According to FE, the latest moves bring the total number of funds with a five crown rating to 345, with a total of 45 funds jumping more than two crowns to achieve the feat.
On the list of biggest risers, there were a total of seven that jumped four places: the MFM Slater Recovery, Lindsell Train Japanese Equity, Marlborough European Multi-Cap, Neuberger Berman Short Duration High Yield Bond Fund, CF Purisima PCG and M&G Episode Macro rose from one to five, while the Fidelity Moneybuilder Cash ISA Fund jumped from zero to four.
At the other end of the scale, and a clear indication of how challenging markets have been to navigate in recent months, 152 funds lost more than two crowns in the latest rebalancing.
Among those, the SLI UK Equity Recovery Fund lost four crowns, while Neptune Japan Opportunities, SLI UK Equity Unconstrained and Invesco Perpetual Tactical bond all lost three FE Crowns each, FE said.
“Fund of fund managers’ second most widely held fund from last year, according to FE Trustnet research published at the start of this month, Majedie UK Equity fund has dropped from five crowns to three, as has the popular JOHCM UK Equity Income,” it added.
Defensive gains
While the continued dominance of growth over value is clearly evident in the list of fallers, the rebalancing also reflects an uptick in the number of cautious or defensive funds gaining crowns, said FE Research manager, Charles Younes.
Such a trend is also in evidence in the list of new entrants into the crown system, which included the newly five star rated: GAM Star Cautious, Old Mutual, Global Equity Absolute Return, Pimco GIS Income and Sanlam FOUR Stable Global Equity.
“Looking ahead, in this low growth-low inflation environment, structural growth and high cash yield stocks should continue to perform well. And I imagine a lot of the funds which have achieved the higher crown ratings will continue to rate highly.”
At a company level, Standard Life Investments, Premier Asset Management, Invesco Perpetual Fund managers and Henderson Global Investors topped the board with eleven five crown rated funds each, while F&C and First State Investments each run 10 five crown rated funds.
