FTAdviser’s annual list of the top retail investment funds of the past 12 months brings together new names with familiar faces.
After years of relatively plain sailing, 2020 has been rather different for fund managers. The steep drawdown endured by risk assets in the first quarter was unprecedented in its speed, if not its scope – and the subsequent bounce back has been equally surprising to many.
So the members of this year’s FTAdviser Investment 100 Club have had to prove their mettle in conditions both good and bad.
Our list is a quantitative assessment of the best funds and investment trusts of the recent past. An individual standout from each category will be selected by our panel of judges later this year.
In order to qualify for the club itself, we have analysed funds’ performance over both one and five years, relative to the total returns of the broadly relevant benchmark index or sector.
Candidate funds are initially ranked by their outperformance of a relevant benchmark in the year to May 31, 2020.
A fund must also put a double-digit gap – 10 percentage points or more – between its own performance and that of its index in the past five years. That should show it has long-term staying power. The full methodology can be found here.
Finally, we have also highlighted the asset managers with the most high-ranking funds in the list, as well as the five passive providers judged best by a panel of fund selectors.
There are some familiar faces in this year’s list – like Baillie Gifford, whose investment style has remained in favour in 2020.
But newer names are also present – like Premier Miton, whose merger last year has combined strengths in multi-asset and UK equity. But it will be up to the judges to decide which strategies stack up best on a qualitative, as well as quantitative, basis.
