Upper Quartile is not able to guarantee the accuracy of the data, which is drawn from third party sources. The initial information comes from Morningstar, a highly reliable, widely used commercial industry source and is randomly submitted to the fund managers for their corroboration. Any fund manager included in the analysis is free to request a copy of the report each month, (by being registered in a special NUG managed by Upper Quartile Administration) and copies of the report are distributed on a random basis for verification purposes. Please refer to the Disclaimer included on this Website. Requesting the sample report and Registration as a Subscriber is deemed to be a full acceptance of our Privacy Policy and Services Statement.

Why analyse over six months and 30, 60 and 90 days and four, five and six months?

Our historical data has been collated in detail since December 1999. It shows that funds generally are markedly in or out of the Upper Quartile for their fund type or they are managed in such a manner that they consistently fall within a performance range that reflects the lower level of the upper quartile and the upper level of the second quartile, for that fund type. Except where a fund would be classified as 'second quartile' on a regular basis, if a managed fund's performance (for the twelve month period ending in that month) falls out of the Upper Quartile for at least three consecutive months, it may continue to decline (when measured against its peers in the same time frame and the same market,) unless there is a substantial change in market sentiment, fund management or general economic conditions.

The RRoR for the past twelve months for the previous 30, 60 and 90 days and four, five and six months provides the Financial Planner more up-to-date information than a single one year Rolling Rate of Return and from which likely trend lines for individual funds may be identified. The depth of the data adds to the credibility of the analysis.

The Upper Quartile Factors used for graphing are based on yearly rolling rates of return and assume automatic reinvestment of distributions; do not allow for investment costs or taxation. Because the same method of calculating returns is used for all funds, they are highly useful for comparing market sectors. Individual funds within market sectors need much closer analysis, and the Upper Quartile Factors help to identify those funds.

Why aren't all Master Trusts included in Upper Quartile Reports?

More than 500 funds are published in the report each month and this provides a wide range of data against which the performance of any other fund can be checked and rated by the individual Financial Planner. Our research shows that the Master Trusts included in the report cover more than 85% of managed funds used on a consistent and meaningful manner by financial planners.

Our research shows that most Master Trusts use a base investment portfolio drawn from these 500+ funds. They may have additional 'manufactured' funds for their own use, whose performance is not generally published in the standard research tables. The user of any Master Trust can easily check other funds (who have their internal performance tables available for their selected users) against their asset class peers, on an individual basis.

As public retail and wholesale funds are added and deleted from the menus of Master Trusts, they will be retained in the Upper Quartile survey base for at least six months, provided their ongoing performance data is available through Morningstar. The size of the database will expand, over time and the number of funds included in the report has increased dramatically since April 2003.

Upper Quartile acknowledges that some or all of the data used to generate its reports may have been sourced from FPI Ltd and/or Morningstar.
Please refer to the Conditions of Use statements in this website regarding the use of this data.