Saltydog Investor highlights funds investing in a specialist area or theme that have been producing eye-catching performance.

At Saltydog Investor, we help our members by highlighting the leading funds based on their recent performance. We typically focus on the last four, 12 and 26 weeks.

We start by looking at the Investment Association (IA) sectors. The IA is the UK trade body for investment management companies. Its 250 members currently manage around £10 trillion.

It helps investors by classifying funds into sectors. For example, regions like the UK, North America, Japan, China/Greater China, Asia Pacific, and Global Emerging Markets. Or themes such as Finance, or Technology and Technology Innovation.

Having established which sectors are trending up, it’s fairly easy to pick out the best-performing funds. Last year, the top sector was Latin America, up 38.9%.

However, it’s not unusual for slightly more obscure funds, which don’t naturally fit into any of the strictly defined sectors, to provide the best returns.

So, although the best-performing sector last year may have been Latin America, the leading funds were the ones investing in companies mining and processing gold and other precious metals. SVS Baker Steel Gold&Precious Mtls B Acc (BNGMZG1) ended the year up nearly 185%.

Other less mainstream funds that we brought to the attention of our members included WS Amati Strategic Metals B Acc (BMD8NV6), up 162% in 2025, and Barings Korea I GBP Acc (B9M3RQ4), up 74%.

The precious metals funds have dropped down the rankings this year, but Barings Korea continues to perform well. In the first half of this year, it was the best-performing fund that we cover in our weekly analysis, with a six-month return of just over 100%.

Funds that fall outside the mainstream sectors tend to end up either in the Global or the Specialist sectors.

The Global sector is for funds that “invest at least 80% of their assets globally in equities and must be diversified by geographic region”. The Specialist sector is for “funds that have an investment universe that is not accommodated by the mainstream sectors”.

Last week we highlighted the Pictet-Biotech I dy GBP (B554RF5) fund, from the Specialist sector, which was our best-performing fund in June, with a one-month return of 14.4%.

Pictet Asset Management is part of the Pictet Group, an independent Swiss investment partnership which manages money for institutional clients such as pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds, banks, and intermediaries. It describes itself as a focused multi-boutique manager, with an emphasis on areas where it believes it can add value through active management.

It runs various other “thematic” funds including Pictet – RoboticsI GBP (BDB6DB9), Pictet-Digital I dy GBP (B50P236), Pictet-Security I dy GBP (B5169S2) and Pictet-Water I dy GBP (B516BZ3).

Technology & Technology Innovation was the leading sector in April and May. In May, five of the top 10 funds came from that sector. However, the fund in first place was Barings Korea, with a one-month return of over 30%. Although it sits in the Specialist sector, its largest holdings include major technology companies such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd DR   SMSN  9.13% and SK hynix Inc ADR  SKHY  13.69%.

June was very different. No funds from the Technology & Technology Innovation sector made it into the top 10. There were two funds from the new Healthcare & Biotechnology sector, two from China/Greater China, two from North American Smaller Companies, two from Specialist, one from Financials & Financial Innovation, and one from Global.

The only fund to appear in our top 10 for both May and June was Pictet Security, from the Global sector.

The Pictet Security fund invests in equities of companies providing safety and security products for systems, people or organisations. Its largest holdings include KLA Corp 

It went up by 10.6% in April, 20.2% in May, and 9.2% in June. 

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