The new JPM Strategic Allocation Active UCITS ETFs represent a simple, low-cost solution to help savers avoid these age-old obstacles to wealth creation. Based on our asset allocation expertise, and constructed using ETFs managed by the world’s largest active ETF provider, each Strategic Allocation ETF provides access to a highly diversified, ready-made investment portfolio, offering a reliable path to getting invested and staying invested.

Holding excess cash costs returns

It’s easy to see why many savers are tempted to keep their money in cash. After all, cash offers safety in an uncertain world. And building diversified investment portfolios can be daunting, even for the most experienced of investors. But, since cash generally underperforms balanced investment portfolios over almost any time horizon, this over-allocation to cash and reluctance to invest can seriously undermine potential returns.

The situation is even worse when viewed in real terms. This is because the main opportunity cost to being invested in cash is inflation. When adjusted for rising prices, €100 invested in a simple balanced portfolio 25 years ago is worth €236 today, while €100 invested in cash would have shrunk to just €89. Cash may feel like a safety blanket, but inflation significantly erodes its purchasing power over time.

Time in, not timing, the markets is crucial

Even when cash is put to work in global markets, investors often suffer from another wealth-destroying habit—market timing.

The real magic of investing comes from compounding— earning returns not just on your original investment, but on the returns themselves, year after year. The longer you stay invested, the more powerful this effect becomes. Unfortunately, many savers tend to panic and move to cash every time there is a market wobble, and often find themselves still waiting on the sidelines when markets rebound. The result: they buy assets that have already performed, only to sell them after the market has fallen, undermining the power of compounding and materially weakening returns over the long run.

While it’s natural to feel nervous when markets are volatile, history shows that the biggest risk isn’t actually the market downturns themselves—it’s missing out on the recoveries that follow. Which means missing out on the gains that drive long-term market growth. And with 90% of portfolio returns explained by asset allocation rather than market timing, trying to time the market can be hazardous for investors by pretty much any measure.

Get invested and stay invested with JPM Strategic Allocation Active UCITS ETFs

To help investors reduce their reliance on cash and avoid the pitfalls of market timing, we’ve created the JPM Strategic Allocation Active UCITS ETFs. These innovative, actively managed multi-asset ETFs provide ready-made portfolio solutions designed to make investing simple, accessible, and effective for everyone.

Each portfolio is fully diversified across global equity and bond markets based on expert asset allocation analysis. Portfolios are constructed from J.P. Morgan’s broad range of active ETFs based on expert fund selection. However, it’s not only asset allocation and portfolio composition that is backed by active research. The security selection that drives excess returns in the underlying ETFs is powered by J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s deep security-level research capabilities, providing a second active layer.

All investors have to do to benefit is choose from three portfolio options, depending on their individual risk profile:

• JMAC (Conservative): For those who prefer a cautious approach, JMAC offers a portfolio with a higher allocation to bonds, aiming for steady growth with lower risk.
• JMAM (Moderate): For investors seeking a balance between growth and stability, JMAM provides a classic mix of stocks and bonds.
• JMAG (Growth): For those with a higher risk appetite, JMAG tilts more towards equities, aiming for higher long-term returns, but with higher expected volatility.

Flexible, forward-looking portfolio construction

Within each strategy’s risk parameters, our Strategic Allocation Active ETFs have the flexibility to invest across a broad universe of assets, including developed market and emerging market equities, government and corporate bonds, high yield debt, short duration fixed income, and even cash.

We believe such a diversified mix of assets can provide attractive returns for a given level of risk. However, the long-term return prospects of each asset class will vary according to structural changes in the macroeconomic environment, policy settings and, ultimately, in valuations. Therefore, the key to delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns consistently over time is to adjust the mix of assets to reflect changing economic and market conditions.

The JPM Strategic Allocation Active ETFs draw on the insights provided by J.P. Morgan’s Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions (LTCMAs), which have been forecasting returns across markets and asset classes for the last 30 years. Our Multi-Asset Solutions group has extensive experience translating the LTCMA forecasts into viable portfolio decisions, and managing the relative importance and overall sizing of asset class tilts for a wide range of institutional clients. For the first time, these insights are now available to a wider investor audience in the ETF vehicle.

What does this mean for portfolio allocations in practice? As an example, allocations could be adjusted to promote greater exposure to companies that are likely to benefit from better capital investment and nominal growth over time. Or they could be adjusted to express a preference for corporate issuers in fixed income over government bonds, based on changes to long-term fiscal sustainability and inflationary risk. Exposure could also be reduced to markets that face a higher valuation risk and therefore lower long-term returns, in favour of those markets that face less of a valuation headwind, and where long-term returns are forecast to be higher.

Fundamental bottom-up insights

We believe these long-term asset allocation insights can be a significant driver of long-term performance. But they aren’t the only source of incremental returns compared to passive solutions. Our “double-active” approach means that the JPM Strategic Allocation Active ETFs also benefit from active security selection, thanks to their ability to reflect their desired asset class preferences through J.P. Morgan’s range of active ETFs.

J.P. Morgan has over a century of active investing expertise. Today, it is the largest provider of active UCITS ETFs. Each Strategic Allocation Active ETF plugs directly into the insights of over 240 research analysts, based in local markets around the world. They provide our ETF portfolio managers with a deep understanding of the relative opportunity across issuers and companies, in different markets, industries and sectors. We simply look to invest in those J.P. Morgan active ETFs that allow us to target active security selection in each asset class in a risk-controlled fashion, so as not to undermine the beta returns of the asset class itself.

As a result, we have a preference for lower tracking error, core strategies, such as our Research Enhanced Index equity ETFs. The strategy has a long-track record of delivering positive outcomes for investors from across the world’s stock markets. The JPM Global Research Enhanced Equity strategy has, for example, outperformed its benchmark in 19 out of 21 calendar years (as of December 2025).

Active all-in-one portfolio solutions from J.P. Morgan

We believe our active asset allocation and security selection insights can add meaningful value over time. While markets are generally efficient, compounding even a modest 30 basis points to 50 basis points of additional return each year from active insights, net of fees, can add 10 percentage points to investors’ portfolios, compared to a traditional passive approach.

Thanks to their low turnover, low transaction costs and low fees, the JPM Strategic Allocation Active UCITS ETFs are able to benefit from the compounding of asset class returns at a higher rate, allowing investors to make their cash savings work even harder, and helping them to achieve their long-term financial goals. Getting invested, and staying invested, has never been easier.

Talk to your J.P. Morgan Asset Management representative to find out more about our ready-made, all-in-one active portfolio solutions.