“The popularity of targeted absolute return, fixed income and money market funds in 2016 at the expense of equity funds reflects the uncertainty created by the Brexit vote and Trump’s election win. Investors moved to take risk out of their portfolios and piled into sectors that offer protection from falling share prices. Unfortunately, this nervousness proved unfounded as both the UK and US markets have hit record highs since then, showing how important it is to take a long term approach to stock market investing.
“UK and European equities were particularly out of favour as investors digested the impact of the Brexit vote and turned to Global Equity funds for more diverse exposure to stock markets. Property funds were also hit hard leading to the well documented suspensions of many of them.”