Using Lipper Leaders to analyse the best-performing funds in the IA North America sector.   Everyone loves the US market. Gainsayers have thrown in their hands, as evidenced by the flows to the IA North America sector over the 12 months to November: almost £37bn—more than any other sector. For that, you get exposure to the world’s largest, most liquid and, it seems, dynamic equity market. Largest, and getting ever larger. The US is now more than 60% of broad global equity indices. Apple, the largest stock, is generally more than any ex-US country weight, other than Japan. It’s larger

Using the Lipper Leaders scoring system to analyse the best-performing funds in the IA Infrastructure sector.   Funds in the infrastructure sector invest at least 80% of their assets in companies involved in the ownership, operation, or maintenance of infrastructure assets. These span the utilities, energy, transport, health, education, security, and communications industrial sectors—covering everything from hospitals to hydro-electric. While some infrastructure funds are direct owners of such businesses—owning outright, for instance, wind farms—these funds have their exposure largely through investing in the shares of such businesses, or themselves investing in specialist infrastructure funds. That has the advantage of greater

The IA Flexible Investment sector’s outperformance relative to other mixed investment classifications is linked to a systematically higher equity exposure. Mixed investment funds offer a one-stop-shop, managing your portfolio asset allocation within one fund. The Investment Association sectors provides four such sectors, each defined by their equity allocation. More equities mean more risk, and potentially more return. Flexible Investments Funds are (in theory, at least) the go-anywhere fourth sector: managers can dial their equity exposure up to 100% or down to zero. This maximises opportunity. But then, of course, it also maximises the risk if you call the market wrong.

Having largely given up on organic intelligence, investors have got all excited over its artificial offspring. As a result, the (mainly US) stocks linked to AI have raced away from the broad market this year. I’m unsure as to whether those same investors have not seen the Terminator franchise, or having done so, rather like the idea of the future it portrays. But who am I to argue? What is clear, however, is the narrow base of this rally. My colleague at Starmine, Tajinder Dhillon, did an elegant analyses of this recently, which is summarised below. Top-heavy returns By the

Check out the highlights from the Refinitiv Lipper Fund Awards in London, where we celebrated winners having excelled in providing consistently strong, risk-adjusted performance relative to their peers.

Using the Lipper Leaders scoring system to analyse the best performing funds in the IA Global Equity Income sector.   We last looked at Global Equity Income exactly a year ago when we noted its advantages in a rising rate environment, especially when compared to “conventional” global equities. And, it must be said, compared to UK income payers, which we covered last month. Then we noted that if we were in a period where base rates were due to remain higher than over the previous two decades, then dividend paying stocks were more likely to outperform. Given that UK investors

Using the Lipper Leaders scoring system to analyse the best-performing funds in the IA Sterling Strategic Bond sector.   Sterling Strategic Bond is supposed to be the SUV sector of the fixed income fund world—it can go anywhere, unconstrained by region, duration, or credit quality. This allows the active manager to go where they feel the best opportunities lie and avoid those areas of the bond market they reckon are best avoided—conceivably, they can invest everything from UK gilts through to European high yield. Unlike, for example, a UK corporate bond manager, who if they don’t fancy the prospects for

Using the Lipper Leaders scoring system to analyse the best-performing funds in the IA Mixed Investment 0-35% Shares sector.   Mixed investment funds offer a (relatively) hassle free way of managing your portfolio asset allocation, with it being done within one fund wrapper. The Investment Association sectors offer four such sectors, each defined by their equity allocation. More equities mean more risk, but the potential for greater return. For example, over the past 20 years Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares has returned an average of 266%, and its 0-35% Shares sibling, 122%. The quid pro quo is that when markets fall,

Using the Lipper Leaders scoring system to analyse the best-performing funds in the IA North America sector.   The coming year is fraught with risk. The US seems likely to head into recession, with opinion divided over not “if” but “when.” Consensus is settling somewhere between the second half of 2023 and early 2024. While there’s no direct correlation between GDP and equity values, they do tend to perform worse in recessions. And, while the S&P 500 has fallen from it December 2021 peak, in percentage terms there is likely still further to go when one compares recessionary peak-to-trough. That

Using the Lipper Leaders scoring system to analyse the best performing funds in the IA UK All Companies sector.   UK All Companies is, obviously, an important sector for UK investors—but one that is increasingly unfashionable. There’s been a long-term move away from domestic to global equity funds. For example, the largest outflows from Lipper’s Equity UK and Equity UK Income classifications were during COVID (£15.9bn in 2020). Prior to this, the largest redemptions were in 2016 (£10.3bn). These are troughs in a decades-long trend, however. Conversely, global funds have been increasing relative to domestic equity holdings. In 2003, Equity

Using the Lipper Leaders scoring system to analyse the best-performing funds in the IA Emerging Markets sector   Emerging markets are vital to the world economy, what with them making most of the world’s stuff. However, jet engines are vital to airplanes, but you probably wouldn’t want to climb in one. The same is probably true for emerging markets, at least while current conditions persist. It’s been a hard year for equity markets and an even harder one for emerging market equity markets. I last wrote about emerging market equity funds for Moneyfacts in May 2021, when I reported that

Using the Lipper Leaders scoring system to analyse the best-performing funds in the IA UK Index-Linked Gilt sector   This month I’m covering a sector that most retail investors are unlikely to have invested directly in or, given recent performance, are likely to be tempted by: UK Index-Linked Gilts (gilts being UK government bonds). It is, by any standard, a bit niche and in “normal” times offers all the excitement of a polystyrene cup. It is, however, an instructive lesson in sectors not always providing what it says on the tin. Index-Linked Gilts—or Linkers—have never been an asset class high