US equities steal the limelight
Looking at the year in review, US equities topped the leader board for equity sectors, with Australian equities failing to get a mention in the top five, according to data from FE Analytics.
The North American equity sector averaged 6.69 per cent returns driven on the top end by BetaShares’ NASDAQ 100 ETF, which returned 12.92 per cent, and VanEck’s Vectors Morningstar Wide Moat ETF, which returned 12.41 per cent.
Infrastructure equities sat in second place with average returns of 2.37 per cent for 2018. Macquarie’s Global Infrastructure Trust II returned 20.01 per cent, followed by BlackRock’s Global Listed Infrastructure fund, which returned 12.28 per cent, and Vanguard’s Global Infrastructure fund, which returned 10.50 per cent.
The global equity sector managed to scrape into the top quartile, returning -0.68 per cent for the year, with global small/mid cap equities starting the second quartile with -4.70 per cent returns.
Despite the US and China trade war tension causing volatility for emerging markets, the sector average was still in the top five, with returns of -5.18 per cent.
Colonial Firs State’s wholesale Global Emerging Markets Sustainability fund was the top performer, with 2.29 per cent returns, followed by Robeco Emerging Conservative Equity, which returned 1.25 per cent.
European equities continued the case for international shares, sitting just outside the top five with returns of -5.60 per cent, and Australian equities finally appeared with average returns of -5.61 per cent.
While broad caps had a tough year, they can attribute their just-outside-top-five position to BetaShares’ Australian equities Strong Bear Hedge, which returned 8.85 per cent and tends to do well in tough markets, and other consistent outperformers like Lincoln Australian Growth (6.68 per cent returns), DDH Selector Australian Equities (2.69 per cent returns) and Bennelong Australian Equities (2.21 per cent returns).
The chart below shows the performance of the equity sectors for the year to date.
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