Approximately half of the pooled funds in the Morningstar Canada database had positive returns during the second quarter of 2008, with the best returns generally coming from domestic equity funds.

The best-performing pooled fund category for the quarter, as measured by the median return of its constituent funds, was natural resources equity with a gain of 11.2%. The second-highest median return was the 9.3% gain posted by the Canadian income trust equity category. Two other domestic equity fund groups come next: Canadian equity (8.8%) and Canadian focused equity (4.6%). The precious metals equity category rounds out the top five with a median return of 4.5%.

Overall, 24 of the 41 pooled fund categories had positive median returns in the second quarter of 2008. The two worst performing groups were financial services equity and real estate equity with median losses of 9.7% and 9.5%, respectively.

Pooled funds that target foreign equities also had a tough time during the quarter. Notably, the European equity, global equity, U.S. equity and international equity categories had median losses of 3.9%, 3.6%, 3.4% and 3.2%, respectively. The U.S. small/mid cap equity category had the best median return among foreign equity categories with a 2.9% gain.

Among fixed-income pooled funds, domestic offerings also outperformed their global counterparts. Within the Canadian fixed income category, the median return was a 0.6% loss, with three-quarters of its funds losing between 0.4% and 0.8%. By contrast, the global fixed income category had a median loss of 1.3%, and more than a third of its constituent funds lost more than 2% for the quarter.

Among individual funds, the best performer for the quarter was Fidelity Global Natural Resources, which returned 30%. Sixty-one pooled funds posted double-digit returns for the quarter, 37 of which belong to the Canadian equity category. Of that group, the best performer was Montrusco Bolton Quantitative Canadian Equity with a 19.5% return. At the bottom, GE Asset Management India Equity posted the quarter’s worst overall return with a loss of 19.4%.

Morningstar Canada releases performance figures for pooled funds on the 13th business day of each month through its Principia for Pooled Funds software. Principia is a pension fund research and presentation tool that delivers comprehensive analysis for more than 1,000 Canadian institutional investment funds and 220 market indices, benchmarks, averages, and medians. Its extensive coverage of the Canadian institutional fund market is complemented by Morningstar Canada’s unique holdings database.