Templeton Management Ltd.
James Gauthier, AnalystA. Templeton Management Ltd.– An overview
Lately for Templeton, the going’s been very tough. The firm hasn’t had a standout year since 1996 and since that point the blood-letting hasn’t ceased. The following table details Templeton’s recent woes.
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% of funds that were Q1 |
% of funds that were Q3 or Q4 | |
|
1996 |
58% |
33% |
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1997 |
17% |
42% |
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1998 |
7% |
79% |
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1999 |
7% |
79% |
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YTD |
7% |
71% |
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Month ended Apr. 30 |
57% |
29% |
The rapid fall from glory is quite shocking and the reason for it can be summarized quite easily. Investors’ temperament began to change in 1997. Value was not producing returns while growth began picking up steam. This all culminated in 1999 when the tech-heavy Nasdaq returned over 80% and value stocks were about as cold as Siberia in the middle of January. The result of this has been a fall in the relative position of Templeton from being the fifth largest money manager in April 1997 to the tenth largest in Aril of this year.
Templeton Management prides itself in being a firm that has a strict value discipline. Globally and domestically, most of the portfolios are loaded with cheap stocks, and unfortunately for Templeton diehards, it is a growth strategy that has been successful as of late. The good news is that value stocks are finally beginning to appear on the radar screen again. Since the Nasdaq’s high on March 10, stocks that have taken a beating over the past three years are gaining strength. Templeton has never strayed from their discipline and is positioned to capitalize on a continuation of the value resurgence. Looking at the one-month period ended of April 30,2000, virtually all of Templeton’s equity funds achieved first or second quartile performances. This is a good sign and we feel the trend will continue. It is likely that the value-based equity funds have already reached bottom.
However, we do have issues with the bond management decisions made at Templeton. As interest rates rose over the past year, Templeton elected to maintain bond durations greater than the index. This is a sure-fire way to underperform. Hence, all balanced and bond funds in the family performed poorly over the period. It is apparent that the majority of the interest rate increases, particularly in the US, have been completed so the worst is probably over on the fixed income side. We would still recommend caution before investing in any of Templeton’s funds with large bond positions, however.
Having no true growth element has seriosly hurt Templeton from a company standpoint but a recent announcement is sure to have the corporate execs smiling. The firm has launched seven new Franklin funds in Canada. The funds will be managed by Franklin Advisers, Inc. which is part of Franklin Templeton Investments in the US. These funds are all growth and include Franklin US Large Cap Growth fund, Technology fund, Aggressive Growth fund, and World Telecom fund. These are completely new offerings and will not be based on Franklin’s well-established US funds.
The funds are available now and they will give Templeton a much more rounded family.
QuickFacts about Templeton Management Ltd.
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Stars |
Fund |
91 |
92 |
93 |
94 |
95 |
96 |
97 |
98 |
99 |
Apr-00 |
Up Mkt Grade |
Down Mkt Grade |
% of Time Losing $ |
Biggest Drop |
Date of Biggest Drop |
Months to Recover |
Worst 12 Mos |
MER | ||||||||||
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Franklin U.S. Sml Cap Gro |
- |
- |
28.00% |
-32.51% |
31-May-98 |
13 |
0.8031884 |
2.50 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Mutual Beacon Fund |
- |
- |
21.43% |
-16.54% |
30-Jun-98 |
12 |
0.9402644 |
2.50 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Balanced |
C |
C |
27.98% |
-26.86% |
31-Aug-87 |
72 |
0.785512 |
1.95 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Peter Moeschter manages the equity portion of this fund and Jeffrey Sutcliffe takes care of the bond side. Equities make up 62% of the fund, fixed income accounts for 31% and the remainder is in cash. The fund's foreign content has been maximized. Performance has really lagged and much of that can be attributed to the value approach on the equity side. We don't think this is a very good balanced fund. It's been an underperformer. We question the bond manager's strategy of having a higher duration than the index during a time of rising interest rates. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Cdn Asset All |
- |
- |
10.91% |
-11.89% |
31-May-98 |
13 |
0.9449453 |
2.15 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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George Morgan and Jeffrey Sutcliffe make up the team for this fund. Its primary investments are in sectors that have really been out of favour including energy sources, metals and mining and banks. The fund has underperformed its peers every year it's been in existence and it may be worthwhile for the firm to merge it into Templeton Balanced. In the meantime, stay away from this stinker. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Canadian Bond |
D |
A |
14.16% |
-8.15% |
28-Feb-94 |
19 |
0.9443564 |
1.65 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The bottom line is that his fund has been a dog since it was introduced in 1990. There are lots of corporates and provincials to help diversify the portfolio but the 20% foreign position hasn't seemed to help. As interest rates were rising this fund had a duration significantly higher than the index, a strategy that simply makes no sense. We would recommend looking for a bond fund elsewhere. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Canadian Stock |
D |
C |
33.06% |
-19.27% |
31-May-98 |
NA |
0.8361766 |
2.44 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Norm Boersma has been struggling to provide investors with outstanding returns, even in 1999. This 'Canadian' stock fund has in fact maximized its foreign content. Larger holdings include BCE, Clarica, Abitibi and Rio Algom. There's no doubt that value has been unfashionable but unfortunately, this fund underperformed even when cheap stocks were cool. Although this is a conservative fund that won't take short term bets to boost performance, it's a dog and there's no evidence to indicate this will change. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Emerging Market |
B |
B |
37.36% |
-47.61% |
31-Aug-97 |
NA |
0.5602534 |
3.62 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Manager Mark Mobius has the looks, name and credentials to be mistaken for a starship captain, and boy, does he know his international equities. Telecom companies account for close to 30% of total assets. Geographically, Mobius likes Latin America and Asia. These regions make up 40% and 28% of the portfolio, respectively. Unfortunately, Mobius' performance doesn't match his persona. This fund has not stood out since he took over in 1991 and a major contributor to that is its overwhelming MER. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Global Balanced |
- |
- |
9.09% |
-9.33% |
31-May-98 |
11 |
0.9663935 |
2.46 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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What's the difference between this Heather Arnold and Thomas Dickson run fund and the International Balanced fund? Well, this one is allowed to invest in the US. Nevertheless, it is still an underperformer. Stocks are selected using a bottom-up approach. No effort is made to keep country or sector weightings close to the index. For the bond portfolio, economic data is scrutinized and debt is purchased based on Country strength and attractiveness. The addition of some growth names might help this fund but until some improvements in performance are made, we recommend you look elsewhere. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Global Bond |
C |
- |
17.69% |
-12.61% |
31-Jan-99 |
NA |
0.964367 |
2.20 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Global bonds have underperformed big time over the last two-and-a-half years and this fund hasn't been able to buck the trend. Diversification is the key to this fund. Management attempts to add value by selecting the right currencies and by playing the spread between different bonds. A macro view is taken to come up with predictions for world economies resulting in predictions for world currencies and world bonds. Global bond funds provide fixed income exposure to countries with vastly different economies than Canada's. We have a relatively neutral position on this particular global bond fund, however. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Glo Smaller Co |
C |
C |
15.32% |
-21.65% |
31-Oct-89 |
19 |
0.79237 |
2.69 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Manager Bradley Radin hasn't been able to find great small-cap buys in the US. Europe makes up 40% of the fund, Asia is 20% while the US is also only 20%. Interestingly, health and personal care companies are the biggest sector in the fund at 13% of assets. Radin does fundamental analysis on the firms he looks at, paying special attention to companies that have and will continue to grow earnings faster than the economy's growth. He also likes companies that are becoming more recognized or that are recovering from financial or other difficulties. The 'global' in this fund's name is accurate and we feel this is suitable for the investor who is somewhat conservative. As a small portion of a portfolio, we like it. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Growth |
A |
B |
15.56% |
-27.17% |
30-Sep-87 |
22 |
0.7421517 |
2.00 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton's flagship fund, this is also Canada's largest mutual fund with roughly $11 billion in assets. Truly a global fund, the portfolio has positions in over 25 countries. The US is the largest position, accounting for a quarter of assets. The largest names in the fund are internationally known firms such as Sony, GE and GM. Finding relatively cheap stocks on a global level is the key here but manager Mark Holowesko has added a few high flying telecom stocks to spice things up. As value investing slowly return to the markets, the faithful to this offering will be rewarded. It is diversified enough to be held as a core foreign equity fund. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Intl Balanced |
- |
- |
18.18% |
-12.36% |
31-May-98 |
14 |
0.9049985 |
2.55 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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In the case of this fund, international means anything outside of the US and Canada. Right now Europe is the favourite region of managers Thomas Dickson and Norm Boersma. Management's top stock picks are mainly 'old economy' and the value bias is certainly evident. Unfortunately, this one has had trouble getting into a groove. It is relatively conservative but there are more efficient ways to play the global securities markets. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Intl Stock |
A |
D |
12.90% |
-17.03% |
31-Aug-98 |
10 |
0.8630233 |
2.51 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Sub-par performance continues with this fund but we still have the utmost confidence in its manager, Don Reed. He has created a graceful bias towards growth stocks and momentum, however, he has not and will not forget his value roots. This fund is still cheap. Essentially this fund is Templeton Growth minus the North American portion. Templeton's expertise in the Global arena is well known and we feel this fund represents a good buy. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Treasury Bill |
B |
- |
0.00% |
0.00% |
NA |
1.021742 |
0.75 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Emerg Mkts RSP |
- |
- |
-11.25% |
31-Jan-00 |
NA |
4.12 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Glo Sml Co RSP |
- |
- |
-0.56% |
30-Apr-00 |
NA |
3.19 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Growth RSP |
- |
- |
-9.06% |
31-Jan-00 |
NA |
2.50 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Templeton Intl Stock RSP |
- |
- |
-5.66% |
31-Jan-00 |
NA |
3.01 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Style Cluster
By comparing a fund’s performance to the performance of its peers we can determine how good of a job the portfolio manager has done in adding value.
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Fund Name |
Fund Return |
Cluster Return |
Manager Added Value |
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Templeton Balanced |
7.4% |
6.4% |
1% |
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Temp. Cdn Asset Allocation |
5.2% |
5.6% |
-.4% |
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Temp. Cdn Bond |
1.9% |
4.3% |
-2.4% |
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Temp. Cdn Stock |
5.5% |
5.9% |
-.4% |
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Temp. Emerging Markets |
-1.4% |
-2.5% |
1.1% |
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Temp. Global Balanced |
5.8% |
10.3% |
-4.5% |
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Temp. Global Bond |
-2.3% |
3.9% |
-6.2% |
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Temp. Global Smaller Co |
7.6% |
3.5% |
4.1% |
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Templeton Growth |
8.7% |
7.2% |
1.5% |
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Temp. Intl Balanced |
2.9% |
10% |
-7.1% |
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Temp. Intl Stock |
11.3% |
9% |
2.3% |
Note: Funds must have at least 36 months of data to be included in analysis.
When we say peers, we mean funds that historically have had extremely similar patterns of performance because, intuitively, funds appearing to have had comparable numbers employ the same style (although this analysis does not explicitly test for that). This approach acts as a far more detailed comparison than looking at funds using blanket style labels such as "small-cap growth".
The method analyzes the correlation of a fund’s monthly returns with those of other funds and identifies the most closely related fund clusters. In this table the three year compounded returns to April 31, 2000 are used. The cluster return is based on the return of the 12 closest peers. The cluster analysis includes eleven of Templeton’s most popular funds.
According to the analysis, the portfolio managers of Templeton’s three largest equity funds have each added value. On the other hand, none of Templeton’s funds display high levels of value added. The greatest number is the 4.1% added to the Global Smaller Companies fund. However, the family as a whole has been unable to perform in a manner that would indicate manager value added. On average, there was actually a 1.2% reduction in value for each fund. There is one underlying reason for this. Templeton’s managers strive to follow the investment philosophy of the firm’s founder, Sir John Templeton, which is a bottom-up, research driven value approach. This has prevented a great deal of money from getting into the white-hot technology sector due to its high valuations. Such neglect of the biggest moving sector over the last three years almost wipes out completely the possibility of superior value added.
The biggest laggard in the family has been the Global Bond fund which has trailed its peers by 6.2%. In our opinion, poor duration decisions are behind this weak performance.
C. Fund CorrelationCorrelation, in this context, is a measure of similarity between funds. It is a useful tool that can help identify diversification in the portfolio. The formula for correlation is covariance divided by the product of the standard deviations of the two subjects. The measure runs from –1.00 to +1.00 and we consider any correlation of .85 or greater to be high (these are highlighted). It is useful because suppose you have a portfolio of three funds, all having correlations of greater than .85. There is essentially little diversification in the portfolio. You could sell off two of the funds and invest the proceeds in the remaining fund without worrying about diversification being lost because there wasn’t any to begin with. On the other hand, if you had a correlation of .42 between a pair of funds, redundancy would not be an issue. The following table details the correlations among Templeton funds.
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1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 | |
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1 - Franklin U.S. Sml Cap Gro |
1.00 |
0.75 |
0.86 |
0.82 |
0.34 |
0.85 |
0.65 |
0.72 |
0.52 |
0.71 |
0.69 |
0.64 |
0.58 |
-0.20 |
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2 - Mutual Beacon Fund C$ |
1.00 |
0.81 |
0.79 |
0.03 |
0.85 |
0.73 |
0.83 |
0.41 |
0.86 |
0.85 |
0.83 |
0.82 |
-0.18 | |
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3 - Templeton Balanced |
1.00 |
0.96 |
0.49 |
0.88 |
0.62 |
0.89 |
-0.07 |
0.63 |
0.85 |
0.83 |
0.67 |
-0.11 | ||
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4 - Templeton Cdn Asset All |
1.00 |
0.44 |
0.96 |
0.76 |
0.89 |
0.56 |
0.75 |
0.87 |
0.79 |
0.75 |
-0.01 | |||
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5 - Templeton Canadian Bond |
1.00 |
0.41 |
0.24 |
0.27 |
0.43 |
0.28 |
0.34 |
0.15 |
0.39 |
0.13 | ||||
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6 - Templeton Canadian Stock |
1.00 |
0.62 |
0.88 |
0.08 |
0.62 |
0.73 |
0.83 |
0.69 |
-0.20 | |||||
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7 - Templeton Emerging Market |
1.00 |
0.78 |
0.26 |
0.52 |
0.60 |
0.75 |
0.58 |
-0.01 | ||||||
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8 - Templeton Global Balanced |
1.00 |
0.62 |
0.83 |
0.94 |
0.93 |
0.89 |
-0.04 | |||||||
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9 - Templeton Global Bond |
1.00 |
0.16 |
0.26 |
0.52 |
0.37 |
0.05 | ||||||||
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10 - Templeton Glo Smaller Co |
1.00 |
0.85 |
0.87 |
0.87 |
-0.24 | |||||||||
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11 - Templeton Growth |
1.00 |
0.91 |
0.90 |
-0.08 | ||||||||||
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12 - Templeton Intl Balanced |
1.00 |
0.97 |
-0.04 | |||||||||||
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13 - Templeton Intl Stock |
1.00 |
-0.29 | ||||||||||||
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14 - Templeton Treasury Bill |
1.00 |
Note: Funds must have at least 36 months of data to be included in analysis.
D. Management Expense Ratio AnalysisTempleton has funds that run the MER spectrum. Some are cheap, some are expensive. The average MER percent rank for the family is just under .50, so the cost of each fund in the family must be looked at individually.
MER and percent rank for selected AIM funds
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Fund name (English) |
Fund Type |
MER |
% Rank |
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Franklin U.S. Sml Cap Gro |
U.S. Equity |
2.5 |
0.576 |
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Mutual Beacon Fund C$ |
U.S. Equity |
2.5 |
0.576 |
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Templeton Balanced |
Balanced / Asset Allocation |
1.95 |
0.203 |
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Templeton Canadian Bond |
Canadian Bond |
1.65 |
0.475 |
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Templeton Canadian Stock |
Canadian Equity |
2.44 |
0.539 |
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Templeton Cdn Asset All |
Balanced / Asset Allocation |
2.15 |
0.312 |
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Templeton Emerging Market |
International Equity |
3.62 |
0.911 |
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Templeton Glo Smaller Co |
International Equity |
2.2 |
0.486 |
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Templeton Global Balanced |
Balanced / Asset Allocation |
2.46 |
0.676 |
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Templeton Global Bond |
Foreign Bond |
2.46 |
0.675 |
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Templeton Growth |
International Equity |
2 |
0.165 |
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Templeton Intl Balanced |
Balanced / Asset Allocation |
2.55 |
0.676 |
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Templeton Intl Stock |
International Equity |
2.51 |
0.362 |
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Templeton Treasury Bill |
Canadian Money Market |
0.75 |
0.274 |
E. Model Portfolios
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