Between April and the end of July, Montero and Pacheco (pictured) achieved returns of respectively 
14.66% and 14.23% over their portfolios. They are followed within close distance by Belgium’s Tim Peeters, senior wealth manager with Portolani, who holds the third spot with a return of 13.26%.
The trio are the only ones who managed to achieve a return of more than 10% in an investment environment where it’s increasingly demanding to find alpha opportunities. The majority of participants achieved a return between 1% and 4%. In that light, last year’s winner Rico Bosma is doing relatively well with a return of 8.53%, bringing him to sixth spot.
The top performance of Alberto Montero’s portfolio is mainly attributable to the return generated by an ETF on Chinese equities with the characteristics of a hedge fund, the Direxion Daily China Bull 3X Shares. This fund copies the FTSE China 25 Index, aiming to achieve a 300% higher return in a rising market. It returned 51.14% between April and July, which indeed was more than three times the return of the index it follows, making it the best performing fund in the competition.
Click here to see a list of the 10 best performing funds picked by participants.
Key to success: EM and natural resources
Rui Castro Pacheco’s portfolio, which exclusively consists of emerging markets equity and natural resources funds, shows more balanced results. His two best picks so far have been the HSBC India and Turkey equity funds, which both generated a return of about 25%. Tim Peeters’ portfolio is even more concentrated, as he only selected precious metals funds.
Castro Pacheco and Peeters also find themselves on top of the table when it comes to risk-adjusted return. Montero falls out of the risk-adjusted top-ten though, as his leveraged equity ETF responsible for most of his portfolio’s return is considered quite risky.
Please note that the 2014 Expert Investor Europe Fantasy Fund-Picker contest is now closed to new entries. A summary of the competition rules can be viewed here.
