Legg Mason US Smaller Companies Accumulation

Over the past couple of years political decisions or economic concerns have had a significant impact on the stock market.

Lauren Romeo, manager of the Legg Mason US Smaller Companies Fund, has used bouts of stock market weakness to invest in companies trading on attractive valuations. She sees the US economy as being on a recovering trend so has not been afraid to add companies that she believes could benefit. This has led to a bias towards technology, industrial and energy companies.

Tetra Technology, is a good example. It is a leading water usage consultant which has diversified from being reliant on government contracts to helping more companies in the commercial sector save water.

There is an emphasis on quality running through the portfolio and all holdings tend to share certain characteristics. Lauren Romeo prefers businesses with low debt, strong cash flows and management teams that sensibly reinvest this cash to grow the business. She also likes companies with international operations, especially those seeing demand from faster-growing emerging markets.

Trican, for example, not only provides pressure pumping services to oil and gas companies in the US, it has operations in Russia and Central Asia. In the energy sector she prefers service companies such as Trican rather than exploration and production companies which tend to be more sensitive to swings in the oil price.

Industrial companies account for almost 23% of the portfolio. Lauren Romeo is focusing on those leading their fields such as Lincoln Electronics which designs and manufacturers welding and cutting equipment; and IPG Photonics which develops lasers for cutting metal. She believes they could benefit from a pick-up in manufacturing activity at home as well as demand from overseas.

Lauren Romeo admits she overestimated management quality at many gold mining companies over the past couple of years. They failed to control costs and reinvest cash wisely, which contributed to share prices falling. Exposure has been reduced to just 4% of the portfolio.

Exposure to gold miners; less exposure to healthcare and consumer companies, which performed better when investors were nervous over economic prospects; and less exposure to lower-quality, highly indebted companies, which bounced recently as economic prospects improved, has contributed to short term underperformance. The fund's long-term record remains strong. Please remember past performance is not a guide to the future.

Lauren Romeo continues to believe that when investors place greater emphasis on companies, rather than economic prospects, the quality of the fund's underlying companies will shine through and the fund will perform well, although there are no guarantees. She is supported by a well-resourced and highly experienced team and we believe she has the ability to turn around performance and deliver attractive returns for long-term investors, although smaller company shares are inevitably more volatile than larger counterparts, making this fund higher risk. This fund remains on the Wealth 150 list of our favourite funds in each sector.