July’s sharp rally in the ASX200 and the S&P 500 provided a welcome boost for high conviction equity based managers in Australian Fund Monitors’ index, some of whom posted double di
July’s sharp rally in the ASX200 and the S&P 500 provided a welcome boost for high conviction equity based managers in Australian Fund Monitors’ index, some of whom posted double digit returns for the month after enduring a disappointing and difficult 2008.
Overall equity based funds are just shy of recouping all their losses of the past 12 months, while with some exceptions funds investing outside the equity markets have found both 2009 year-to-date, and July, more challenging.
The ASX was down over five per cent in the early stages, only to rally over 13 per cent during the last three weeks of the month to finish up over seven per cent. Year to date since January the broad market is up 14 per cent whilst still down 14 per cent over the past year.
Equity based funds were up 5.31 per cent in July and are up 13.93 per cent YTD. Non-equity based funds posted a positive 0.16 per cent in July, up 3.96 per cent YTD, while single funds returned 3.60 per cent in July and are up 11.43 per cent YTD.
The best performing strategy in July was equity long/short, which returned 6.69 per cent. Equity 130/30 (6.27 per cent), equity long (6.03 per cent) and commodities/CTA (4.86 per cent) also posted strong positive performances. However, equity income posted a negative 6.40 per cent return in July, as did managed futures (-0.91 per cent) and real estate (-2.17 per cent).
