Marlborough UK Multi-cap Growth fund captures 2015's investment sweet spots

 Key take aways from the research:

• The only fund from the IA All Companies sector that benefited from style, market cap and sector biases is the Marlborough UK Multi-Cap Growth fund.
• Growth investors fared better than value investors in 2015
• FE Research also likes Man GLG UK Income fund for the manager’s impressive stock selection this year

For the full report go here. 

The only fund from the IA UK All Companies sector which capitalised from investment style, market cap and sector biases is the Marlborough UK Multi-Cap Growth fund.

This means that the manager has positioned the fund well throughout 2015 and has taken note of market trends to obtain considerable outperformance.

The manager has also scored well on allocation and selection, indicating that the manager has performed consistently well in both areas. No other funds in the shortlist exploited all three trends simultaneaously.

Overall, all the funds in the shortlist benefitted from at least one trend.

Nevertheless, we would also like to highlight the Man GLG UK Income fund.

Patrick Enright, analysts at FE Research, says: “Its market cap bias is not as strong as other shortlisted funds. Nevertheless the manager has exhibited highly impressive stock selection skills in light of the wide discrepancy between the allocation and the selection score.

“These two funds, the Marlborough UK Multi-Cap Growth fund and the Man GLG UK Income fund, are therefore the clear standout performers of 2015.”

“The two funds represent opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to investing, though. The Marlborough UK Multi-Cap Growth fund has essentially positioned itself to capitalise on market biases, whilst the Man GLG UK Income fund did not exploit any of these biases, and so can be considered to derive its returns from the manager’s stock picking ability.”