Noble-Nesbitt explains reasons behind the strong performance of both his funds

The economic environment improved steadily throughout 2009.

It is that time of year when we all seemed to spend a lot of time predicting - or more likely - guessing what are going to be the top-performing asset classes during the year next 10 years.

It would be great to think because we have started not only a new year, but a new decade, that life would be rosy. It is not.

With the northern hemisphere still reeling from the effects of the recession, attentions are heading south as now more than ever investors need to adapt a broader perspective to their investments

The UK economy is likely to have shrunk nearly 5% in 2009 yet many UK firms have shown resilient profitability.

Japan's economic recovery has proved to be anaemic in 2009 and it is a great surprise the market has underperformed its Western counterparts and the Asian markets.

Christmas and New Year is my usual time to catch up on that enormous pile of ‘interesting stuff' that lies rotting in the corner of my office.

In the first week of December, Investment Week reported that M&G's Jim Leaviss believed there was a substantial chance there would be a downgrade by ratings agencies of UK government debt if there was no attempt to tackle the budget deficit.

Axa Pan Euro High Yield leads way as average fund in peer group gains 5.5% over past year to 1 January