The plan seems to have gone down well with experts, but most of them agreeing that the central bank will continue to loosen monetary policy in order to hit the inflation target and generate economic growth.
It’s also been a week where most fund managers have come back from holiday, so story ideas have been much easier to come by and it is good to see that number of them sparked debate among our readers.
Here are our favourite five. Have a great weekend.
Giant funds of the future
FE Trustnet’s head honcho Josh Ausden kicked off the week with an article looking at up-and-coming funds that could one day top the AUM charts.
The point behind the article was to highlight funds that trend-setting investors may want to buy now before the herd joins in.
The funds we analysed were FE Alpha Manager Chris Reid’s Majedie UK Income, CF Odey Allegra Developed Markets and Hugh Yarrow’s Evenlode Income.
Performance of fund vs sector and index since launch
Source: FE Analytics
The Evenlode fund has already attracted the attention of the Jupiter Merlin team, following Yarrow’s strong returns relative to his peers and the wider UK equity market since he launched the portfolio in 2009.
Gleeson: The best UK equity funds for income investors
FE Research has developed a new system for analysing income funds and in this article we looked at the UK funds that have come out on top.
Rob Gleeson, head of FE Research, had told us in article earlier in the week that investors place too much emphasis on a fund’s yield and therefore he wanted to create a bespoke method of highlighting the best funds on purely an income basis.
Gleeson and his team score funds out of 300, depending on their performance in three key areas: the stability of their dividend, capital protection and finally dividend yield.
The fund which came out on top was FE Alpha Manager Francis Brooke’s Trojan Income fund, which scored 295.
Other funds on the list are Jupiter Income, Invesco Perpetual High Income and Rathbone Income.
A new Cold War: Do you need to Putin-proof your portfolio?
The conflict in Ukraine has dominated the headlines recently. Though a ceasefire in the Donbass region seems to be on the table, many fear that the instability could still escalate.
In this article, new news editor Gary Jackson looked at whether Russia’s apparent support of Ukrainian separatists will have a meaningful impact on the market if the conflict intensifies once more.
The yes point was argued by Rowan Dartington director Guy Stephens, who says the Ukraine crisis could ultimately lead to a correction markets in coming months unless a lasting solution to the conflict is found.
Kleinwort Benson chief investment officer Mouhammed Choukeir, on the other hand, sees no reason to change his risk-on stance as geo-political conflict is likely to have minimal impact on equity markets.
Only a third of emerging markets funds outperform over five years
Investors who want global emerging market exposure may have a lot of head-scratching to do.
Ever since Aberdeen and First State, the two powerhouses in the sector, closed their popular portfolios, many fund analysts and researchers agree that there is a dearth of top-quality emerging markets portfolios.
This study seems to support their fears as less than 25 per cent of large-cap active funds in the IMA Global Emerging Markets sector, excluding portfolios run by First State and Aberdeen, have beaten the MSCI Emerging Markets index over five years.
It could all change, of course, but investors may want to look at some passive options or investment trusts if they want developing world exposure.
Neil Woodford: Why I’ve already sold out of HSBC
This piece was actually written by the man himself. In the article, FE Alpha Manager Woodford explained that he bought a UK bank for the first time in over a decade in 2013, but the threat of further multi-billion pound fines in the sector has led him to make a U-turn.
“Clearly, banks have attracted many fines in the post-financial crisis world as regulators and policy-makers have cracked down on past and ongoing wrongdoings in the industry. The size of the fines, however, appears to be increasing,” Woodford said.
The manager has therefore sold his holding in HSBC.
“I’m not suggesting that HSBC is a bad investment but in the light of this growing risk, I now view the shares as broadly fair value,” he said.
