More than a third of investors polled by the investment house expect IMA Global Emerging Markets to lead the way in 2011, while a further 13 per cent favoured funds in the Asia Pacific Excluding Japan sector.
The results support figures recently published by the Investment Management Association (IMA), which revealed Global Emerging Markets was the best selling sector in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Financial Express data suggests the sector has returned 20.89 per cent in the last year. It was the sixth best performing sector in that time, losing out to the likes of North American Smaller Companies, Technology and Telecoms and UK Smaller Companies.
Performance of sectors over 1-yr
Source: Financial Express Analytics
Investors, however, are more optimistic for returns in 2011, with 34.7 per cent of more than 600 IFAs opting for Global Emerging Markets as their sector of choice. Elsewhere, 8.5 per cent of investors think the Specialist sector will perform best, 7.7 per cent favour Global Growth, and UK Equity Income got four per cent of the vote.
Commenting on the results, manager of the Fidelity Emerging Markets fund Nick Price says investors are correct to favour emerging markets, as the sector’s secular drivers remain intact.
"Attractive demographics, competitive advantages from low labour costs, an abundance of natural resources, increasing prosperity, productivity gains and sound fiscal management bode very well for the sector," he said.
"These are especially attractive in comparison to the developed world, which is faced with fiscal deficits, imbalances brought on by quantitative easing and a deleveraging consumer."
"As a result, emerging market stocks have re-rated in 2010, but, at this stage, I do not yet subscribe to the idea of an emerging market bubble," he added.
At the other end of the scale, the least popular asset class is UK Gilt, with 29.3 per cent of respondents predicting it will return less to investors than any other sector. Just three per cent of IFAs expect the bond market to perform better than equities next year.
This marks a significant turnaround from 2010: recent IMA figures suggest that Sterling Strategic Bond was the best selling sector overall last year, with total net retail sales of more than £2.7bn.