Particularly “unloved” areas such as gold shares, Latin American equities and emerging market bonds have topped the leader board of the company’s ‘Elite Rated’ funds.
The top five positions include BlackRock Gold & General, Aberdeen Latin America, First State Global Listed Infrastructure, Lazard Emerging Markets and Schroder Recovery.
“Markets have been all over the place since the start of the year and it’s been the unloved areas that have fared best,” said Clive Hale, director at FundCalibre. “Gold has come into its own as investors have flocked to it as a perceived safe haven – I prefer to call it an insurance policy against central bank stupidity. It’s too early to say if the precious metal has bottomed, but anyone taking the plunge in January has been very well rewarded,” he added.
Hale noted that it is positive to see a couple of Aberdeen’s funds in the top ten. “Could this be the turnaround patient investors have been waiting for? It’s a very short period of time to be looking at, but both the Latin America and Emerging Markets fund have outperformed their indices by 40-50%, year-to-date, which is good going,” he said. “It’s also too early to say that emerging markets are finally coming out of their doldrums, but it is a reminder that you can make money in all types of market conditions.”
