JPMorgan Small Cap Growth R2 JSGZX

Fees are a weakness here. The strategy's lofty fees are a high hurdle to clear, as it is priced within the most expensive quintile among peers.

The strategy's managers invest alongside shareholders, which helps it earn an Above Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's effective investment approach earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. High liquidity exposure is attributed to stocks with a high trading volume, lending managers more flexibility. And a low quality exposure is rooted in stocks with higher financial leverage and lower profitability. 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 Small Cap Growth Fund earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating.

The most significant contributor to 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. The parent firm's superior risk-adjusted performance, as shown by its average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 3.3 stars, also influences the rating. 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.

This strategy hews closely to the market cap and investment style of its Small Growth category peers. Analyzing additional factors, the fund has held stocks with higher trading volumes compared to Morningstar Category Peers in the past few years. Such stocks may have less potential upside than illiquid holdings, but they are easier to trade during market downturns. In recent months, the strategy was more exposed to the Liquidity factor compared with its Morningstar Category peers as well. This strategy has also favored low-quality stocks. This means the fund avoids holding companies that are consistently profitable, growing, and have solid balance sheets. Lacking this ballast, the fund's prospects could rest on its ability to surpass peers during economic booms. Similarly, in recent months, the strategy also had less exposure to the Quality factor than peers. Additionally, the managers have consistently taken on more risk, demonstrated by higher volatility exposure than peers. Such stocks tend to rise faster and fall harder than the broad market. High-volatility exposure contributes to stronger performance during bull markets, but often at the cost of losing more during downturns. In this month, the strategy also had more exposure to the Volatility factor over its peers. More information on a fund and its respective category's factor exposure can be found in the Factor Profile module within the Portfolio section.

The portfolio is overweight in technology and consumer cyclical relative to the category average by 4.5 and 3.3 percentage points, respectively. The sectors with low exposure compared to category peers are financial services and communication services, with financial services underweighting the average portfolio by 5.2 percentage points of assets and communication services similar to the average. The portfolio is positioned across 134 holdings and its assets are more dispersed than peers in the category. In particular, 17.0% of the fund’s assets are concentrated in the top 10 fund holdings, as opposed to the category average's 26.1%. And finally, in terms of portfolio turnover, looking at year-over-year movements, 33% of the fund's holdings have turned over, whether through increasing, decreasing, or changing a position.

Eytan M. Shapiro’s veteran status, with over 25 years of listed portfolio management experience, brings a wealth of experience to the table. The strategies they currently manage have an average Morningstar Rating of 2.3 stars, demonstrating disappointing risk-adjusted performance compared with category peers. Eytan M. Shapiro is supported by an experienced team, being able to draw on three additional listed managers, who average 19 years of listed portfolio management experience. As a team, they manage two investment vehicles together, with a Silver asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, indicating the potential to deliver positive alpha in aggregate. With at least one manager investing$ 1 million or more in this offering, investors can have some assurance that the team's interests are aligned with theirs.

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.

Over a 10-year period, this share class outpaced the category's average return by 84 basis points annualized. And it was also ahead of the category index, the Russell 2000 Growth Index, by 1.3 percentage points over the same period.

The risk-adjusted performance only continues to make a case for this fund. The share class outstripped the index with a higher Sharpe ratio, a measure of risk-adjusted return, over the trailing 10-year period. Often, higher returns are associated with higher risk. This strategy is no exception, with a standard deviation of 22.4% exceeding the benchmark's 20.8%. However, the share class proved itself ineffective as it was unable to generate 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 imposes a fee that ranks in its Morningstar Category's highest quintile. Even with this fee, the fund’s People, Process, and Parent Pillars suggest this share class should be able to deliver positive alpha relative to its category benchmark, earning it a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze.