The land of the rising sun has had more false dawns than most investors can remember, but the election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in December 2012 could go down in history as the point when it all changed. His radical policies that have come to be known as Abenomics are designed to breathe new…
The slowdown in China has had a big impact on many of the world’s emerging economies. This has undermined local share prices, with the MSCI Emerging Markets index falling 2% in both 2013 and 2014, with a further 4% decline in the first seven months of this year. Despite the recent poor performance most investors…
It is very rare to come across a fund that has consistently beaten its benchmark over a long period of time, which is why Jupiter UK Growth deserves a closer look. Top quartile performance over one, three, five and ten years is a special achievement, especially when measured against the hundreds of other managers operating…
Multi-manager funds divide opinion. Some people like the idea of having a managed portfolio of funds and welcome the chance to ‘outsource’ all of their investment decisions, whereas others are unwilling to pay the extra layer of fees. A lot will depend on how experienced you are in managing your own investments, but it is…
The sharp decline in Chinese share prices has increased the volatility of world stock markets with many of the main indices losing ground in the last few weeks. One of the best ways to protect your capital against these sorts of events is to have a good absolute return fund at the heart of your…
There are so many funds that invest in the UK stock market that it can be difficult to find one that offers a different type of exposure with the potential to significantly outperform. Few are contrarian enough to really deliver, but that is certainly not the case with CF Miton UK Value Opportunities. This relatively…
A closed-ended fund that invests in a Berlin-focused portfolio of German residential properties has recently listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange. Phoenix Spree Deutschland has been operating in Germany since 2006, but can now be traded in the UK using the ticker PSDL. The fund currently owns 114 different properties. These…
The largest investment trust in the global growth sector is Scottish Mortgage, yet the fact that it has total assets of more than £3.7bn hasn’t stopped it from delivering a market beating return. Over the last decade the share price is up almost 310%, comfortably ahead of the 118% produced by the fund’s FTSE All-Word…
Neil Woodford’s equity income fund has just celebrated its first birthday with a sector topping annual return of 17.2%. This was more than 10% higher than the average UK equity income fund and comfortably ahead of his two former Invesco Perpetual mandates. Since it was launched on the 2nd of June 2014, CF Woodford Equity…
Many of the top performing funds including Woodford Equity Income and Terry Smith’s Fundsmith Equity hold extremely concentrated portfolios. These highly regarded managers have taken on board the point made by Warren Buffett that wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing. Empirical studies suggest that once you get…
