Vintage Report 2022 – The Worst Report Yet

In this blog we provide a covering note for our Vintage Report 2022.

First and foremost, if you’d like to skip my covering pre-amble and go straight to the Vintage Report 2022, just head here to download your free copy.

As we alluded to in our covering blog from 2021, we don’t particularly enjoy publishing the Vintage Report each summer. And no, not because it is a hefty research project, but rather it highlights the stark truth that the majority almost all the investment funds that we analyse just are not good enough.

A reminder, to achieve a Vintage rating, a fund must be in the top 40% of performers in its own sector 60% of the time. The “time” is the 120 overlapping 6-monthly periods in the last 10 years with a higher weighting being given to more recent periods.

Basically – be a bit better than average, for just over half the time.

96% of funds failed to beat this benchmark, up from 94% in 2021.

Only 4% of funds reached this undemanding benchmark.

How does 4% stack up compared to the prior 6 years of research?

So as you can see, 2022 really is the worst report yet, and is the first year where there are less than 100 Vintage rated funds since 2017.

But why is this the case?

Well firstly the universe of funds has grown every year since 2016, so naturally it will be hard for the % of Vintage funds to rise, given the entrance of newer/younger funds which typically struggle to achieve a Vintage rating; as the Vintage research has a longer look-back period than our standard Dynamic Ratings.

The second reason for the dismal 4% is that the last 12-18 months has seen quite a few structural changes to Global markets and investment styles. The rotation from Growth to Value is an example of this. The last two years has seen typical Growth fund houses, such as Baillie Gifford, sliding down the Vintage ratings. The average Vintage rating for BG funds in 2022 is 45%, down from 49% in 2021 and 52% in 2020. This isn’t us having a bash at Baillie Gifford, they are just the most renowned (and largest) Growth manager currently out there.

So, while the Growth funds have been the kingpin of investing for much of the last decade, that trend has already begun to unwind itself.

So, if Growth funds are slipping, shouldn’t Value funds come in and replace them as Vintage Rated?

In time, yes. However, the rotation to Value is still (we believe) in its infancy, so many Value funds will not start getting a Vintage Rating until the next couple of years. This is perhaps the biggest drawback to our Vintage Research, it can be slow to take into account these rotations, although they do occur fairly sporadically, it is something to bear in mind.

We could talk for pages and pages about this year’s Vintage Report, but we also know that by now you will just want to read the damn thing! So feel free to request your free copy here, and if you have any questions/feedback or would like us to talk some more about our Vintage research in next month's teleconference do let us know and we will allow time for this.