We are pleased to report strong performance for the Keystone Large Cap Growth Fund in 2009. The Fund, up 43.80% (A shares at NAV) significantly outperformed the unmanaged Russell 1000 Growth Index up 37.21%. It is particularly gratifying that virtually all of the outperformance came from stock selection rather than sector allocation. This is consistent with our long term history of individual stock picking combined with active trading around core positions.
A year ago, the pillars of our financial system were collapsing around us. By July, the economy found a base from which to grow again. The current extremely steep yield curve generally points to an accelerating economy. However, we believe there are some significant headwinds that the economy will have to overcome in coming quarters: consumer credit contraction, stubbornly high unemployment, low industrial capacity utilization, unwinding of the Fed’s balance sheet purchases and easy monetary policy, trillion dollar deficits, and anticompetitive government policy.
While a double-dip recession is not anticipated, we believe that investor sentiment will probably turn negative before long, providing a bumpier ride than experienced during the last nine months of strong upward movement. From a valuation perspective, the market is currently trading at approximately 15.6 times the consensus 2010 EPS of the S&P500. This valuation is reasonable by historical standards considering the low level of interest rates we currently have, but as described above, we face bigger headwinds. The consensus estimates for 2011 are calling for 20.9% EPS growth, which seems pretty high to us.
We believe that the leading economic indicators will peak sometime in the first half of 2010 and begin to roll over. In that circumstance, we anticipate that investors’ preference will shift from companies experiencing a cyclical recovery to companies exhibiting longer term more stable revenue growth. We believe near term positive estimate revisions at the individual company level will most likely become more important than a longer term macro call on a cyclical industrial recovery.
Consequently, in an effort to “skate to where the puck is going”, we have reduced the weighting of financial stocks from an 800 basis point (bps) overweight early in 2009 to a benchmark weight and have increased the weighting of healthcare stocks from a 300 bps underweight to a nearly 300 bps overweight currently. Healthcare stocks appear very attractive to us due to their very high free cash flow multiples. Technology stocks also continue to be attractive on a free cash flow multiple basis.
In addition, over the course of the last few months, we reduced our underweight of consumer staples stocks from over 900 bps in March to 670 bps currently. We believe the market is transitioning from one focused on a cyclical recovery to a more normal environment where earnings revisions drive share prices. Once again, these moves are intended to skate to where we believe the puck is moving.
Thank you for the confidence you have placed in us.
The S&P 500 Index is a broad based unmanaged index of 500 stocks, which is widely recognized as representative of the equity market in general. You cannot invest directly in an index.
Free cash flow measures the cash generating capability of a company by adding non-cash charges (e.g.
depreciation) and interest expense to pretax income.
Basis point is a unit that is equal to 1/100th of 1%, and is used to denote the change in a financial instrument.
Earnings per share (EPS) is calculated by taking the total earnings divided by the number of shares outstanding.
Mutual fund investing involves risk. Principal loss is possible. The Fund may concentrate its assets in fewer holdings which will expose it to increased individual stock volatility. The Fund may also purchase foreign securities or use derivatives, which involve additional risks. Please refer to the prospectus for details.The Quarterly Fund Commentary represents the opinion of Keystone Management and is not intended to be a forecast of future events, a guarantee of future results, nor investment advice.