by its average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 3.1 stars, also influences the rating. Lastly, the process is limited by the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 50%. 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 modest success ratio suggests that the firm could do better across its fund lineup.

 This strategy leans toward smaller, more growth-oriented companies than its average peer in the Large Growth Morningstar Category. Examining additional factor exposure, this strategy has exhibited a tendency to hold fewer stocks with high dividend or buyback yields compared with Morningstar Category peers in recent years. Returning capital to shareholders often is not the highest priority of such businesses. The shares of such companies can deliver strong returns if they fulfill their growth projections, but they also carry more risk. In the latest month, the strategy was also less exposed to the Yield factor compared with Morningstar Category peers. This strategy has also exhibited a tilt toward low-volatility stocks in recent years, meaning companies with a lower historical standard deviation of returns. These low-risk stocks are typically at their best when markets are not. Low volatility exposure contributes to limited loss on the downside at the cost of a lag in bull markets. Compared with category peers, however, the strategy had more exposure to the Volatility factor in the most recent month. Additionally, the strategy had more exposure to high-quality stocks compared with Morningstar Category peers in recent months. This means the fund holds consistently profitable, growing companies with solid balance sheets that may help it weather downturns better than Morningstar Category 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 11.5 percentage points in terms of assets compared with the category average, and its consumer cyclical allocation is similar to the category. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are communication services and financial services, underweight the average by 6.2 and 2.6 percentage points of assets, respectively. The portfolio is positioned across 43 holdings and its assets are more dispersed than peers in the category. In particular, 51.5% of the strategy's assets are concentrated in the top 10 fund holdings, compared to the typical peer's 54.8%. And finally, in terms of portfolio turnover, looking at year-over-year movements, 71% of the fund's holdings have changed, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Above Average

Process

Nuveen Winslow Large-Cap Growth ESG ETF earns an Average People Pillar rating. The team is backed by Justin H. Kelly, 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 manage is 3.8 stars, demonstrating above-average risk-adjusted performance. Justin H. Kelly is supported by an experienced team, being able to draw on three additional listed managers, who average 11 years of listed portfolio management experience. As a team, they manage three investment vehicles together, with solid long-term prospects. The strategies average a Bronze asset-weighted Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating a position 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

Nuveen has accomplished years of refinement, but a handful of areas keep it from landing among the industry’s best. It retains an Average Parent rating.
Nuveen is the asset-management arm of TIAA. TIAA purchased Nuveen in October 2014 and in January 2017 announced that Nuveen would become the umbrella brand for all its asset-management capabilities, including the legacy Nuveen and TIAA investment teams and their affiliates. 
Since then, a dramatic transformation has taken place. This includes merging all but one affiliated investment team into centralized equity and fixed-income groups, which are now among the industry’s largest. All operations, technology, and sales functions were centralized and modernized; in 2019, the firm rolled out a comprehensive long-term incentive plan that has helped attract and retain talent, and the previously expansive investment lineup has been mostly cleaned up.
Nuveen’s investment strengths are predominantly in fixed income and real assets. While its municipal team is among the industry’s more ubiquitous, its aggressive approach has been a sticking point for several years. Its experienced equity team hasn’t distinguished its performance from peers’. Finally, CEO Jose Minaya has built a robust management team, but several of them are recent outside hires and so it will take time to see how they integrate with Minaya’s modernized vision for the firm.

Parent

Nuveen Winslow Large-Cap Growth ESG ETF

NWLG is an actively managed, non-transparent fund with exposure to US large-cap stocks screened for both growth and positive ESG characteristics. The fund utilizes the Natixis/NYSE non-transparent model.

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