James Alpha Managed Risk Emerging Markets Equity Fund

C000224309 Fund Overview

James Alpha Managed Risk Emerging Markets Equity Fund is a US mutual fund managed by James Alpha Funds Trust, categorised as Emerging Markets Blend / Core Equity. ABC INVEST provides holdings, performance, costs, cashflows, risk data, prospectus documents and SEC filings, sourced from SEC filings.

• Type: US mutual fund
• Manager: James Alpha Funds Trust
• Category: Emerging Markets Blend / Core Equity
• Assets under management: $2.88M
• SEC CIK: 0001829774
• SEC series ID: S000070615
• Share class ID: C000224309

C000224309 Investment Objective and Strategy

James Alpha Managed Risk Emerging Markets Equity Fund describes its objective and strategy as follows, from its latest prospectus filed with the SEC by James Alpha Funds Trust.

Investment objective

The Fund seeks capital appreciation.

Principal investment strategy

Under normal market conditions, the Fund will seek to achieve its objective by combining a long equity strategy with an options hedging strategy that seeks to provide protection during significant equity market downturns. The long equity strategy seeks to replicate the returns of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index and to enhance these returns through the use of leverage. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index measures the performance of securities across 23 emerging market countries (i.e., countries that are in the early stages of their industrial cycle). The Fund will achieve exposure to MSCI Emerging Markets Index companies primarily through exchange-traded funds (?ETFs?), mutual funds and closed-end funds but may also gain exposure through direct investment in common and preferred stocks. The Fund?s options hedging strategy attempts to reduce the risk associated with the Fund?s long equity exposure with a conventional put spread strategy.

The strategy seeks to protect the Fund from modest market downturns (e.g., a drop of between 6% and 8% in the value of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index). Conventional put spreads consist of buying slightly out of the money put options and selling put options that are further out of the money with the same expiration. Typically, the notional value of the put spreads will be larger than the Fund?s exposure from its long equity strategy. The Fund expects primarily to use listed exchange-traded options. When market volatility is high, the Fund may also sell (write) covered call options to generate additional income. Although the Fund intends to be hedged at all times using at least one of the above strategies, the Fund may from time to time use a combination of option hedging strategies. EAB Investment Group, LLC (?EAB?), the Fund?s sub-adviser will use its discretion on when to deploy the options hedging strategies, which will vary depending on option prices.

The Fund?s sub-adviser may also seek to enhance the returns of the Fund?s long equity strategy by buying or selling options on ETFs whose strategies seek to minimize volatility (volatility ETFs). This strategy will be used opportunistically to express the Fund?s sub-adviser?s views on whether actual market volatility will be higher or lower than expected volatility. This strategy will include either buying long put or call options on volatility ETFs or employing a covered option spread on volatility ETFs. A covered option spread will consist of buying (or selling) slightly out of the money call or put options and selling (or buying) call or put options that are further out of the money with the same expiration. Under normal circumstances, the Fund invests at least 80% of its net assets (plus any borrowings for investment purposes) in equity securities of emerging market issuers or investments that provide exposure to equity securities of emerging market issuers, and in derivatives and other instruments that have economic characteristics similar to such securities.

The Fund intends to borrow money from banks to create leverage of up to 30% of the Fund?s assets. The Fund plans to invest the assets obtained through leverage in additional instruments that provide exposure to the MSCI Emerging Markets Index companies as well as in additional options as part of the Fund?s hedging strategies. The Fund will therefore have long exposure of up to 130% of its assets. The Fund?s sub-adviser uses proprietary valuation methods and risk measures as well as publicly available data regarding market volatility levels in managing the hedging strategies. The Fund?s sub-adviser considers multiple factors in determining how much leverage to employ and expected market volatility levels, such as premium at risk (i.e., the amount of net option premiums paid in implementing the hedging strategy), the time to expiration of options, the rate that options lose value as they near maturity (known as Theta), the risk of gain or loss resulting from changes in volatility (known as Vega), and the notional exposure of the options relative to the Fund?s long positions.

The Fund?s sub-adviser?s proprietary option valuation methods will be used to determine when to use a particular option strategy and when to realize gains on the Fund?s options positions.

C000224309 Costs and Fees

C000224309 costs about $190 per $10,000 invested per year in fund expenses.

• Net expense ratio: 1.90%
• Gross expense ratio: 3.17%
• Portfolio turnover: 519%

C000224309 Cashflows

Over the 12 months to 2021-05, James Alpha Managed Risk Emerging Markets Equity Fund had net inflows of $818.39K, from monthly SEC N-PORT filings.

C000224309 Debt Constituents

No individual debt constituents are reported in James Alpha Managed Risk Emerging Markets Equity Fund's latest SEC N-PORT filing.

C000224309 Prospectus and SEC Filings

Official James Alpha Managed Risk Emerging Markets Equity Fund filings on SEC EDGAR — prospectus, portfolio holdings and annual reports.

• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2021-04-09
• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2021-02-12
• Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2021-07-30

Related Funds

Other Emerging Markets Blend / Core Equity funds tracked on ABC INVEST:

• Strategic Advisers Fidelity Emerging Markets Fund (FGOMX)
• iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY)
• Strategic Advisers Emerging Markets Fund (FSAMX)
• iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF (EWT)
• iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ)

Data Sources

ABC INVEST compiles this page from public filings made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through EDGAR: portfolio holdings and monthly cashflows from Form N-PORT, expenses and returns from fund prospectuses (Form 485BPOS) and the SEC DERA Risk/Return Summary data sets, annual data from Form N-CEN, and shareholder reports from Form N-CSR.