Direct investors flock to new launches

Artemis Strategic Assets, Cazenove Absolute UK Dynamic and Jupiter Absolute Return made the top ten bestseller list through Hargreaves Lansdown's direct to consumer Vantage platform for the whole of 2009.

Hargreaves has been a vocal supporter of William Littlewood’s Artemis Strategic Assets fund which reached £297.4m in size at 30 November 2009, despite only launching in May last year. Jupiter’s launch of an Absolute Return fund for financials manager Philip Gibbs was also very well received by investors with the fund taking £244m overall during its launch period. This total included switches from his existing Financial Opportunities fund, which also made Vantage’s top 10, but the overwhelming majority of inflows were new investments. The rise in popularity of the Absolute Return secto...