BGF World Technology A2

Analyst Report
Morningstar's Take
|14/06/2023

by Stephen Welch
Caroline Tall joined BlackRock Technology Opportunities as a comanager on Sept. 22, 2022. This addition does not alter the strategy’s Morningstar Analyst Ratings.

While Tall is new to BlackRock, she isn’t new to technology investing. She spent more than 13 years working at Fidelity Investments as an analyst and portfolio manager specializing in tech. Since late 2017, she ran Fidelity Select Tech Hardware FDCPX before departing the firm early this year for BlackRock. Importantly, the highly regarded Tony Kim continues to lead the strategy with the help of Reid Menge.

 
BlackRock Technology Opportunities’ capable manager plies a robust approach to map out the growing tech-oriented universe. Its U.S.-sold cheapest share classes earn a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Gold and its priciest shares Silver. Luxembourg-domiciled BGF World Technology’s cheapest share classes get Silver, while pricier shares range from Bronze to Neutral.

Lead manager Tony Kim’s technological expertise is tough to match. He’s spent more than 25 years analyzing technology firms and has developed his own system to organize and monitor the universe. This framework helps Kim standardize firms across industries for easy comparisons. He has assembled a team of eight, including two comanagers and a data scientist; each team member is responsible for understanding the entire technology sector.

Kim targets cutting-edge technology, intriguing business models, and emerging industries. Over his career, he has mapped a proprietary 1,200-plus stock universe that helps the team find compelling growth prospects. With the help of a data scientist, Kim has built out a distinctive software platform that helps the team easily compare company data across industries, focus on projections, and dive into specific industries to easily see top opportunities ranked on various metrics.

As the market has favored more value-oriented profitable firms recently, the strategy isn’t as high-growth-leaning as it has been in the past. Kim has trimmed some of the strategy’s exposure to profitless firms such as Rivian; coupled with outflows, this has boosted the strategy’s exposure to bellwether tech firms such as Microsoft and Apple. Those two accounted for 18.3% of the portfolio as of March 2023, a marked increase from 11.7% at the beginning of 2022.

While the recent distaste for high-growth stocks has hurt the strategy lately, its long-term record remains solid. From Kim’s June 2013 start through May 2023, the institutional shares’ 19.4% annualized return landed in the top quartile of the technology Morningstar Category and outpaced the MSCI ACWI/Information Technology Index’s 17.9%.

Few investors have the skill, experience, and framework that Kim does to keep up with the shifts in the rapidly changing tech sector, making this a solid long-term option.
 
Morningstar Medalist Rating™Experience and a differentiated approach give this strategy an edge.
To find out how Morningstar rates a fund click here.
Morningstar Pillars
PeopleAbove Average
ParentAbove Average
ProcessAbove Average
 
Morningstar Medalist RatingMorningstar assigns the Medalist Rating to funds that are qualitatively and quantitatively assessed through manager research and algorithmic processes. The assessment turns on three key “pillars” – People, Process, and Parent – that yield an estimate of how well a fund will perform before fees but after adjusting for risk.
Permissions/Reprints   E-mail Morningstar     
A fim de prover consistência para todos os relatórios fornecidos por diferentes Asset Managers, os data points calculados apresentados são gerados usando uma metodologia de cálculo proprietária da Morningstar, que pode ser conferida com mais detalhes em(https://www.morningstar.com/research/signature)
© Copyright 2024 Morningstar, Inc. Todos os direitos reservados.

Termos de Uso        Política Privacidade        Cookie Settings        Divulgações