Managed funds positive despite upheavals

Most managed funds saw a positive first quarter of 2011 despite natural disasters and geopolitical uncertainty, according to Morningstar senior research analyst Julian Robertson.

Morningstar has released its managed fund performance league tables for the first quarter of the year, which show that active Australian share fund managers in the ‘large growth’ and ‘blend’ categories struggled to beat the index, while the ‘value’ category only managed to beat the S&P/ASX300 Accumulation Index by three basis points.

Australian small caps were driven down by the small resources sector, although Robertson noted that most fund managers beat the S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries Index nonetheless. He said 39 of the 41 strategies in the survey returned more than the index, “showing managers’ natural aversion to overreliance on resources companies”.

He said other key findings were that international share markets outperformed the domestic market, rising 3.89 per cent. However, he noted, most international share fund managers lagged the index.

Australian listed property outperformed the broader share market, with the average fund manager just edging over the index, he said. However, the sector lagged global real estate investment trusts, which were buoyed by optimism about the prospects for global growth, Robertson added.

Australian fixed interest fund managers posted marginally better returns than the benchmark, but global credit and high yield provided the best returns over the quarter.

Robertson noted that while markets continued to grapple with geopolitical tensions and the implications of the Japanese disasters, which created uncertainty, the performance in the first quarter across the growth asset classes showed investors’ belief in the strength and sustainability of the global recovery. However, he added that continuing volatility was to be expected.