6 Surprising Funds From a Surprising Month

Russel Kinnel: April is in the books, and it was the wildest market month since covid hit in 2019. With tariff regimes changing daily, the market has had huge daily swings. We had a selloff into bear-market territory, but then recouped nearly all of the losses in the final days of April.

What wasn’t surprising was the volatility and general downward trend for the markets and the economy. Gold surged. Dividend-growth strategies held up brilliantly in the downturn, as we expect. In a selloff, they tend to do well because it’s a strategy that leads to high-quality companies that endure in recessions and bear markets.

Let’s look at six surprising performances from April.

6 Surprising Funds From a Surprising Month

1. Morgan Stanley Growth Equity MSEGX
2. Fidelity International Real Estate FIREX
3. Baron Global Advantage BGAFX
4. Baron Growth BGRFX
5. Virtus AlphaSimplex Managed Futures AMFAX
6. T. Rowe Price Equity Income PRFDX

First, there’s the hyperaggressive growth funds run by Dennis Lynch at Morgan Stanley. The selloff really hit tech stocks hard, but Lynch’s brand of tech came through nicely in the rebound. Morgan Stanley Growth Equity benefited from names like Tesla TSLA, Cloudflare NET, and Roblox RBLX.

Foreign real estate funds like Fidelity International Real Estate FIREX were up due to the falling dollar and the view that foreign real estate would be a little less impacted by trade wars.

Baron Global Advantage gained about 6% as it, too, had Cloudflare and other fast-growing names that rebounded. Interestingly, sibling Baron Growth had a 6% loss, the worst in its category, because it favors more of the steady names that were left out of the month-end snapback.

Virtus AlphaSimplex Managed Futures might have surprised you, as people look for alts funds to hold up well in downturns. However, trend-following funds like this one can get burned in the short run when the market pivots. So, to alts analysts, this fund’s 10% loss wasn’t really a surprise.

Finally, T. Rowe Price Equity Income’s 4% loss was one of the worst in large value. Equity-income funds generally held up well in the downturn, but this fund was hurt by names like Chubb that actually underperformed.

With things changing rapidly, it’s worth keeping in mind that tariffs can take a while to impact the economy. Thus, the economy and the Federal Reserve’s response are going to be hard to predict, so more volatility seems like about the only reliable outcome at this point.

Watch 3 Types of Funds for College Grads for more from Russel Kinnel.