Fund Evaluator:

Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst Overview

Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst (CDAZX) is an actively managed Nontraditional Equity Long-Short Equity fund. Columbia Threadneedle launched the fund in 2017.

The investment seeks capital appreciation. The fund pursues its investment objective by allocating the fund's assets among different asset managers that collectively use various investment styles and strategies, including, for example, fundamental (bottom-up), macroeconomic (top-down), and/or quantitative methods or models, across different markets. It may invest in foreign and domestic equity securities, and debt instruments, as well as derivative instruments, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and other investment companies.

About Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst (CDAZX)

There are 6 members of the management team with an average tenure of 2.74 years: Daniel Allen (2026), Daniel Arche (2026), Scott Burgess (2023), Philip Furse (2024), Joseph Feeney (2016), Hal Reynolds (2026). Management tenure is more important for actively managed funds than passive index funds.

The fund has 2 primary benchmarks: S&P 500 (TR) (1970) index with a weighting of 100% and HFRX Equity Hedge USD index with a weighting of 100%. Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst has 974 securities in its portfolio. The top 10 holdings constitute 21.4% of the fund’s assets. The fund meets the SEC requirement of being classified as a diversified fund. The fund is not considered to have an ESG focus with its investment selection and management.

Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst is part of the Equity global asset class and is within the Nontraditional Equity fund group. Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst has 11.4% of its portfolio invested in foreign issues. The overall assets allocated to domestic stock is 35.9%. There is 11.4% allocated to foreign stock, and 0.0% is allocated to preferred stocks. The bond allocation as a percentage of total assets is 0.0% (0.0% domestic bond, 0.0% foreign bond and 0.0% convertible bond). Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst has 75.8% of the portfolio in cash.

Assets Under Management

The fund has $327 million in total assets, which is below the $352 million average for the Long-Short Equity category. Normally, lower assets under management translates to higher average expense ratios, and greater total assets are desired. However, for some investment categories, such as small-cap investing, it may be difficult for the manager to fully employ the desired active strategy if assets grow too large or too quickly.

CDAZX Performance and Fees

The expense ratio measures how much of a fund’s assets are used for administrative expenses and operating expenses, including adviser fees and fees for the transfer agent and custodial services. The Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst expense ratio is high compared to funds in the Long-Short Equity category. Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst has an expense ratio of 2.42%, which is 10% higher than its category average, making the fund expense ratio grade a D. While it is difficult to predict returns, it is known that high annual expense ratios reduce your rate of return, and excessive fees are difficult to overcome. Active management normally comes with higher expense ratios than passive index management. Certain investment categories such as small company and foreign also normally have higher expense ratios. It is best to compare fund expense ratios against the category averages for meaningful assessments.

High portfolio turnover can translate to higher expenses and lower aftertax returns. Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst has a portfolio turnover rate of 308%, indicating that holds its assets around 0.0 years. By way of comparison, the average portfolio turnover is 287% for the Long-Short Equity category.

Recently, in the month of July 2026, Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst returned -2.5%, which earned it a grade of F, as the Long-Short Equity category had an average return of 2.6%. The letter grades of A, B, C, D and F are based upon relative rankings within the investment category. A grade of A, for example, would indicate that the return is in the highest 20% for that time period compared to all funds in that category.

Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst has a trailing yield of 12.44%, which is above the 1.15% category average. The fund normally distributes its income annually and its capital gains annually.

It’s natural to seek the best-performing investments, but you must consider the relationship between risk and return and the impact of costs and taxes on your realized returns.

Multi-Manager Directional Alt Strat Inst Grades

Year to date, the fund has returned 7.7%, 0.2 percentage points better than the category, which translates into a grade of C. The fund has returned 21.8% over the past year (grade of A), 17.1% over the past three years (grade of A) and 11.7% per year over the past five years (grade of B).

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