The top-4 of the competition has remained intact since November, but the order has changed slightly as Bosma and Stefansson changed places. Henk van Eldik, a Dutch financial consultant based in Luxembourg, remained on second place while Alberto Montero of Morabanc in Andorra stays put on the fourth spot. The difference in total return between number one and four is less than 2 percentage points though, so everything still seems possible.
Global and US equity: the winning mix?
Stefansson, a fund selector from the Icelandic pension fund LSR, has steadily climbed up the ranking over the course of the past year. He entered the top-three in November, and now finds himself leading the competition with a portfolio consisting of a mix between global and US equity funds, returning him 23.44% in the 10 months to February 2015.
All the eight funds chosen by the Icelander showed a steady performance, ranging from 19% to 31% over the 10-month timeframe, which also brings him to the top of the table of Morningstar’s risk-adjusted ranking. As a flipside to this, none of the Icelander’s funds have so far made it into the top-9 of best performing funds, which consists of six emerging market equity funds (five of which are an Asian single-country fund), a European equity fund, a sector fund and two global equity funds.
Top-10 funds
Participant name | Fund name | ISIN | Return |
Alberto Montero | Direxion Daily FTSE China Bull 3X ETF | US25459W7719 | 80.87 |
Teresa Platan | Franklin India A Acc $ | LU0231203729 | 69.87 |
Rui Castro Pacheco | HSBC GIF Indian Equity ID | LU0149722851 | 60.28 |
Rui Castro Pacheco | HSBC GIF Turkey Equity IC | LU0213961922 | 43.11 |
Stefano Spurio | MFS® Meridian European Value AH1 CHF | LU0808561210 | 42.63 |
Teresa Platan | BGF Asian Growth Leaders D2RF USD | LU0859042482 | 40.3 |
Rico Bosma | iShares Global Healthcare | US4642873255 | 38.93 |
Alberto Montero/Carles Figueras | Auriga Investors Montserrat Global B | LU0650580227 | 38.42 |
Rui Castro Pacheco | Amundi Fds Eq Thailand IU-C | LU0158081363 | 35.42 |
Rico Bosma | iShares Global Tech | US4642872919 | 34.75 |
The competition’s best performing fund is still Alberto Montero’s ETF with a 300% leverage on the Chinese equity market. He also has one of the riskiest portfolios, with a standard deviation of 3.98. The lowest-risk portfolio was constructed by another Spaniard, Dani Sulla from Trea Capital Partners in Barcelona. His portfolio of mainly bond and absolute return funds has a standard deviation of only 0.89, combined with an overall return of 8.66%.