Small caps and gold boost S&W

Smith & Williamson's £45m Global Gold & Resources fund was among the best-performing funds of 2010 thanks to its exposure to smaller companies and the soaring gold price.

Managers Robert Lyon and Ani Markova said limited exposure to base metals, QE, M&A and higher inflation also helped the performance of the fund last year. Markova said: “We recognised gold and silver had lagged the market at the beginning of the year so we reduced our base metal weighting and allocated more to these. “We also began the year with a third of the portfolio in each of small caps, mid caps and large caps but switched this to 50% in small caps, 20% in mid and 30% in large caps. “Another strength has been finding early-stage companies with good assets and following them f...