Fund news & updates

11 August 2026

Star manager culture is no longer as prominent as it once was in the fund management industry. Companies have generally become more cautious about putting too much emphasis on one individual, preferring instead to talk about the strategy and team behind an actively managed fund.

But fund management remains, at its heart, a people business...

8 August 2026

The past decade in stock markets has been an era of growth, but the tables are turning after a resurgence for value over the last 12 months.

Since last summer, the MSCI ACWI Value index has outperformed its Growth equivalent, in a reversal of the 10-year trend.

This has started to feed through into monthly fund performance. Two of the best...

5 August 2026

The FTSE 100 is currently on track for its best year since its conception in 1984, defying a downturn in other equity markets which have been burdened by a fall in tech.

Year-to-date, the UK’s premier index is beating both the MSCI All-Country World Index and the S&P 500, with an 11.5% total return versus 11.3% and 9.8%, respectively, according to...

4 August 2026

For many investors, total returns are the top priority when it comes to choosing a fund. But this figure doesn’t always tell the whole story.

A lucky few investors might be able to view their investments purely as numbers, and ride out waves of volatility as they come without much worry. But for many of us, these market ups and downs can be a major...

31 July 2026

AJ Bell’s latest ‘Manager vs Machine’ report found that in some markets while actively managed funds prevailed, in most sectors they’re still struggling to justify their higher fees.

In further analysis, AJ Bell has gone under the bonnet to see which active fund and passive funds have performed the best, and what pushed them ahead of their peer...

29 July 2026

When you hear fund managers talking about ‘skin in the game’, it’s usually referring to the manager investing their own money in the same fund that they’re running.

It's a fairly common phenomenon. Richard Staveley of Rockwood Strategic trust and Stephen Yiu of the Blue Whale Growth fund both make it well known that they eat their own cooking. In...

28 July 2026

The intense levels of geopolitical volatility have sent bond yields up to some of their highest levels since the 2007/8 crash, and investors have been moving into the space as a result to try and capture them.

Bond funds in general saw their strongest monthly inflows since June 2023, according to Calastone, a fund transaction network.

Indeed, May...

27 July 2026

Funds are a helpful way to get exposure to the bond market for those that aren’t prepared to dive into understanding bonds in depth or simply don’t want to. Investing in individual bonds involves making judgements on the creditworthiness of the company or government issuing them and, with corporate debt in particular, can require putting in minimum...

27 July 2026

What you should invest in is a big question to answer, and it requires a lot of personal understanding of yourself and an ability to ignore what other people are doing.

This may sound like something you’d hear in a therapist's office, but they’re entirely relevant objectives for investors as well.

A major question you must answer is ‘how much risk...

27 July 2026

Concentration risk can happen in a myriad of ways in a portfolio. It occurs when there’s an over-reliance to generate returns built on a single asset class or sector.

It's the opposite to diversification, which encourages spreading the risk of potential losses by having several engine drivers in your portfolio, a classic case being a multi-asset...

23 July 2026

It’s no wonder passive funds are grabbing investors’ attention. We’ve had yet another six-month period where a large chunk of professional stock pickers failed to outperform the tracker funds in the same sector.

Only 42% of active funds outperformed their tracker alternatives in the first half of 2026, matching the same reading from a year earlier...

20 July 2026

Bonds are often used in portfolios to even out risk and provide protection from the whims of the equity market. For a long time, one of the safest places to be within bonds has been US treasuries. These investments have offered a reliable way to make modest returns without taking on too much risk.

But in recent years, US treasuries have experienced...

17 July 2026

Change and evolution to an investment process are two sides of the same coin, the former a red flag to investors that something may be awry in the fund and the latter, a mark of true active management to steer a portfolio through changing markets.

It's a conversation which has been stirred up by the high-profile changes to Fundsmith Equity after...

17 July 2026

Passive funds are designed to replicate a specific part of the market, mimicking the stock weightings and exposure in a cheap, useful package. Why then do some make better returns than the market, and many actually make less?

Tracker funds or ETFs are some of the most popular products for stock market exposure because you can get a lot for your...

16 July 2026

We keep our  Favourite funds list under constant review to ensure we have the highest conviction in the funds we’ve selected. Following a review of the list we have added an active Indian equity fund, the Ashoka WhiteOak India Opportunities fund to the list.

The Ashoka WhiteOak India Opportunities Fund offers investors access to one of the fastest...

13 July 2026

Any fund manager will always be keen to chat about what they’re optimistic about, whether that’s the next AI leader they think everyone else has missed or why they’re backing the market leaders.

Which is great, you want to know why they think that investment is going to deliver sizeable returns. Yet equally as important as knowing why you want to...

9 July 2026

US equities has been the main market to try and beat over the past decade, and some funds and themes have managed to do so, consistently.

Past performance is no guarantee of future returns, but it can be worth paying attention to what has outperformed through the recent AI-rally, Iran war and long-term volatility.

AJ Bell analysed the major equity...

6 July 2026

When you look around at your friends or family, most people will likely fall into two camps: those that are ‘hands-on’ and those that are ‘hands-off’.

Stereotypically, this the difference between those who take the lead of planning every single element of their group holiday, mapping out routes to the best bars and restaurants they made...

6 July 2026

The Fidelity Index World and HSBC FTSE All-World Index tracker funds are two of the most popular investments with AJ Bell’s DIY investors across virtually every age group.

They are the sixth and eighth most popular holdings among all AJ Bell Stocks and Shares ISA holders, coming in behind four of AJ Bell’s own Managed Funds and Scottish Mortgage...

26 June 2026

When looking at what actively managed fund is right for you a key factor is the long-term performance of the portfolio itself, and the team behind it.

‘Long-term’ is always prescribed as the ‘ideal’ investment time horizon and this usually equals at least five years, because the longer amount of time you give your money to work, the more chance you...

24 June 2026

While there is significant choice for ways to invest around the world, the number of actively managed funds that have comfortably beaten the market is much smaller.

There is no guarantee this elite group of funds will always outperform, yet it can be useful to explore which ones have shone on a long-term basis. Funds can have a good year, but to...

24 June 2026

When it comes to the most in-demand region or country with AJ Bell DIY fund investors, there’s a clear winner. Out of the top 100 most widely held funds, investment trusts and exchange-traded funds on the AJ Bell platform with a specific regional or country focus, the US dominates by some distance.

Some 17 out of the 41 products in this category...

23 June 2026

Spreading your investments around the world is a popular strategy, but many investors choose to do this solely through a global index fund. It’s not a bad start; however, it might not be offering the broad exposure you’d expect.

These funds tend to be weighted heavily towards the US, often with 60% to 70% of assets in that part of the world, and...

20 June 2026

Companies and sectors attached to the AI trade are storming ahead in returns and market narrative, but that doesn’t mean your whole portfolio should be ‘AI winners’.

Being able to attach yourself to AI in any way has become a common theme in equity markets, and companies have been rewarded for it.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 has outpaced its domestic...

19 June 2026

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are a popular way for investors to access the market, but there is still a lot of confusion around what they really are, especially in comparison to a traditional tracker fund.

While ETFs and traditional tracker funds (an open-ended fund) play a similar role investments-wise, they are considered differently in terms of...