JPMorgan Corporate Bond Fund earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating.
The main driver of the rating is the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 57%. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and beat their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. Excellent risk-adjusted performance also influences the rating. This can be seen in the fund's five-year alpha calculated relative to the category index, which suggests that the managers have shown skill in their allocation of risk. Lastly, the process is limited by being an actively managed strategy. Historical data, like Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that actively managed funds have generally underperformed their passive counterparts, especially over longer time horizons.
Compared with other funds in the Corporate Bond Morningstar Category, this fund, historically, hews closely to peers' credit and interest-rate sensitivity over the past few years. Opening the analysis to additional factors, the portfolio has displayed biases over time, whether towards or away from certain fixed-income instruments. Relative to the average strategy in the category, the managers have been underweight BB rated bonds in recent years. In the latest month, the strategy has also relatively underweighted BB rated bonds compared with Morningstar Category peers. Additionally, the managers have exhibited a sector bias away from government bonds over the past few years. Similarly, in recent months, the strategy also had less exposure to government bonds than peers. Finally, during the past few years, the fund leaned towards debt with three- to five-year maturities. In this month, the strategy also leaned more towards debt with three- to five-year maturities compared with its peers.
This strategy's 12-month yield is 4.2%, which is neck-and-neck with its average peer. In addition, its 30-day SEC yield (a measure similar to yield-to-maturity) sits at 4.6%. The portfolio's average surveyed credit quality is on par with peers, with both the fund and the average being rated BBB.