An overview of the top-performing global equity funds available in SA

Given the dominance of growth stocks over the past few years, it should be no surprise that the top-performing global equity funds since 2018 all have a growth or technology bias.

At the top of the list is the Baillie Gifford Worldwide Long Term Global Growth fund, managed by the Citywire AAA-rated duo of Tom Slater and Mark Urquhart. It has returned an extraordinary 217.3% over the past three years.

The MSCI World Growth Index is up 98.9% over the same period.

The fund’s well-documented exposure to Tesla has been a big part of its outperformance, but those kinds of returns only come with broad portfolio strength.

Its top 10 holdings also include other high flyers like Meituan, Amazon and Tencent.

Momentum

The returns from the IP Global Momentum Equity fund managed by Citywire AAA-rated Shaun Krom are equally impressive. The fund has gained 205.3% over the past three years, against a benchmark return of 61.8% from the MSCI All Country World Index.

It is notable how different its portfolio looks to the Baillie Gifford fund. Rather than the big name growth stocks, it has exposure to the likes of The Trade Desk, Roku and Sea.

Its return of 98.2% for 2020 followed a 39.3% gain in 2019.

While these two funds stand out, all of the top 10 have delivered substantial returns over the past three years.

Nine of them are up more than 100% over this period. All have comfortably beaten their benchmarks.

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