Minerva Fund Managers Ltd | Minerva Ratings

The Minerva Ratings' User Guide

The system analyses a fund's performance within its sector over the last five years and produces a Minerva Rating between 1 and 10.

A Minerva Rating of 1.0 demonstrates consistent out-performance over the rest of the sector in the past five years.

A Minerva Rating of 10.0 indicates a fund's continued under performance compared to the rest of its sector.

The Minerva Ratings appear in the New Minerva Report. Click here for details.

An example of the Minerva Rating format: (explanations given below)

MinRat	MinAY	Name	6mth	12mth
2.40	22.77	Friends Prov European Gth	6.00	5.00

Column Key:

Column 1: MinRat

Minerva Rating: This number will be between 1 and 10. Depending on how aggressive you wish to be in your fund selection, a simple rule of thumb is any fund that has a Rating of 1 to 4 can be considered a "buy". Ratings of between 5 and 7 are a "hold" and 8 to 10 are a "sell". The Minerva Rating is a measure of consistency. A fund with a rating of 1 has been consistently excellent and a fund with a rating of 10 has been consistently appalling. As the figures are derived from data covering five years, the majority of funds will gravitate towards the average figure of 5.

Column 2: MinAY

Minerva Annualised Yield: This is a percentage number and gives the performance of the last three years annualised. (e.g. if the figure is 15.2, then over the last three years the total cumulative return would have been up 45.6%). This column gives a good guide of the performance. As this is over a shorter period than the Minerva Rating, it helps identify those funds that have been better over the medium term.

Column 3: Name

The name of the fund.

Column 4: 6mth

The decile performance position over 6 months. A decile is a tenth of the "population" in statistics. That is, the total number of funds is split into 10 groups. If the number shown is 2, the fund is in the second decile or second group in performance terms. If the number shown is 10 then the fund has been in the bottom decile or lowest group of performers in that period.

Column 5: 12mth

The decile performance position over 12 months.

Using the "decile" columns:

These are very useful to give you a guide on how a fund has done over the short term and you may wish to take account of this before making a decision.

Examples:

MinRat	MinAY	Name	6mth	12mth
2.40	22.77	Friends Prov European Gth	6.00	5.00
At first glance this fund shows up as a "buy". But if you look at the decile positions you can see that whilst not disastrous performance is deteriorating. In the one year figures the fund was in the fifth decile and over six months it has dropped into the sixth decile (i.e. below average). You could therefore decide to use another fund rather than this one. As it happens if you had rung up the Friends Provident you would have discovered that the fund manager "Tony Zucher" who had produced the consistent track record had in fact left the company and the fund was under "new" management.
6.00	19.89	Hill Samuel European	1.00	1.00
In this case you would have thought of the fund as a hold or if you are aggressive in your stance you may have a rating of 6 as sell. But a quick glance at the decile columns show you that in both period the fund has been in the top decile. Short term performance is definitely on the up and you could wait for a future Ratings before making any decision.
7.20	17.01	AXA Sun Life European Gth Acc	1.00	6.00
Finally here we see a 7.2. again this may be a "sell" as far as many are concerned but again the deciles are giving you a warning. The fund looks like it has turned the corner. Over the twelve months the figure was below average but over six months it has managed top decile performance. Again you could wait till the next Ratings and see how whether this performance is really turning around or was just a flash in the pan.

This web site has been created by Minerva Fund Managers Limited, Kelston View, Corston, Bath, BA2 9AH. Minerva Fund Managers Limited are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. The invitations on this website to receive the Minerva Report or Minerva Ratings have been approved by Minerva Fund Managers Limited. The Minerva Ratings service is not regulated under the Financial Services and Marketing Act 2000. Minerva Fund Managers Limited does not give individual investment advice.

Collective Investments are intended as a long-term investment, because these investments can go down in value as well as up, you may not get back the full amount invested. These investments are not suitable for everyone. If you have any doubt whether they are suitable for you, you should obtain expert advice. The past is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Remember, never invest more than you can afford to spare.