Investors should be wary of the dates used to calculate the performance of funds as the smallest shifts in time periods may produce results that are misleading. 

The FTSE All Share, for example, lost more than 10 per cent in early August last year before recovering, and funds’ one-year performance figures will no longer include that slump. 

Standard Life UK Equity Unconstrained has now returned 15.07 per cent over the past 12 months, while its IMA UK All Companies sector has made 14.02 per cent. 

Had the calculation been made two weeks ago, however, the figures would have shown a loss of almost 11 per cent for the fund, while the sector was down 1.99 per cent. 

Performance of fund vs sector

Name	1-yr returns (%)	Returns (%) from 1/08/11 to 1/08/12
IMA UK All Companies	14.02	-1.99
Stan Life Inv - UK Equity Unconstrained	15.07	-10.56

Source: FE Analytics

AWD Chase de Vere’s Patrick Connolly commented: "You can prove or disprove almost anything you want to by looking at different timeframes."

"It is important not to make your decisions just on performance data. You need to understand why an investment has performed the way it has."

The financial crisis of 2008 saw markets worldwide nosedive, and performance figures that include this period are very different from those that don’t.

Over five years, only two of the UK-focused sectors have beaten the consumer price index (CPI) measure of inflation. 

Fears of this underperformance have driven many investors to safe-haven investments such as gilts and undermined confidence in the ability of active managers to provide real returns, supporting growing interest in passive funds such as trackers. 

Performance of sectors vs CPI over 5-yrs



Source: FE Analytics

However, our data shows that if the figures are calculated from the same date the following year, the average fund in every UK sector has risen by at least twice as much as inflation, and over three years the IMA Gilt sector is the worst-performing of the UK sectors. 

Performance of sectors vs CPI over 3-yrs



Source: FE Analytics

Over 10 years the performance of the sectors is closer to the later pattern, with all those in the UK substantially beating CPI. The IMA UK Gilt sector is the worst performing, returning just 68.59 per cent compared with 28.47 per cent from the index. 

This effect is even more apparent when looking at individual funds. In the UK Equity Income sector, two of the top-three funds over a three-year period are in the bottom quartile over five years. 

Chelverton UK Equity Income is 67th out of 80 funds over five years but second over three, while Henderson UK Equity Income is 61st over five and third over three. 

In the entire IMA universe, there are 49 funds that are in the first quartile over three years, but in the fourth over five years. 

"You shouldn’t just compare your investments to a benchmark and judge their performance. You need to understand where and why they have underperformed," added Connolly.