With bond funds remaining out of favour, where are investors want to put their money in a bear market?
There are more options now than ever in the retail space, meaning it will be fascinating to see if the big boys still top the rankings in the months ahead.
Will some of the lesser known players, such Goldman Sachs, NN Investment Partners and Lyxor, gain traction with their alternative Ucits funds?
It will be particularly interesting to see if passive funds continue to attract assets on the same scale they have over the past couple of years – will BlackRock, Fidelity and L&G still feature so highly if investors believe indices are likely to fall? Of course, the strength of these firms is that they do offer a wide range of different alpha-generating options across different asset classes.
Indeed, Fidelity – alongside Henderson – topped the 2016 FE Alpha Manager list with 10 managers awarded as top-decile stockpickers. Schroders, which achieved £6bn in gross retail sales last year, had eight, with Jupiter achieving seven.
Others, such as Allianz (six Alpha managers) and First State (five), may gain more traction in the company rankings if and when Europe and emerging markets come back into favour.
