We round up our tour of some of the best performing funds of the first half of 2022 with a look at Japan.
The consolation for DFMs holding JPM Japan is that some of their competitors have reason to be a little red-faced.
The best performer was the Man GLG Japan CoreAlpha fund, returning 7.8 per cent in an equity market where only three funds delivered a positive return.
This fund is currently held in three portfolios on our database - but DFMs have been selling out of it for several years.
Since the start of 2019 (when the fund was one of the worst-performers in its sector), 11 DFMs in our database have ditched this fund from their portfolios.
When we have spoken to DFMs about this fund in the past, they have told us their sales were largely due to its chunky overweight to financials - though its exposure to this sector has fallen over 2022, from 27 per cent to 16 per cent.
This is still an overweight (the sector has an average exposure to financials of 8.5 per cent), but might cause some DFMs to look again.
The Topix lost 10 per cent in the first six months of 2022, which was beaten by 28 per cent of active funds.
Overall, DFMs haven't done too badly, with 26 per cent of Japan funds in our database beating the market.
The second most widely-held Japanese equity fund (after JPM Japan) was Baillie Gifford Japanese, which lost 17 per cent in the period.
This is possibly a reasonable return under the circumstances. Baillie Gifford, well known for its growth style, has seen many of its funds prop up the bottom of sectoral performance tables in early 2022.
In Japan though, the Edinburgh fund house managed to avoid this, with its two Japan funds coming about mid-table (though neither beat the market).
