Market Review December 2011

Quite surprisingly there were a few sectors showing profits for December 2011 with the Sterling Corporate Bond sector winning sector of the month.

Sector of the year also goes to the Sterling Corporate Bond sector as one of the few sectors to show a profit over the 12 months to the end of December 2011

The Sterling Corporate Bond sector rose by 2.35% during December 2011. Over the whole of 201 the Sterling Corporate Bond Sector fared very well against other sectors as can be seen from the table below:

This comparison is not quite an exact science as Hang Seng relates only to Hong Kong markets and rather surprisingly the Nikkei was down only 17.33% in the aftermath of the Tsunami in Japan.

The Dax relates only to German markets but it does reasonably fair indication of performance. Europe in general has had a tough time during 2011 overall and that European managed funds fared a little better than the DAX Index (The CAC40 French Index was down 14.9%).

Unlike 2010, where without exception the average managed fund performance of the top ten funds in each of the major investment sectors beat the index movement, 2011 the UK and USA fund managers failed to beat the Indices. This seems to indicate how difficult it has been to call the markets during 2011 with so many different factors affecting performances such as the European debt crisis, the tsunami n Japan, the coalition government in the UK and the relevant lack of action on real economic issues i USA.

In 2011 the worst sector was the Specialist sector with a loss of 23.14%, which covers a multitude to areas such as funds investing in mineral (including Gold) and individual countries or specialist areas such as Latin America. The Specialist sector was the best performer of 2010.

In considering performance and comparisons the sectors chosen were the major streamline sectors in which our clients invest. The funds in those sectors were based on the top 10 funds in each sector over a 3 year cumulative period.