- Investment styles have reasserted themselves, with growth stocks rebounding aggressively in 2023
- With markets looking concentrated, can a mixture of funds produce the goods?
The success of the 'Magnificent Seven' stocks made it undeniably difficult for active fund managers to beat the market this year, but that's not to say they have missed out entirely. Those with a growth bias, who are more likely to back the likes of tech stocks, have seen a return to form as companies seen as artificial intelligence (AI) plays soar.
That's amply demonstrated by the performance of global indices with different style tilts: the MSCI World Growth index, with allocations of more than 9 per cent apiece to names such as Apple and Microsoft as of the end of January, made a sterling total return of nearly 30 per cent in 2023. That left the conventional MSCI World index and its value-oriented equivalent in the dust. The value index had an allocation of just 9 per cent to the information technology sector at the end of January, versus the growth index's near-40 per cent weighting.