JPMorgan Global Allocation continues to benefit from experienced team members who have the breadth and depth of resources to execute the complex strategy well.
Lead portfolio manager Jeff Geller has managed this strategy since its 2011 inception. He’s joined by comanagers Michael Feser and Philip Camporeale, who bring fixed-income backgrounds, and Eric Bernbaum and Grace Koo, who assist in portfolio construction and quantitative research, respectively. As the CIO of JPMorgan’s multi-asset group, Geller is well-placed to marshal the resources required to run this multilayered strategy. These include the firm’s macroeconomic research groups, risk analysts, and quantitative team, as well as the underlying subasset sleeves that are managed by well-resourced specialist groups from across the firm.
At the end of April 2024, the fund used 11 distinct sleeves, including a recently added high-yield bond portfolio. As the firm’s recession fears faded, starting in mid-2023, Geller and team began moving decisively into lower-rated credit holdings; high-yield bonds comprised about a fourth of the portfolio as of April 2024, compared with zero a year prior. The team also manifests its more optimistic economic outlook with a slightly overweight equity position: Stocks accounted for 64% of the portfolio, compared with its strategic target of 60% stocks and 40% bonds.
Making consistently additive tactical asset-allocation decisions is notoriously difficult, and this team has many decisions to make. In addition to credit and asset classes, the team has flexibility across currencies, regions, and duration. Over Geller’s tenure, though, he has shown the ability to be right more often than not. From June 2011 to May 2024, the fund’s institutional share class outpaced its custom 60/40 MSCI ACWI/ Bloomberg Global Aggregate custom index in 65% of three-year rolling periods, gaining an annualized 5.7% compared with the custom index’s 5.4%. Its risk, as measured by standard deviation, has only been marginally greater during that time, resulting in risk-adjusted returns that stay ahead of the index’s. While the team has misread market signals in the past—its 18.6% loss in 2022 was 125 basis points greater than the index’s—over longer term, this strategy has delivered strong outcomes for its investors.