Morningstar upgrades four Oz equity strategies

In its latest Australian equity fund manager review for 2022, Morningstar has upgraded four strategies and downgraded four strategies, while initiating coverage of six new strategies.

The Ausbil Australian Active Equity fund and the DNR Capital Australian Emerging Coms fund were upgraded from Bronze to Silver, while the SGH ICE and the UBS Australian Small Companies Fund were upgraded from Silver to Gold.

Morningstar said the upgrades owed to "either our increased conviction in their investment teams, research capability, and investment processes or stronger assessment under our enhanced ratings system because of lower fees."

The Alphinity Concentrated Australian Share was downgraded from Silver to Bronze, while the Fidelity Australian Opportunities fund, the Solaris Australian Equity Long Short fund and the Yarra Australian Equities Fund were all downgraded from Bronze to Neutral.

Downgrades were due to reduced confidence in investment teams or processes, or also because of the new ratings systems which takes into account fees.

The six funds on which coverage was initiated for the first time were AB Managed Volatility Equities ETF (Silver), the Airlie Australian Share ETF (Neutral), the FSI Wholesale Concentrated Australian share fund (Bronze), the Melior Australian Impact funds (Neutral), the Perpetual ESG Australian Share fund (Silver) and the Plato Australian Shares Income (Neutral).