But now, Perera said the current US environment was “much more attractive to active managers” and part of that was down to Trump’s promises to deregulate certain key markets.
“We could see the introduction of some very sector-specific legislation. The deregulation of one sector versus another, a good stock picker would be able to find their way around that.”
Therefore, investors may be wise not to simply jump on the passive bandwagon, as this is a more “fertile environment for stock pickers.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, ‘US growth’ style active funds, such as the MFS Meridian US Concentrated Growth vehicle, floated to the top of the pack during Trump’s first 100 day stretch. Six out of the top ten best performers over the hundred days were growth funds.
Meanwhile ‘US value’ funds, like the BlackRock GF US Basic Value, generally lost money (-4.97%), save for an outlier or two like MFS Investment Management’s Meridian Value fund, which was the fifth best in terms of total returns.
Value funds aim to buy shares that are underpriced, but the style worked against them this year.
Another shared trait between the best US active funds was a healthcare bias – Julius Baer’s multi-stock Health Innovation was the best performer of the period, with total returns of 8.58%.
Undoubtedly, there are other trends uniting the best US active managers and separating them from the weakest links.
The data from FE calls into question the old truism that when investing in the US, there is no other way to go but passive.
Following the result of the EU referendum and the US presidential election, the savvy investor should actively consider their active-versus-passive choice when buying the US.
