The drop is the result of managers who have increasingly specialised in investment styles across the funds industry, which drives less consistent performance in bifurcated markets.
Kelly Prior, investment manager in BMO Global Asset Management s multi-manager people team, said: The last 12 months has seen markets grapple with what the future will look like, with the first quarter of 2021 offering a taste of what might be to come in terms of volatility between styles of investing leading returns. We have been running the Fund Watch survey for over a decade, and since the global financial crisis the direction of interest rates has been a downhill street, allowing certain styles of investing to freewheel to the front of the leader board in the performance charts, while others have had to pedal hard just to stand still.