Bestinvest says
Batterymarch believe that the best way to add value in the stockmarket is by combining sophisticated quantitative screens (computer driven models) based on fundamental investment principles, with the experience of human research. They were early pioneers of this approach initially, applying it to US institutional assets, before rolling out the process on a global basis. This fund has employed the approach since 2005 but as of yet has failed to gain any traction.
Batterymarch's UK equity investment team uses a combination of fundamental analysis
and quantitative techniques to select UK stocks that are expected to grow faster than the market average. The process is bottom up (stocks are analysed in their own right) in nature and the ranking of stocks, based on in-house statistical quants screens, is the starting point before stocks are further evaluated by the investment team. Stocks are screened on a daily basis on such metrics as: earnings growth, changes in consensus earnings forecasts and valuation methods such as relative value against earnings expectations and share price relative to cash flow. Technicals (charting of share price performance) also plays an important role before a stock is scored on these attributes. The investment team will carry out their own due diligence on potential stocks and compare their findings against the quatitative ranked stocks, which narrows down the list further. The final aim is to have a style neutral portfolio, i.e. with no bias to 'value' or 'growth' stocks in the stock-picking process, as well as no big bets on individual stocks or sectors.