Stockpicking is the best route tocapital growth

The key to growth investing in a falling market is to identify companies with excellent management and working practices that have delivered consistent results in the past over a long period of time

The last couple of years have not been auspicious for growth investors, with the major international equity indices all showing big falls. By contrast, the bond markets have done well with falling interest rates delivering decent returns for investors in UK gilts and US Treasuries. In the equity markets, the specialist funds have tended to produce outperformance as have those funds that have been free to deviate considerably from index benchmarks in seeking out positive returns. In a declining market, these more flexible funds have been able to avoid some of the heavy fallers and weig...