Schroder International Selection Fund US Small & Mid-Cap Equity has celebrated its fifth anniversary reaching USD1,822.7m in size and outperforming its index, Russell 2500 TR Lagged, with a return of 28 per cent versus 8.2 per cent.
It is also rated 75th out of a universe of 776 funds making the fund a top decile performer over the same period.
The Fund, which is rated AAA OBSR, AA Standard & Poor’s and 5* Morningstar as at 31 December 2009, is managed by Jenny Jones and Schroders’ US equities team.
The aim of the fund is to provide capital growth through investment in equity securities of smaller and medium-sized US companies.
The fund is currently overweight in sectors that tend to do better in times of uncertainty and where attractive valuations exist, for example technology and healthcare, and it is underweight in most other sectors, in particular financial services, consumer, energy and materials.
Jones says: “We are really pleased to be celebrating consistently good performance for our loyal and long term investors on the Fund’s fifth birthday. It is testament to our bottom-up, fundamental and in-depth research-based approach as well as the experience and quality of our team.
“We believe that the US market is likely to remain challenging and that there are still more economic headwinds to come. However, we currently like companies that tend to do better in uncertain times, such as the ‘steady eddies’, which have strong fundamentals and generate dependable earnings and revenues. We are also encouraged by those that spent the difficult times strengthening their balance sheets, which should set them up for 2010.”
