Burdett: 2011 - What a year

As 2011 draws to a close, now is as good a time as any to reflect on what has been another extraordinary year in global economic and political history and one which saw volatility return to markets once more amid whispers of a new credit crunch.

In January, on making our predictions for the year, while we fully anticipated a challenging backdrop for both retail investors and managers of open-ended funds, we believed UK retail investors would remain committed. We thought fund of funds could benefit from rising risk aversion and there would be a migration from bonds to equities. Specifically we anticipated multi-managers would see healthy inflows, underpinned by the continued popularity of the Cautious Managed sector, which was the biggest selling sector 2003-10. While retail fund sales in general slowed this year, unsurprising...