Stock Pickers? Most UK Fund Managers Are Fishes

Pisces is the most common star sign of Britain's top performing fund managers, followed by Taurus and Gemini, according to a survey of managers' star signs carried out for Abbey National's FundsCentre, the new funds supermarket from Abbey National. More

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Pisces is the most common star sign of Britain’s top performing fund managers, followed by Taurus and Gemini, according to a survey of managers’ star signs carried out for Abbey National’s FundsCentre, the new funds supermarket from Abbey National.

More than 17% of the top fund managers have emerged as Pisceans – they tend to be acutely intelligent people with an amazing ability to solve complex problems, according to top astrologist jonathan Crainer1. Two of Britain’s best known fund managers – Fidelity’s Anthony Bolton and Invesco Perpetual’s Neil Woodford are Picsceans.

Bolton and Woodford are known for their highly individual and successful approach to investment, with a bias towards value investing and an ability to stand back from the crowd. They run two of the largest funds in Britain – Fidelity Special Situations and Invesco Perpetual High Income – both available on Abbey National’s FundsCentre.

Taureans come second, representing just over 13% of the top fund managers. Taureans are ambitious and blessed with natural good judgement. They include Rothschild Asset Management’s Ingrid Iversen, head of emerging market debt at the group, Simon Roberts of Lazard’s UK Alpha Retail fund and Gordon Grender, the punchy manager of GAM North America Growth.

Gemini fund managers include two high profile managers at Jupiter Asset Management – joint chief executive Edward Bonham-Carter and Anthony Nutt, manager of Jupiter Undervalued Assets and Jupiter Income respectively. Gemini managers account for nearly 11 per cent of the top fund managers and are reputed to have ‘active inquiring minds and enjoying swapping information’. Also a Gemini is Dr Graham Birch, manager of the roller coaster Merrill Lynch Gold & General fund.

Pak Chan, Abbey National’s Head of Investments Marketing, (also a Taurean) said: “There are many ways to analyse fund management and the league table of star signs is one of the most unusual, but does reveal some interesting traits. It would suggest that fund managers with star sign characteristics that include analytical minds and clear judgement are a benefit to fund performance. However, we would not recommend that investors rely solely on the zodiac signs, but suggest they also take a look on FundsCentre where free independent fund data and commentary is available from financial information providers Citywire and Lipper”.

Among the top female fund managers, Nicola Horlick of SG Asset Management is an Aquarian (‘impeccable judgement, clear thinking’), while the top performing female fund manager overall, Japanese specialist Chisako Hardie, is a Sagittarian, supposed to be a star sign for ‘competitive, diplomatic people’.

Aries, Leo and Scorpio are the star signs least represented among the top fund managers, each accounting for less than 4% of the total.

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