Navigating a pandemic and recession, Money Management examines which funds have performed the best over the past year as almost two-thirds of funds have reported negative returns.
Using data from FE Analytics, within the Australian Core Strategies universe, from 1 December, 2019 to 30 November, 2020, the Australian equity sector returned an average of 1.1%. This was better performance than the ASX 200 which lost 1.9% over the same period.
While this was the average performance, there were 14 which had seen double-digit returns including two which had returned more than 25%.
These were Hyperion Australian Growth Companies and APSEC Atlantic Pacific Australian Equit which had returned 26.5% and 25.4% respectively.
The Hyperion fund had consistently been one of the best-performing funds of 2020 thanks to allocations to companies winning market shares from weaker competitors as the pandemic had been a catalyst for market leadership disruption.
Meanwhile, APSEC had a long-bias strategy and invested in Australian-listed securities and derivatives.
Best-performing fund versus ASX 200 and Australian equity sector over one year to 30 November 2020
The other double-digit funds were Third Link Growth, Perpetual Pure Value Share, Bennelong Concentrated Australian Equities, Ausbil Active Sustainable Equity, PM Capital Australian Companies, Chester High Conviction, Platypus Australian Equities Trust Wholesale, CFS First Sentier Wholesale Australian Share, CFS First Sentier Wholesale Concentrated Australian Share, Australian Ethical Australian Shares, Bennelong Australian Equities and Katana Australian Equity.
At the bottom end of the spectrum, there were 146 funds which reported losses, which represented 65% of the sector. However, only seven of these funds reported double-digit losses with the worst-performing fund being Invesco Australian Equity Efficient Income which lost 19.9%.
These were Invesco Australian Equity Efficient Income, Lazard Select Australian Equity, Legg Mason Martin Currie Real Income, Mutual 50 Leaders Australian Shares, Nikko AM Australian Share Wholesale, Lazard Australian Equity and IOOF Wholesale Australian Core Equities.
Worst-performing fund versus ASX 200 and Australian equity sector over one year to 30 November 2020
