Capital preservation funds have done a good job at protecting investors’ money during this year’s significant market sell-off, but they haven’t avoided losses entirely.

In the three months to 24 March, the MSCI World index fell by 22.4% and the FTSE 100 declined by 33.7%. In comparison, eight out of nine capital preservation funds saw significantly smaller losses.

The best performer was Ruffer Investment Company (RICA) which was only down 5.4% over that three month period. It invests in equities, government and corporate bonds, and gold.

Fellow capital preservation play Personal Assets Trust (PNL) declined by 8.5% on a three month view. Its investment policy is to protect capital first, with growth second on the priorities list.

Aimed at the cautious investor who is more concerned about not losing money rather than making outstanding returns, the trust has allocations to companies with pricing power in defensive sectors as well as gold bullion and US and UK government bonds.

Capital Gearing Trust (CGT) fell 10.7% over the three months. Its stated objectives are to preserve shareholders’ real wealth (i.e. accounting for inflation) and to achieve absolute total return over the medium to longer term.

Its 10 year performance is the best of the capital preservation funds, having generated a 60.7% total return.

That compares with 57% from Personal Assets and 29.3% from Ruffer, although fellow wealth preservation specialist RIT Capital Partners (RCP) is close behind at 59.7%.

RIT has a multi-asset mandate and aims for long-term capital growth while preserving capital by investing in equities, private investments, credit, macro strategies and real assets. It is the worst performing capital preservation vehicle over the past three months, down 31.9%, almost in line with the FTSE 100.

Elsewhere, MI TwentyFour AM Monument Bond (B3V5V89) has the stated aim of providing an attractive level of income relative to prevailing interest rates, while maintaining a strong focus on capital preservation.

The fixed income specialist’s 5.3% negative return over the past three months compares very favourably with the declines suffered by the FTSE 100. However, its focus on bonds meant the fund lagged the raging equities bull market that has existed for most of the past decade.

On a 10 year basis it has returned 25.6% versus 116% from the MSCI World equities index, although only marginally behind the FTSE 100’s 29.1% total return over the same period.

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