The fact that the stock markets have performed so well for so long has also had an impact on fund trading - with many purchases and a high trading volume. The situation for real estate funds has calmed down somewhat.
18 January. FRANKFURT (Börse Frankfurt). Buying mood in fund trading - especially when it comes to equity funds. Jan Duisberg, who trades funds for ICF Bank, reports "strong turnover", especially in the rise in share prices. "The trading volume in the last two weeks of the year was extremely high and there was a lot of buying," reports Matthias Präger from Baader Bank. Since the beginning of the year, things have calmed down again and turnover is back to "normal".
The technology sector is still highly favored. The Nasdaq 100 gained over 53% last year - driven primarily by the megatrend of artificial intelligence. "Interest in tech funds remains high," says Duisberg. Fidelity's FF Global Technology (LU0099574567) remains very popular, as does JPM Europe Technology (LU0104030142). The Fidelity fund currently focuses on Microsoft, Apple and Taiwan Semiconductor. Over a five-year period, it has scored annual price gains of 22%. The JP Morgan fund still achieves just under 13% per year over a five-year period, with the current focus on Infineon, ASML and Dassault Systèmes.
Duisberg
Equity funds on the road to success
According to Präger, the Metzler German Smaller Companies Sustainability (DE0009752238) and the GLS Bank Aktienfonds (DE000A1W2CK8) are being bought a lot as far as broadly diversified funds are concerned. According to Duisberg, the SEB Nordic Fund with Northern European equities (LU0030165871) is also in high demand. According to Präger, however, sales of DWS Aktien Strategie Deutschland (DE0009769869), Allianz Nebenwerte Deutschland (DE0008481763), DWS Top Dividende (DE0009848119) and Morgan Stanley INVF Global Opportunity (LU0552385295) predominated.
Präger also registered very good turnover in trading with Asian funds. "However, there were significantly more sales." Investors sold the DWS Top Asien (DE0009769760) and the DekaLuxTeam-Aktien Asien (LU0052859252).
Equity funds remain ahead: According to the latest figures from the fund association BVI, equity funds remain far ahead in terms of returns over a ten-year period: In the last ten years up to the end of 2023, equity funds - depending on their focus - returned an average of between 3.6% (emerging market equities) and 7.3% (global equities), mixed funds between 1.4% (bond-oriented, euro) and 4.3% (equity-oriented, global). Bond funds returned between 0.7 percent (euro/medium maturities) and 2 percent (global long-dated), while open-ended real estate funds returned 2.5 percent.
Popular money market funds
There is also good turnover at ICF in Siemens Balanced (DE000A0KEXM6), a defensive mixed fund with a current bond ratio of 68%. The ARERO Der Weltfonds ESG (LU2114851830) is also on the shopping lists, as Präger notes. It focuses on equities, bonds and commodities via representative indices and also takes ESG criteria into account. Money market funds (LU0034353002) also continued to see high inflows.
Profit-taking in gold mining funds?
There was also a lot of trading in gold mining funds. After all, the price of gold had climbed to a new all-time high of USD 2,086 at the end of 2023, but is currently only USD 2,010 per troy ounce again. "However, we tended to sell gold mining funds," notes Präger. Examples include BGF World Gold (LU0408222320) and Earth Gold (DE000A0Q2SD8). In contrast, purchases dominated in DWS Invest Gold and Precious Metals Equities (LU0363470401).
Real estate funds: "Stable sideways trend"
Calm has returned to trading in real estate funds. "The losses seem to be over for 2023," says Duisberg and reports a "stable sideways position". He is currently seeing purchases and sales in equal measure, for example in HausInvest (DE0009807016) and WestInvest InterSelect (DE0009801423), as well as in UniImmo Europa (DE0009805515) and UniImmo Deutschland (DE0009805507). He even reports purchases for Deka-ImmobilienMetropolen (DE000DK0TWX8) and CS Euroreal (DE0009805002), which has been in liquidation since 2012. "Perhaps some people see potential because of the prospect of falling interest rates."
By Anna-Maria Borse, 18 January 2024 © Deutsche Börse AG
Anna-Maria Borse is a financial and business editor specializing in the financial market/stock exchange and economic topics.
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