The funds leading the market recovery

After a very difficult March, when most stock markets went down, there’s been a remarkable recovery. It started in April and continued throughout May.

In March, fewer than 2% of the funds that we monitor avoided losses. Over the last two months, more than 90% have made gains.

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This improvement is reflected in the performance of the Investment Association (IA) sectors. 

Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

Out of the 34 sectors in our analysis, only two went up in March – Standard Money Market and Short Term Money Market.

In April, 30 made gains, and that number increased to 33 last month. Only one sector, Latin America, failed to make headway, falling by 2.5%. 

Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

The top-performing sectors in April were from our “Full Steam Ahead – Emerging” Group. Technology & Technology Innovation led the way, up 15.8%, followed by Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, up 11.8%, and then Global Emerging Markets, up 11.4%.

Last month, it was a similar story. Technology & Technology Innovation continued to set the pace, up 15.5%, with Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, and Global Emerging Markets rising by 10.2% and 7.7% respectively.

In our top 10 funds for May, there are four from the Technology & Technology Innovation sector. If anything, we were slightly surprised there are not more.  

Saltydog’s top 10 funds in May 2026

Data source: Morningstar. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

At the top of the list is the Barings Korea I GBP Acc (B9M3RQ4) fund, which we have highlighted on several occasions during the past 12 months. It climbed by 31% in May, adding to the 35% that it made in April. It has now risen by more than 100% in six months and 200% in a year.

Although it sits in the Specialist sector, it has a strong bias towards technology and has benefited from the rise of AI. Its largest holdings include Samsung Electronics Co Ltd DR (LSE:SMSN), which has recently become one of the few trillion-dollar companies, and SK Hynix, another one of the world’s biggest memory-chip manufacturers.

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The next four funds in the list are from the technology sector and are all showing one-month returns of over 20%.

Then it is the Pictet-Security I dy GBP (B5169S2) fund, which doesn’t often feature at the top of our tables. It also has a strong bias towards technology, but more from a cybersecurity perspective. 

The final four funds are made up of two from the Asia Pacific Excluding Japan sector, one from the Global Emerging Markets sector, and one from the Global sector. All have meaningful exposure to technology companies in the US, Asia, or both.

Technology funds can deliver impressive gains when conditions are favourable, but they can also be volatile. For now, they are firmly back at the top of our tables.

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