Number of funds producing consistent top returns falls

UK Smaller Companies most consistent sector

The proportion of funds delivering top-quartile performance over a rolling three-year period has fallen to just 1.1%, outside the historic range of 2% to 5%, according to data from the F&C multi-manager team.

In the latest quarterly Fund Watch survey, the team found half of the Investment Association's 12 main sectors failed to deliver funds with consistent top quartile returns over three years to the end of Q4 2016. Only 1.1% of the IA universe of funds with a three-year track record (some 1,140 funds) were producing a consistently stellar performance, down from 2.5% recorded at the end of the previous year. This is outside the historic average and was impacted by the performance of the Asia Pacific ex Japan, Europe ex UK, Global Bond, North America, UK All Companies and UK Equity Income ...