The Australian sharemarket’s appetite for large companies with strong growth prospects appears to be diminishing.
The Australian sharemarket’s appetite for large companies with strong growth prospects appears to be diminishing.
In the past six months, value stocks have performed better than growth stocks while small capitalisation stocks have out performed large cap stocks.
According to figures released by Intech, Australian value stocks have returned 8.2 per cent in the six months to July 31 compared to growth stocks, which have returned 4.6 per cent. Small cap stocks have gained 8.4 per cent while large caps have returned 5.9 per cent.
And the change in fortunes has dragged down some of the top performers in Aus-tralian equities over recent times. <I>Money Management’s<I> fund manager of the year, Colonial First State, has seen a reversal of fortunes over the past three months. While its flagship Colonial First State Imputation Fund is still the number one performer over the past year, it has slipped to the back of the field in the past three months to 46th of 49 funds measured by Intech. Other top per-formers such as Credit Suisse and Mercantile Mutual have also suffered over the past three months.
On the other hand, fund managers who have languished at the bottom of perform-ance tables over the past year or so are making a resurgence.
Hambros Hopkins is the top performer over the three months to July 31 while Mac-quarie and Tyndall are hot on their heels.
