11 'Up-and-Coming' Investment Strategies to Watch: Morningstar

Morningstar has added 11 strategies to its list of "up-and-coming or under-the-radar" investment approaches it monitors to potentially bring under full coverage. After the research firm added the new strategies, graduated one and dropped three, the prospects list, managed by Morningstar Manager Research analysts, now stands at 33. "The idea is to create and maintain a list of ... fund managers and strategies that our team believes may offer enduring advantages and long-term appeal. These are managers and strategies that typically have not been subject to full analyst coverage in the past but that may merit such coverage in the future," Morningstar said in a report. The firm graduated Jensen Quality Value (JNVIX), which has earned a bronze Morningstar Medalist Rating. The fund shares some team and process with silver-rated Jensen Quality Growth (JENSX), a large-growth strategy, but pays more attention to valuation and mid- and small-cap stocks, Morningstar said. "It still has some proving to do, but it also has promise as a moderate mid-cap stock holding," Dan Culloton, director, editorial, manager research for Morningstar, wrote in a recent column on the firm's website. Morningstar dropped from its prospects list:

• Hartford Schroders Sustainable Core Bond Fund (SCBRX), writing that the fund "dropped its sustainability focus and made other changes that will make it hard to stand out."
• Invesco S&P 500 QVM Multi-Factor ETF (QVML), saying it "failed to distinguish itself," and
• Stephens Mid Cap Growth, writing that the strategy's "tech-heavy, high-growth approach is decent, but lacks a clear long-term edge."

Here are the 11 strategies that Morningstar added to its prospects list, in alphabetical order. Slides: Chris Nicholls/ALM