Morgan Stanley, Amundi and First State Investments are the smaller fund groups with the highest amount of top quartile performers so far this year.
This week, we looked at the investment management houses that manage between 10 and 19 funds.
Please note, the same methodology has been applied this week meaning that funds in the following sectors have been removed from the calculations: IA Targeted Absolute Return, IA Specialist, IA Unclassified, IA Volatility Managed, IA Money Market and IA Short Term Money Market.
The top spot was taken by Morgan Stanley, which had 66.7 per cent of its 12 funds in the top quartile year-to-date (YTD).
Its two best-performing funds were in the IA North America sector, Morgan Stanley US Growth and Morgan Stanley US Advantage, which returned 22.41 and 15.77 per cent respectively.
US stocks have had a strong 2018 to date, and the S&P 500 is ahead of other main global indices such as MSCI Emerging Markets, MSCI World and FTSE 100.
The strong performance of both funds can be in part explained by their overweight positions in technology stocks, which have been the driving force behind US market gains this year.
Performance of global indices in 2018
Source: FE Analytics
Also worthy of note are four top quartile funds run by the group in the IA Global sector including Morgan Stanley Global Opportunity, the top performing of the group – up 14.73 per cent.
Second on the list of fund groups with the largest proportion of top quartile performers is Amundi. Out of 14 funds run by the asset management house, six are in the top bracket YTD (42.9 per cent).
Four of the six are in the IA Global Bonds sector, the best-performer being Amundi SICAV II Euro Aggregate Bond.
Although it sits in the IA Global sector, the fund invests heavily in Europe in the investment grade sphere. It is up 2.96 per cent compared to its average peer’s 0.06 per cent loss.
Amundi is one of Europe’s largest fund managers and, although it runs funds across all asset classes, it has 45 per cent of its assets under management in fixed income mandates.
Source: FE Analytics
Up next is First State Investments, which had 41.7 per cent (5 of 12) of its funds in the top quartile so far this year.
It has fared well in China this year with both of its funds in the IA China/Greater China sector achieving top-quartile returns.
The group has also performed well in other Asian regions with First State Japan Focus and First State Asia Focus also producing top-quartile figures in 2018.
One other group had more than 40 per cent of its funds in the top quartile this year, Mirabaud Asset Management.
Notable funds are Mirabaud Equities Global Focus, up 13.58 per cent YTD compared to the IA Global average peer’s of 5.05 per cent gain, and Mirabaud Global Equity High Income, which gained 6.05 per cent while its average IA Global Equity Income peer rose 2.65 per cent.
At the other end of the scale were Royal Bank of Scotland and Candriam, two fund groups that had no top-quartile performers in their respective sectors for the first seven months of the year.
GLG Partners (better known as Man GLG) and Carmignac were the other two fund groups that had 10 per cent or less of their funds in the top quartile.
Moving onto the second quartile, LF Prudential, Nomura and Close Brothers were the smaller fund groups with the highest amount of second quartile funds, while Miton, Sanlam, Carmignac and Royal Bank of Scotland had no funds in the second quartile.
Royal Bank of Scotland also featured in the third quartile list, where it had the highest percentage of funds in this bracket, followed by Candriam and T. Bailey. Inversely, LF Prudential, Nomura and Neptune had the smallest proportion of funds in the third quartile.
Finally, Carmignac topped the list of the fund groups with the highest percentage of funds in the bottom quartile year-to-date with 70 per cent, or 7/10 funds, in this position.
Source: FE Analytics
The worst performer was the Carmignac Portfolio Emergents fund, which made a loss of 9.59 per cent over the first seven months of the year.
Meanwhile, its three funds in the IA Flexible Investment sector were also all bottom quartile, including the worst in the sector, Carmignac Portfolio Emerging Patrimoine, down 6.97 per cent.
Next were Miton and Sanlam, which had 54.5 and 50 per cent of their funds in the bottom quartile respectively.
Miton’s multi-asset funds have struggled this year compared to their peers and are all in the bottom quartile, with three of the four funds returning a loss.
Out of Sanlam’s five bottom-quartile funds, two have made a loss this year, Sanlam FOUR Active UK Equity and Sanlam P-Solve Inflation Plus.
At the other end, HBOS and Prudential are the two smaller fund groups that have not had a bottom-quartile fund in 2018.
Closely following with one bottom-quartile fund were Close Brothers, Amundi, Santander, T. Bailey, Morgan Stanley and Hargreaves Lansdown.