RBC O’Shaughnessy U.S. Value Fund

Posted by on Feb 21, 2015 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

If you look at the quarterly performance of this fund compared to the other U.S. equity funds, you might be wondering what happened with it, posting a very modest 2.1% rise, while the others were all significantly higher. Well since you asked, I’ll tell you what happened -currency happened. Over the quarter, the Canadian dollar dropped by nearly 4%. The RBC O’Shaughnessy U.S. Value Fund hedges its currency exposure, while the other U.S. equity funds on the list are largely unhedged. When a fund is unhedged and the Canadian dollar drops in value, the U.S. dollar assets will see a rise in value because of the falling currency. For example, the TD U.S. Blue Chip Fund rose by 3.7% in U.S. dollar terms. When the returns were converted into Canadian dollars, the gain was nearly double, coming in at 7.3%. With the U.S. Federal Reserve likely to start moving rates higher in the U.S. and the Bank of Canada expected to cut rates at home, it is highly likely we will see a further drop in the value of the Canadian dollar. At the very least, I would expect that currency volatility will be on the upswing in the near term. For this fund, or any other that hedges a significant portion of its U.S. dollar exposure, it may result in underperformance when compared with funds that do not hedge their currency. That said, I still believe this to be an excellent U.S. equity fund for those who can stomach a bit higher level of volatility in their portfolio.

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