How we monitor your funds

Stay put, or move? What the evidence actually shows.

Every fund we monitor is checked against seven separate measures of how it's behaving compared with similar-risk funds. When three or more of those measures turn negative at the same time, that's rarely sudden, it's usually the visible endpoint of a slide that's already been building. Here's the fuller picture, tested across every Medium, Medium-High and High risk fund we cover, over ten years of data, with no cherry-picked examples.

What we're actually looking at

The signal

Three or more warning signs at once

We track seven separate measures of how a fund is behaving relative to similar funds, things like consistency of returns, how it handles market falls, and whether it's keeping pace. One weak reading isn't unusual. Three or more turning negative together is.

The population

Every relevant fund, not a favourable sample

This covers every fund in our Medium, Medium-High and High risk ranges that has ever triggered this signal over the past ten years, 9,840 separate occasions. Nothing has been picked out because it made a better story.

The comparison

Staying put, versus a genuine move

We compare what actually happened to the fund afterwards against what a move into a genuinely well-performing fund in the same risk range would have achieved, not just any alternative, a real, good one.

What actually happened, before and after

The run-up, the signal, and what followed

The chart runs from two years before the signal to three years after it. Everything to the left of the marked line is the run-up, the behaviour that eventually caused the flag. Everything to the right is what followed. Use the buttons to see the typical difference at one, two, and three years after.

These 9,840 signals span real, different market conditions, not one period

2016–2021 · 46%

2021–23 rate shock · 24%

2023–26 recovery · 30%

Medium, Medium-High and High risk funds only · 9,840 signals tracked

The fund left in place — at the moment of the signal, funds like this typically score around 26 out of 100 on our scoring system, well below the median fund of around 50.

The high-scoring replacement — drawn from the top quarter of funds in the same risk range by our score, typically scoring around 68 out of 100 at the point of comparison.

Time since the signal appeared

Fund left in place

+15.0%

Typical (median) return since the signal

Moved to a well-performing fund

+22.4%

Typical (median) return since the signal

Difference in favour of moving

+7.4 pts

Moving came out ahead in 6 out of 10 cases

Shortfall from the fund's own prior trend

−5.3 pts

Not recovered at this point — the step-down has stuck

Fund left in place

Moved to a well-performing fund

Where the fund's own pre-decline trend would have put it

Hover or tap anywhere on the chart to see the values at that point. The shaded area on the left is the two years before the signal, when the eventual problem was already building. The faint dotted line shows where the fund would have been if it had simply kept growing at the steady rate it managed in the eighteen months before its final pre-signal decline, calculated for each fund individually and then averaged, not fitted after the fact to make a point. Before the signal, the "well-performing fund" line shows what the same group of top-quartile funds was already doing over that period; after the signal, it's recomputed at each step to reflect whichever funds were genuinely strong at that later point. The score figures above are drawn separately from our scoring system's current output, a snapshot of today's population, shown for context.

How much does this vary from case to case?

A typical outcome is not a guaranteed one. This chart shows the middle case, but individual funds vary widely around it in both directions, some recover faster than shown, some don't recover at all. That's normal for individual fund performance, and it's exactly why this is presented as a shift in the odds, not a promise. The figures above are the typical case, not the certain one, for any individual fund or client.

Which risk ranges this covers

Medium, Medium-High and High risk portfolios

This evidence applies to our Medium, Medium-High and High risk fund ranges, the segment where the vast majority of client portfolios sit. It does not extend to the lowest risk, cash-like end of the spectrum, or to the very highest risk, specialist end, where there isn't yet enough data to draw the same conclusions with confidence. It also currently excludes our Low-Medium risk range specifically, where our own testing found the signal was not reliable enough to include here.

Very Low

Low

Low–Medium

MediumCovered

Medium–HighCovered

HighCovered

Very High

What this does and doesn't tell you

Reading this correctly

This is a comparison, not a record of decisions we actually took. It shows what the evidence says would typically have happened, using the same signals we monitor for every client, it isn't a history of specific switches made for specific people.
A genuine move takes more than just picking a better-looking fund. Dealing costs, timing, and, where relevant, tax on realised gains, all reduce the benefit of acting in practice. We take all of this into account before recommending a change, which is why any decision is always reviewed with you rather than triggered automatically.
Funds that closed down during this period aren't included, simply because they're no longer available to measure. Since funds that close are disproportionately likely to have been persistent poor performers, if anything this probably understates the case for acting, rather than overstating it.
This raises the odds of a better outcome. It doesn't guarantee one for any individual fund or client. Every recommendation we make is judged on its own facts, not on this evidence alone.