A lack of focus in real estate, but a focus on financials was the common theme among the worst performing Australian equity funds over the year to 31 October, 2019, according to FE Analytics data.
However, only BetaShares’ Australian Equities Bear Hedge (-15.78%) and Perpetual’s Pure Value Share (-0.18%) had negative returns.
The other worst performing Australian equity funds were, APSEC’s Atlantic Australian Equity (1.48%), Lazard’s Select Australian Equity and Pentalpha’s Income for Life (4.43%).
BetaShares’s Australian Equities Bear Hedge, which sought to generate returns negatively correlated to the market, had succeeded to almost exactly mirror the ACS Equity – Australia sector overall, which had returned 15.84%.
Pentalpha, Perpetual and Lazard all had sizeable holdings in the big four banks; basic materials, financials and money markets were the top sectors...