IMA

The continued squeeze on liquidity in the corporate bond market could lead to the closure of larger funds to investors and even cause parts of the corporate bond and gilt markets to shut down.

Research from Nomura and data produced by Morningstar for Investment Week challenge the view concentrated equity portfolios are riskier propositions in volatile markets.

A number of fund providers are supporting the split of the Absolute Return sector into sub-categories based on strategy, which could see many vehicles in the Unclassified and Specialist sectors moved into the new groupings.

REGULATION

Trade body's recommendations to explain charges more fully are unlikely to be adopted across the board.

Investors continued to exercise caution in their asset allocation in May, with bond and money market funds the most popular and equity funds seeing their first net outflow in 2012.

The IMA has called upon groups to enhance transparency on fund charges across all investor-facing documents, as well as giving a more prominent position to the ‘ongoing charge' and provide details of transaction costs.

FUND CHARGES

Industry trade bodies have criticised proposed changes to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) sourcebook, with the IMA calling for a "complete overhaul" of the scheme.

The £132m First State Global Property Securities fund has dominated the IMA Property sector over the last five years, being one of only two funds to make a positive return over that period, and has returned 84.5% since 2009.