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 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 strengthens the process. 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. Relative to the category average, 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 an overweight position in 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' 3.7%. It also has a 4.3% 30-day SEC yield (a measure similar to yield-to-maturity). 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%. Lower quality bonds have higher yields but come with more risk.