Fund Evaluator:

Westwood Income Opportunity Instl Overview

Westwood Income Opportunity Instl (WHGIX) is an actively managed Allocation Moderately Conservative Allocation fund. Westwood launched the fund in 2005.

The investment seeks to provide current income; long-term capital appreciation is a secondary objective. Under normal circumstances, the fund seeks to meet its investment objectives by investing generally more than 80% of its net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in dividend-paying and/or interest-bearing securities. The fund aims to invest in securities of companies with a strong and improving cash flow sufficient to support a sustainable or rising income stream for investors.

About Westwood Income Opportunity Instl (WHGIX)

There are 3 members of the management team with an average tenure of 4.90 years: P. Adrian Helfert (2019), Scott Barnard (2020), Ben Chittenden (2024). Management tenure is more important for actively managed funds than passive index funds.

The fund has 3 primary benchmarks: Russell 3000 TR USD index with a weighting of 100%, Bloomberg US Agg Bond TR USD index with a weighting of 60% and S&P 500 (TR) (1970) index with a weighting of 40%. Westwood Income Opportunity Instl has 162 securities in its portfolio. The top 10 holdings constitute 21.9% 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.

Westwood Income Opportunity Instl is part of the Allocation global asset class and is within the Allocation fund group. Westwood Income Opportunity Instl has 7.6% of its portfolio invested in foreign issues. The overall assets allocated to domestic stock is 39.7%. There is 1.9% allocated to foreign stock, and 5.7% is allocated to preferred stocks. The bond allocation as a percentage of total assets is 46.4% (40.7% domestic bond, 5.7% foreign bond and 4.2% convertible bond). Westwood Income Opportunity Instl has 2.1% of the portfolio in cash.

Assets Under Management

The fund has $407 million in total assets, which is below the $561 million average for the Moderately Conservative Allocation 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.

WHGIX 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 Westwood Income Opportunity Instl expense ratio is high compared to funds in the Moderately Conservative Allocation category. Westwood Income Opportunity Instl has an expense ratio of 0.84%, which is 17% lower than its category average, making the fund expense ratio grade a C. 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. Westwood Income Opportunity Instl has a portfolio turnover rate of 67%, indicating that holds its assets around 0.0 years. By way of comparison, the average portfolio turnover is 43% for the Moderately Conservative Allocation category.

Recently, in the month of July 2026, Westwood Income Opportunity Instl returned -0.3%, which earned it a grade of C, as the Moderately Conservative Allocation category had an average return of -0.3%. 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.

Westwood Income Opportunity Instl has a trailing yield of 2.77%, which is below the 3.29% category average. The fund normally distributes its income monthly 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.

Westwood Income Opportunity Instl Grades

Year to date, the fund has returned 4.6%, 0.2 percentage points worse than the category, which translates into a grade of C. The fund has returned 12.1% over the past year (grade of B), 9.7% over the past three years (grade of C) and 4.2% per year over the past five years (grade of D) and 6.2% per year over the past 10 years (grade of B).

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