With the current global selloff figures unseen since the global financial crisis (GFC), assets performing the best and worst are mirroring those during 2008, according to data.
Bank of America’s data on latest asset total returns found the top five best performing assets – US Treasuries, cash, gold, global investment grade bonds, and global high yield bonds – remained the same except for a swap between second and third place.
The best performing asset in 2008 was US Treasuries at 14% and this was the same for 2020 so far at 4.4%
While gold was second best in 2008 at 4.3%, it was cash that had been second place for 2020 at 0.5%.
Cash was third in 2008, while gold for 2020 so far at a loss of 1.5%.
The data noted there were US$20.7 billion ($35.9 billion) in equity outflows last week, and “gigantic, record outflows” for bonds at US$108.9 billion. Precious metals, it said, had its fifth biggest gold redemptions ever at US$2.5 billion.
Source: Bank of America
The bottom five performers were a mix of S&P500 equities, real estate investment trusts, MSCI emerging market equities, MSCI Europe, Australasia and Far East (EAFE) equities, and commodities.
The worst performing asset in 2008 was emerging markets at a loss of 53.2% compared with commodities in 2020 so far at a loss of 41.1%.
Cash at the top
According to FE Analytics, within the Australian Core Strategies universe, the top performing sector so far this year has been cash at 18.86%.
This was followed by Australian bonds (-0.3%), Australian dollar (0.7%), global bonds (-1.46%), global equities (-14.11%), emerging markets (-18.36%), commodity and energy (-18.54%), global property (-21.15%) , Australian equities (-26.21%), and Australian listed property (-36.44%).
Sector performance year to date
Source: FE Analytics
The data found the top performing cash funds were US dollar based. BetaShares Strong US Dollar ETF Hedge came first at 48%, followed by BetaShares US dollar ETF (20.57%), ETFS Enhanced US Cash ETF (20.23%), and Invesco Wholesale USD Cash W (20.07%).
The bottom performer was IPAC – SIS – Australian Cash Strategy No 1 at 0.22%.
