Sanditon Asset Management has just launched its new fund for Julie Dean, Tom Wilson has taken over from Michael Ulrich at F&C, while Ed Legget is to replace Tim Steer on Artemis UK Growth Fund.
Add to the mix the first anniversary of CF Woodford Equity Income Fund, and it is clear the home market will give holidaying wealth managers plenty to ponder as they jet away for foreign climes.
Year-to-date, the FTSE All Share has climbed 7.45% but that doesn’t tell the whole story of what has been a very volatile first half characterised by mega mergers (Shell/BG), turbulence in oil and resources stocks, pre-election uncertainty and the subsequent fears over Brexit and Grexit.
A fresh start
So a good time to start afresh for fund managers, and an equally good time for fund pickers to perhaps start thinking differently about their exposure to domestic equities, with many of the existing, incredibly popular funds looking pretty similar in appearance.
According to FE Trustnet, the likes of Artemis Income, Fidelity MoneyBuilder Dividend, Invesco Perpetual’s Income and High Income, Rathbone Income, SJP UK High Income and Threadneedle UK Equity Income all showed high correlation with each other over the past year.
This is reflected in a significant overlap in top-10 positions. For example, AstraZeneca is a major holding in all these funds. It is a similar story for British American Tobacco – a top-10 holding for all but Artemis and Threadneedle, while GlaxoSmithKline is held by all but Invesco High Income.
