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It's no surprise that last year's mutual fund performance was bleak. And San Antonio's two mutual fund companies were not immune to the industry's downturn.
Nineteen of USAA Investment Management Co.'s 41 funds posted oneyear losses, as did five of US Global Investors Inc.'s 11 funds.
USAA spokesman Tom Honeycutt says that like the rest of the market, last year was a difficult one for equity funds.
Indeed, 17 of USAA's 29 equity funds posted a year-end loss.
Among USAA's worst performing funds was the USAA Science & Technology Fund, down 38.92 percent.
"Anything that had a fairly high concentration of technology stocks was going to see poor performance (last year)," Honeycutt says.
Similarly, US Global Investors Inc.'s (USGI) traditionally high performing USGI Accolade Bonnel Growth Fund was down 27.28 percent.
A spokeswoman for USGI says Bonnel's fund also was heavily invested in tech stocks. His move to more conservative midcap growth stocks helped turn the fund around, yielding a fourth quarter return of 8.18 percent.
Shiny returns
Despite the overall lackluster year-end performance, there were a couple of bright spots among the equity funds. USAA Metals & Minerals Fund posted a close to 31 percent gain, and USAA Balanced Strategy fund posted a 10.96 return.
The performance in the USAA Metals & Minerals Fund follows a series of years of negative performance, Honeycutt says.
USAA was not alone in seeing a turnaround in mineral funds.
For the past 13 weeks, USGI Gold Shares Funds has been ranked number one among gold funds, according to Morningstar, a rating service. The fund invests in stocks of senior...