Growth funds have reversed the trend of the past year and outperformed value stocks by 2.1 per cent in January, according to statistics compiled by Intech.
However, taken on the last 12 months, the statistics reveal that growth stocks around the world have fallen behind value stocks by a mammoth 26 per cent.
Balanced funds themselves returned 2.3 per cent in January, which takes the yearly figure to 10.8 per cent to 31 January. Only one of the 37 funds in the Intech survey did not produce a positive result for the month.
Taken fund by fund, the best performing fund for January was County with 3.3 per cent, followed by Portfolio Partners with 3.2 per cent, while IOOF/Perennial took third place with a return of 3.1 per cent.
However, none of the top three performers in January were among the top three performers for 12 months, although they did place in the top 20. The best performers for 12 months are Maple-Brown Abbott (14.3 per cent), Schroders (13.7 per cent) and Westpac (13.3 per cent).
The worst three performing growth funds in January were Hopkins Partners (-0.1 per cent), Zurich (1.2 per cent) and Rothschild (1.3 per cent).
