John Hancock Launches Technical Opportunities Fund

John Hancock Funds has launched the John Hancock Technical Opportunities Fund, which will use an unconstrained, bottom-up technical approach to rigorously select stocks. Additionally, the fund manager will have license to put 100% of the fund’s assets in cash.

Given this wide asset allocation capability, it is meant to be used as a specialty strategy within a well-diversified portfolio.

“One of the questions posed to us by advisers most often since the market turmoil began two years ago has been, ‘Why can’t portfolio managers go to cash during a period of extreme volatility?’” said Keith F. Hartstein, president and CEO of John Hancock Funds. “John Hancock Technical Opportunities Fund offers advisers and their clients a unique source of institutional-quality return generation in varied market environments.”

The company noted that technical analysis is a highly specialized discipline which the firm will use without the aid of quantitative or mathematical models to look at such factors as moving averages, price gaps and volume changes and movements in relative strength. Wellington Management, sub-advisor to the fund, has been using technical analysis for 17 years.

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