Since the emergence of “Modern Portfolio Theory” and the “Capital Asset Pricing Model” in the late 1960s, institutional investors have taken a quantitatively driven approach to portfolio construction, looking to create portfolio diversification and obtain better risk-adjusted returns by balancing their asset-class exposures. This journey has seen several important advancements in thinking about how to optimally achieve desired results.
Funds that want to take the total portfolio approach first need to get the total portfolio view. To do that they not only need data – and lots of it – but a rock-solid understanding of exactly how they’re going to use it.
2 Broker upgrades and downgrades
Broker upgrades 24-28 August 2020
Redbubble (ASX:RBL) – Morgans has upgraded its recommendation to Add from Reduce. That’s effectively a double ratings upgrade with a target price of 433c up from 54c.
A 700% increase in target price. The massive upgrade comes on the back of the company’s recent profit result. The result reinforced continuing strong demand a expanding growth rates since the end of FY20.
It makes for an already impressive 4QFY20. Redbubble is capital light and in the right sector to capture further upside potential.
Suncorp (ASX:SUN) – Credit Suisse has upgraded to Neutral from Underperform recommendation with a target price of 995c.
The upgrade comes on the back of a better than expected profit result together with a generous 10c dividend.
Brokers across the board had factored in a more dire outlook with shrinking margins. Things weren’t as bad as first thought.
As a result, the broker has revised up its forecasts and says FY21 “is commencing in better shape than previously anticipated and upgrades to Neutral from Underperform”.
Stockland Group (ASX:SGP) – Credit Suisse has downgraded its rating from Outperform to Neutral with a target price is 393c.
While the broker has downgraded, it is still relatively positive on stock and notes the FY20 results were better than it had expected.
“Upside potential stems from the commercial pipeline” with spare capacity to fund incremental expenditure on new developments via debt.
The reason for the downgrade was based more so from a valuation perspective.
SGP is considered by the broker now as fully valued.
Bingo Industries (ASX:BIN) – Credit Suisse has downgraded its recommendation to Neutral from Outperform with a target price of 251c.
Whilst the broker agrees that results were in line with its expectations and management has indicated growth beyond FY21, the broker is erring on the side of caution.
It would rather await more evidence of demand recovery.
As a result, it has lowered FY21 estimates by -8% to take in to consideration lower contributions from collections and lower margin assumptions.
