There was a clear split between equity funds and fixed income with 60 equity funds receiving five Crowns versus just 18 fixed income funds.
In the global equity sector, within the Australian Core Strategies (ACS) universe, there were 25 funds which received a five Crown rating, the largest of all the sectors, seven of which were upgrades from last September.
Upgraded from four Crowns were Carnegie Worldwide Equity Trust, Evans And Partners International, Fidelity Global Demographics and Ironbark Royal London Concentrated Global Share. There were a further three which were upgraded from three Crowns; AtlasTrend Big Data, AXA IM Sustainable Equity and Insync Global Capital Aware.
Looking at the ACS mixed asset-growth sector, there were 18 funds which received a five Crown rating and five of these were upgrades.
The five funds in this sector to be upgraded to five Crowns were Ausbil Balanced and Mercer Growth which were both moved up from four Crowns and CFS Colonial First State Wholesale Diversified, CFS Colonial First State Wholesale Balanced and IOOF MultiSeries 70 which were all upgraded from three Crowns.
Finally, there were 18 small and mid-cap equity funds featured with five Crowns, divided between 15 in the ACS Australian small/mid cap equity sector and three in the smaller ACS global small/mid cap equity sector.
In the global small/mid cap equity sector, the Prime Value Emerging Opportunities fund saw a significant upgrade from one to five, the Ellerston Global Mid Small Unhedged was upgraded from two to five and the Bell Global Emerging Companies fund retained its five Crown rating. There were no funds in this sector which lost their five Crown rating.
Looking in the Australian small/mid cap equity sector, the Alpha Australian Small Companies was upgraded from three to five Crowns while the AMP Experts’ Choice Small Companies, Ausbil MicroCap and Fairview Equity Partners Emerging Companies were upgraded from four Crowns to five. The remaining funds all retained their five Crown rating from 2019.
