Performance of Investment Funds

Standard & Poors assess the performance of funds (during the past 36 months) relative to other funds in its category. It awards 5 stars for the best funds, down to 1 star for the worst funds.

Here are the results as at end September 2006.

Stars  Inc  Pru  AIA  GE   JH  Manu  Axa  Av
  5     1    0    0    1    1   1     0    0 
  4     5    4    2    2    1   1     0    1
  3     1    2    2    3    6   4     1    1
  2     2    1    3    7    5   1     3    3
  1     0    0    2    3    1   0     2    1
Total   9    7    9   16   14   7     6    6

NTUC Income has the highest proportion of its funds in the top two ranks (i.e. 6 out of 9 funds). This is followed by Prudential with 4 out of 7 funds.

Most of the other insurers have more funds in the bottom two ranks than the top two ranks. They have more funds that perform below average.

The better performance of NTUC Income's funds is probably due mainly to our low charges.

Here is another observation. Each insurer has some funds that perform better than average and others that perform worse than average. It is difficult to choose the right fund by looking at the "manager".

If you track the performance of each fund, you are likely to see that the same fund may perform better in some years and worse in other years.

Lesson: Choose a large, well diversifed, low charge fund and invest for the long term. You will get a better than average return.