Morgan Stanley has claimed the crown in Fund Calibre’s annual index of companies with the strongest stock pickers.
Each year, the research team at Fund Calibre maps the asset managers with the most consistent stock pickers looking across performance over the past five years.
Morgan Stanley’s equity franchise took the top spot in this year’s rankings, with a five-year average outperformance of 44.6%, and every one of their seven funds outperforming the peer group.
Baillie Gifford – last year’s top performer – was relegated to second spot, with 88% of its funds outperforming and generating an average five-year outperformance of 44.5%.
The remainder of the top 10 positions in this year’s study were filled by FSSA, Marlborough, Brown Advisory, Liontrust, Matthews Asia, T. Rowe Price, Nordea and Allianz Global Investors.
In a media statement, accompanying this year’s rankings, Darius McDermott, managing director of Fund Calibre, explained that 2021 had been a difficult year for growth investors.
“The strongest groups have maintained their consistency, albeit with lower levels of outperformance,” he said. “While the gap between growth and value investors is still wide, it does seem to be closing and 2022 could be a much better year for the latter if the first few weeks are anything to go by. “FundCalibre’s research demonstrates quite clearly that good active management is not a myth or simply good luck – it is very much based on skill.”
McDermott noted Baillie Gifford and T. Rowe Price as examples of companies that have both been in the top 10 for each of the past eight surveys, spanning a time period of more than a decade.
“That shows consistently excellent stock-picking skills and value for investors,” he said.
This year’s findings showed that growth-focused houses continue to dominate the top of the table, while the gap between growth and value-focussed houses was now starting to narrow.
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