AGF Investments Inc. Friday announced enhancements to the Harmony program to help provide better-than-benchmark returns with lower-than-benchmark volatility.
Effective December 5, the investment strategies of four of the existing Harmony Pools — Harmony Canadian Equity Pool, Harmony Canadian Fixed Income Pool, Harmony U.S. Equity Pool and Harmony Overseas Equity Pool — will be enhanced to feature a tactical overlay to take advantage of shorter-term market changes.
AGF (TSX:AGF.B) believes that this tactical overlay will enable it to accomplish more frequent and opportunistic changes to asset class weightings. The strategic asset allocation of each of these pools will continue to be reviewed each quarter and rebalanced if necessary. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in major asset classes will be used both for their cost efficiency and liquidity.
“This ‘blending’ of active and passive strategies is a technique used by institutional investors to express specific asset class preferences without cumbersome and potentially costly rebalancing,” AGF said in a release.
The investment objectives for these pools remain the same.
Name change for one portfolio
The name of Harmony Balanced and Income Portfolio has changed to Harmony Yield Portfolio to reflect the revised investment strategy that attempts to achieve a yield greater than the Government of Canada 10-year bond yield. The distribution has been set at a rate determined by AGF, and will be reset annually based on prevailing yields of available asset classes. The investment objective for this portfolio remains the same.
These changes will be effective on Friday, October 28, pending regulatory approval of the amendments to the disclosure documentation.