We are showing here a selection of funds that might be of interest to you, either due to their recent outstanding performance, the attractive return potential or diversification benfit they may offer in the given market conditions.
Top Picks of the Month
The roller coaster continues in financial markets with November experiencing a strong bounce back after two months of significant correction. Expectations of slowing rate hikes in developed countries fuelled investors’ optimism and riskier assets. Inflation and interest rates policy remained the main driver of returns across almost all asset classes. The economic backdrop remains however recessionary.
Funds in our OpenList exhibited very solid performances in November with alpha creation across all asset classes and geographies.
The energy sector underperformed with global recession fears weighting on the demand outlook, benefiting most of active equity funds given their structural underweight in this area. Berenberg European Focus (+130bps) outperformed benefitting from its stock selection and overweight in technology sector, one of the best performing sectors in Europe. Inflation fears receded, paring back rate hikes and spurring demand for consumer-related and IT stocks, particularly in the more digital areas.
Thematic funds such as Robeco Global Consumer Trends (+200bps) and Goldman Sachs Global Millennials (+160bps) were the main beneficiaries.
The strong rebound of semi-conductors, a long-lasting overweight and long-term conviction that fuelled the outperformance of the Threadneedle Global Technology (+240bps) fund.
Although volatile, Chinese equity markets experienced among the biggest monthly increase and supported EM funds with significant exposure to this market such as Vontobel mtx Sustainable Asian Leaders ex Japan (+19.8% vs. +18.8% for its benchmark).
In single country funds, UBAM Swiss Equities (+80bps) benefitted from its stock selection in mid-caps and underweight in the more defensive names whilst Granahan US SMID Select (+630bps) generated the best relative performance of the whole OpenList.
Amid expectations of a slowing rate hikes, both in corporate and government bonds rose.
Our fund selection in the emerging market debt exhibited very sound returns last month with Vontobel Emerging Markets Debt (+230bps) and Barings EM Local Debt (+120bps) leading the pack, helped by the weakness of the US Dollar and thorough bond selection.
The corporate debt also displayed strong alpha generation in November, Federated Hermes Multi-Strategy Credit, (+300bps) and Invesco Global Investment Grade Corporate Bond (+50bps) were among the best performers.
Total return fixed income funds also benefitted from their flexible sector allocation and bond picking. In this area Vontobel TwentyFour Strategic Income (+370bps) led the table.
Performance figures in bracket are monthly alpha compared to respective funds’ benchmark, not absolute performance.
All the mentioned funds are exclusively extracted from our OpenList service, a fund selection list for use by Wealth Managers in Switzerland.
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