Media

High Growth Shares Fund - Short Selling Ban Extended

Thu, 22 Jan 2009

ASIC announced yesterday the temporary ban on covered short selling in financial securities has been extended until Friday 6 March 2009.

The ban was extended in light of recent volatility in financial stocks in overseas markets, particularly the UK which recently lifted its short selling ban on certain financial stocks. In its announcement ASIC recognised “short selling as a legitimate mechanism of price discovery and liquidity…”

The High Growth Shares Fund is predominantly a long fund which opportunistically employs a number of techniques including short selling, active trading and enhanced longs to achieve its investment objective. It is worth noting during the December quarter (while the ban was in place) the fund exceeded its investment objective, outperforming its benchmark by 5.3%, illustrating the ability of the fund to achieve excess returns despite the ban.

Since inception in 1999 the fund has consistently achieved strong returns, outperforming its benchmark by 6.6% p.a. The fund continues to be well rated by Research Houses - Lonsec and S&P have both recently reinstated the fund’s “Highly Recommended” and “Four Star” ratings respectively. Please note both these ratings were reinstated late last year while the ban on short selling financial securities was in place.