Sluggish start to new year
It has been a sluggish start to the new year for Australia’s fund managers, accord-ing to the latest InTech Financial Services market survey.
It has been a sluggish start to the new year for Australia’s fund managers, accord-ing to the latest InTech Financial Services market survey.
Most Australian equities managers failed to match the performance of the bench-mark All Ordinaries index which in itself lost ground on its December highs.
In particular, value stocks have copped a hammering. During January, Australian value stocks declined by 5.6 per cent. In comparison, Australian growth stocks re-turned 0.9 per cent. For the year to January, Australian value stocks returned 7.6 per cent, compared with the 12.9 per cent returns enjoyed by growth stocks.
Across the board, Australian share managers posted a loss of 2.4 per cent for Janu-ary while the All Ordinaries Accumulation Index fell during the same period by 1.8 per cent, mainly in response to increasing interest rates.
Among the stronger performers for January were HSBC High Alpha (-0.4 per cent), County ACE (-0.5 per cent) and, interestingly enough, value managers Tyn-dall (-0.6 per cent).
International managers didn’t fare much better, with international share markets down 3.3 per cent in Australian dollar terms in January. Despite the fall in overall value, Dresdner managed a positive return (1.5 per cent) for the start of 2000, fol-lowed by INVESCO (0.6 per cent) and Colonial First State (-0.6 per cent).
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