Global markets bade farewell to a torrid 2018 which saw the worst year in a decade for many of them following rising US-China trade tensions, interest rate rises and high-profile corporate scandals.
The lethargic performance of the securities market are shown in the average returns of long-term mutual funds registered for sale in Europe, which were down 5.65% in 2018, according to figures published today by Lipper at Refinitiv.
Despite the bleak picture, some funds did generate positive returns. Of all the long-term mutual funds registered for sale in Europe, real estate led the way with a 1.54% jump, followed by bonds (1.09%).
“All other asset types showed on average negative returns,” wrote Detlef Glow, head of Emea research at Lipper and the report author. Equity funds were the worst performing with negative returns of 10.01%, followed by commodity funds (-8.09%) and mixed asset funds (-6.86%).
“Lipper Global Classifications is from a European investor’s perspective dominated by sectors, which are in many cases considered as exotic, and therefore, might not be the focus of a large number of investors,” said Glow.
He added: “With an average performance of +18.59%, Equity Sector Real Estate Japan was the best performing sector overall for 2018, followed by Equity Saudi Arabia (+ 14.00%), and Equity GCC (+9.04).”
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