Methodology

The starting point for all our fund research is to put together our fund universe. This includes all the funds that we currently consider worthy of recommendation. This list is formally reviewed quarterly; however we constantly monitor the markets for changes that may impact on our selection. Each quarterly review starts with consideration of the whole IMA sector, and then narrows this down to our fund universe using a series of both quantitative and qualitative measures.

The quantitative measures centre on performance and risk with a number of measures used in each area to provide a comprehensive picture.

The qualitative assessment of any fund is there to enable us to have some idea of how the fund will perform in the future. The purpose of this part of the analysis is to ensure that the fund has robust fund management processes in place, and a strong fund management team and the qualitative screen allows us to look in more detail at the how the fund actually operates. Our full methodology is covered in this document Mutual Funds Methodology