At a time when index products are flooding the markets, active management can boast of its good work this year, knowing that the North American stock market is at historic highs, above 5,800 points in the case of the S&P 500, and with the European stock market The market also exceeded its marks with the Stoxx 600 touching 528 points at the end of September. And all this in an environment of enormous volatility, in which investors have gone from fearing the consequences of a recession to observing that the American economy is holding up better than expected, despite the tensions of the conflict in the Middle East and its repercussions. in the price of crude oil. The announcement of a fiscal stimulus plan in China gave wings to European stock markets. And with rate cuts underway, it appears investors are willing to extend the transition period. rally stock market, stimulated by passive management.
But in this environment, there are collective investment vehicles that have shown they can outperform the index range at whatever level it hits during this year, and some remarkably so. If we look at the almost 800 European equity investment funds available to the Spanish investor, taking into account both those that invest in large companies and those that focus on mid and small capitalization companies, we can see that 46% exceeds the performance of 9.56% achieved by the Stoxx 600 over the yearwith data up to October 14, the latest deadline with comparable figures for investment vehicles according to Morningstar.
Of these 363 funds, around thirty exceed 15% profitability, with Brandes European Value B EUR Acc, Miralta Narval Europa A, Kempen (Lux) European Sust Eq BN And QFS SICAV – European Eqs EUR S Acc in the lead, with returns close to 20%. The Miralta fund, in fact, is among the 35 most profitable in the world. World League elEconomista.eswhich brings together the funds most decorrelated from their benchmark index. Top holdings in Brandes’ fund include Heineken, Sanofi, UBS, Grifols preferred stock, Henkel, The Swatch Group, medical equipment company Smith & Nephew, BNP Paribas, SAP and Carrefour.
Looking at North American stock funds, 24.3% of the 300 collective investment products on sale in Spain (including those that take into account different market capitalizations) exceed the 22.85% return obtained by the S&P 500 during the year. And of these 73 vehicles, 38 offer an efficiency greater than 25% with Alger American Asset Growth A EUH, T. Rowe Price US Blue Chip Eq A EUR And Vitruvius US Equity B EUR exceeding 30% in the year.
These returns show that, despite the rise of passive management in recent years, it is possible to beat the indices and outperform them. An extraordinary fact if we consider that in the long term it is very difficult for managers to outperform the main North American stock indices and that large technology companies attract enormous sums of capital.
However, it must be taken into account that the North American equity funds mentioned have a significant weight in the technology sector, around 40% of the portfolio in the case of the Alger Management and T. Rowe Price vehicles, which has helped them. offer this reassessment data.
How well can investors expect these returns to hold, given the impact of November’s presidential election and the Fed’s stance on interest rates? Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, explains that based on a more positive outlook for the North American economy, “We upgraded US equities from neutral to attractive and raised our June 2025 target for the S&P 500 to 6,300 points.and introduced a target of 6,600 points by December next year. We also improved global stocks, MSCI World All Country Indexfrom neutral to attractive.
At Fidelity, they assure that constant rate cuts and a soft landing of the economy “would create favorable conditions for the rise of American stocksand quality growth stocks would be more likely to excel in this environment. Cyclical stocks that have suffered heavy selling or are lagging could also offer opportunities and the specific drivers of these stocks will be important,” says Ilga Haubelt, head of equities for Europe at the North American manager.
