Wealth Shortlist Update: JPMorgan Global Bond Opportunities

The fund aims to achieve a balance between income and capital growth over the long term (at least five years). To do this, it invests in lots of different bonds issued by companies and governments all over the world. This gives investors highly diversified bond investments within a single fund.

The fund has six managers. Bob Michele, Global Chief Investment Officer (CIO) and Head of Global Fixed Income, Currency & Commodities (GFICC), and Iain Stealey, International CIO within the GFICC, lead on choosing how much of the fund to invest in different parts of the global bond market.

Michele has over 40 years’ industry experience and joined JPMorgan in 2008. He’s based in New York, has managed this fund since launch in 2015 and another version of the fund for US investors since launch in 2012. Stealey has over 20 years’ industry experience, having joined JPMorgan in 2002.

Michele and Stealey are supported by four other managers who have a greater focus on individual bond selection in specific areas of global bond markets. This means there’s lots of people feeding into the fund’s management. This reflects JPMorgan’s aim to represent the best ideas of their global bond investment teams.

The managers start by considering their view of the world and what areas of the bond market have the potential to perform well and which areas they want to avoid. Michele and Stealey then decide how much each of the other fund managers should have to invest in their different areas of the bond market. Finally, the remaining managers select which specific bonds to invest in from their area of specialism.

The result is an extremely diversified bond fund that typically has more than 1,000 individual bonds, invested across 15 different parts of global fixed income markets, from usually over 50 countries.

This broad exposure to different global bond markets means we expect the fund to typically provide a return that reflects global bond markets overall. We think it’s unlikely the fund will have short-term periods of performing much better, or worse, than its peers. Although of course, there are no guarantees. This is one of the reasons we like the fund – it provides investors with broad exposure to bond markets, potentially without big surprises in performance.

The fund could act as a core holding for a bond-focused investment portfolio, diversify a portfolio focused on growth, a portfolio seeking income, or one focused on company shares.

We’ve also published a full fund update to go alongside this notification on our website, where you can find out more about the managers, their investment process and the fund’s performance.

Although we're adding the fund to the Wealth Shortlist, this isn't a recommendation to make any changes to an investment portfolio. Investors should make sure any investments match their investment goals and attitude to risk and are held as part of a diversified portfolio. If you're not sure if an investment is suitable for your circumstances, please seek personal advice.