Our methodology sets out the criteria we used to select the best-performing funds in each Investment Association (IA) category, which were as follows:
Top of the list by some margin was the JP Morgan Emerging Europe, Middle East & Africa investment trust, with a one-year return of almost 50%. The Amundi Semiconductor ETF comfortably took second place with a one-year return of 43%, well ahead of the iShares Poland ETF at 35%.
After a torrid 2022, the resurgence in US technology stocks propelled the Manchester & London trust and Natixis Loomis Sayles U.S. Equity Leaders fund up the leaderboard, with one year returns of 30% and above.
Interestingly, the top UK-invested fund, Ninety One UK Special Situations, outperformed the Artemis SmartGARP European fund, despite a mixed year for UK equities.
In other categories, bonds shrugged off the global rout of 2022 to deliver healthy returns. Despite a strong showing from Japan, Asia Pacific funds continued to face challenges around the re-opening of the Chinese economy and geopolitical tensions.
Another theme was the outperformance of actively-managed funds, with only two ETFs making the grade. It was also a successful year for investment trusts, which topped two of the 10 categories, despite being a much smaller sector than their open-ended counterparts.
We look at each of the top-performing funds in more detail below.
