JPMorgan Short Duration Core Plus R6 JSDRX

The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the least expensive fee quintile among peers.

The management team's considerable industry experience drives an Above Average People Pillar rating for the strategy. The strategy's sensible investment philosophy earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained an underweight position in AA rated bonds and has an overweight in debt with 20- to 30-year maturities compared with category peers. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an Above Average Parent Pillar rating, and this rating is inherited from vehicles belonging to the same branding entity and is indirectly assigned by an analyst.

JPMorgan Short Duration Core Plus Fund earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating.

The leading factor in the rating is the parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 56%. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and outperformed their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. Strong 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, such as 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 Short-Term Bond Morningstar Category, this fund takes on higher credit risk. But in terms of long-term interest-rate sensitivity, it hews closely to its average peer 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. Compared with the average strategy in the category, the managers have been underweight AA rated bonds in recent years. In the latest month, the strategy has also relatively underweighted AA rated bonds compared with Morningstar Category peers. Additionally, there's been a bias towards debt with 20- to 30-year maturities over the past few years. Compared with category peers, the strategy had more exposure to debt with 20- to 30-year maturities in the most recent month. Finally, during the past few years, the fund leaned towards securitized debt. In this month, the strategy also leaned more towards securitized debt compared with its peers.

This strategy has a modest 3.5% 12-month yield, lower than its average peers' 3.8%. It also has a 4.3% 30-day SEC yield (a standardized, point-in-time estimate of the fund’s future income return). A lower yield tends to indicate lower credit risk. But that isn't always the case. Over the past 12 months, the average yield of the fund has been lower than the average yield of its Morningstar Category peers. The portfolio has a lower average surveyed credit quality of BBB, compared with the typical peers' A and its non-investment-grade stake is 8% of assets, compared to its peers' 2%. Strategies with more credit risk may have a higher return, but they are riskier.

The team is backed by Cary J. Fitzgerald, the longest-tenured manager on the strategy, who provides over 25 years of listed portfolio management experience. The average Morningstar Rating of the strategies they manage is 3.5 stars, demonstrating above-average risk-adjusted performance relative to category peers. Despite having a small team, the two listed managers boast over 30 years of listed portfolio management experience. As a team, they manage two investment vehicles together, with a Bronze asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating the potential to deliver positive alpha in aggregate. The highest personal investment in the fund by any of its managers is between$ 100,000 and$ 500,000. That's on the low side--it would need to be more than$ 1 million for us to see the investment as sufficient to promote the strong alignment of their interests with the strategy's investors.

Note: The People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. At least one of the managers on this fund manages a different product rated by an analyst. The analyst-assigned People Pillar rating(s) for these managers are combined with algorithmic scores for any non-covered managers on a tenure-weighted basis.

As of 2022, this investment stalwart manages more than USD 2.5 trillion in AUM. Composed of various global cohorts and diverse asset classes, the firm has more tightly integrated its capabilities in recent years, notably through the development of proprietary analytical and risk systems. Investment teams are robustly staffed and helmed by seasoned contributors. The firm’s strategies tend to produce reliable portfolios, and several flagship offerings are Morningstar Medalists. Manager incentives align with fundholders'; compensation reflects longer-term performance factors, and portfolio managers invest in the firm’s strategies as part of their compensation plans.

The firm’s funds tend to be well-priced, but they aren’t as competitive as many highly regarded peers of similar scale. Recent product launches include thematic and single-country strategies, both of which carry the potential for volatile performance and flows, along with misuse by investors. The firm remains intrepid when it comes to developing an environmental, social, and governance-focused framework and continues to move into other areas such as direct indexing through its 55iP acquisition and China through its joint venture, but these complicated initiatives take time to assess any real and lasting effect.

It has provided similar returns compared with peers, but better returns compared with the category benchmark. Over the past eight-year period, this share class underperformed the category's average return by an annualized 28 basis points. But if extended to a 10-year time period, it performed similarly to the average's 2.4%. But it was ahead of the category index, Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Government/ Credit 1-3 Year Index, by an annualized 1.2 percentage points over the same 10-year period.

When adjusting for risk, this fund is competitive. The share class had a higher Sharpe ratio, a measure of risk-adjusted return, than the index over the trailing 10-year period. Often, higher returns are associated with higher risk. This strategy is no exception, with a standard deviation of 3.3% exceeding the benchmark's 1.4%. Finally, the share class proved itself effective by generating positive alpha, over the same 10-year period, against the category group index: a benchmark that encapsulates the performance of the broader asset class.

This share class lands in the cheapest quintile of its Morningstar Category. Its attractive expense ratio, considered jointly with the fund’s People, Process, and Parent Pillars, indicates that this share class is well-positioned to generate positive alpha versus its category benchmark, explaining its Morningstar Medalist Rating of Silver.