Active funds managed by Schroders, Fidelity and Jupiter have been able to largely avoid falling in the emerging market and Asian equity sector’s fourth quartile over the past 10 years, Trustnet research shows.
In this series, Trustnet is looking at the quartile rankings of every fund in the Investment Association universe in each quarter of the past decade to find those that avoided the fourth quartile in every one of them.
Here, we turn to the IA Global Emerging Markets, IA Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, IA Asia Pacific Including Japan, IA China/Greater China, IA India/Indian Subcontinent and IA Latin America sectors.
The results from the IA Global Emerging Markets sector can be seen in the table below, which shows all the funds with fewer than five quarters in the bottom quartile, ranked by their 10-year total returns.
Source: Finxl. All funds have a minimum track record of 10 years. Total return in sterling between 1 Apr 2016 and 31 Mar 2026
As we saw in the global, UK and developed market regional sectors, passive funds dominate the list.
Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index is the only fund in the peer group to have a record of completely dodging the bottom quartile, although its 125.9% total return over the decade puts it in the third quartile.
Analysts at FE Investments said: “Vanguard has grown rapidly to become one of the world’s most influential passive product providers. Its ethos is focused on team collaboration with independent risk monitoring, to deliver a number of high-quality core yet low-cost solutions to the investment marketplace – which is echoed across their product range.”
The fund tracks the MSCI Emerging Markets index – like many of the funds in the above table – so counts the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Samsung Electronics, Tencent, SK Hynix and Alibaba as its largest holdings.
Schroder Global Emerging Markets is the first active fund on the list. It has been in the sector’s fourth quartile in just two quarters and made a first-quartile total return of 163.1% over the decade under review.
Co-manager Thomas Wilson is an experienced emerging markets manager, having specialised in the asset class since 2004 and serving as the head of Schroders’ emerging markets equity team since August 2016. Robert Davy, the fund’s other co-manager, has been a global emerging markets fund manager since 2000 and was a founding member of Schroders’ Latin America team in 1990.
GS Multi-Manager Emerging Markets Equity Portfolio is the only other active fund in the IA Global Emerging Markets sector to make the shortlist, while Dimensional Emerging Markets Core Equity sits between pure index tracking and traditional active management. Dimensional uses a systematic, evidence-based approach that overweights UK stocks with higher expected returns, while excluding smaller growth companies with low profitability.
Just outside of the table are more active funds: FTF Templeton Global Emerging Markets, Ninety One Emerging Markets Equity, JPM Emerging Markets Opportunities, GAM Multistock - Emerging Markets Equity and Wellington Emerging Markets Research Equity have spent only five quarters in the bottom quartile.
Source: Finxl. All funds have a minimum track record of 10 years. Total return in sterling between 1 Apr 2016 and 31 Mar 2026
Fewer funds in the IA Asia Pacific Excluding Japan and IA Asia Pacific Including Japan have spent four or fewer quarters in the bottom quartile, but most of these are active funds.
Fidelity Asia sits at the top of the table owing to just a single quarter in the bottom quartile and 156.5% return over the full decade, which puts it in the second quartile of the IA Asia Pacific Excluding Japan sector.
Managed by Teera Chanpongsang since 2014, the fund focuses on medium- and larger-sized companies that trade below their intrinsic value, skilled management teams, strong franchises and resilient business models.
Analysts at Titan Square Mile said: “As with any actively managed strategy, the manager's willingness to stay true to his philosophy and maintain positions can lead to short-term setbacks, for instance, when markets are chasing certain themes or are influenced by external events rather than company fundamentals.
“However, the manager’s experience of investing through different economic conditions gives him the edge one needs to run this type of strategy and we believe this fund may be an attractive core choice for investors with a long-term horizon.”
Quilter Investors Asia Pacific boasts the highest return of the seven Asian equity funds on the shortlist, making 219.7% over the full decade. It’s managed by Jupiter, which also has Jupiter Merian Asia Pacific in third place.
The approach used by the Jupiter team on this fund is based on the belief that investors’ psychological and behavioural biases often cause stocks to deviate from their fundamental value. It therefore uses quantitative research to identify these potential mis-pricings and build a broadly style-agnostic portfolio.
On Jupiter Merian Asia Pacific, Rayner Spencer Mills Research analysts said the fund should perform in a consistent way through market cycles and is a potential core holding. “The fund is designed to generate outperformance in all market conditions over reasonable timeframes,” they added. “It is more likely to outperform in trending markets and lag in narrowly led, style-driven market rallies.”
In the more focused emerging market equity sectors, only two funds have been in the bottom quartile in four or fewer quarters: Barings Hong Kong China and Fidelity India Focus. No IA Latin America funds made the cut.