How funds have bounced back since tariff turmoil

US President Donald Trump in front of the US flag. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images.

Heading into the start of the second quarter of 2025, many investors will have been concerned about the pick-up in stock market volatility amid uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies. Fast forward six weeks or so, and investors’ nerves will have been calmed somewhat, as over that period markets have staged a strong recovery.

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As the table below shows, investors who held their nerve since the start of the year rather than panic-selling, will now be sitting on only a small loss for three of the four worst-performing sectors during the market turmoil that took place from mid-February to early April. The exception is North American Smaller Companies in which the average fund is down -10.7% year-to-date.

For investors who timed the market perfectly – buying when Trump announced a 90-day delay on implementing tariffs for most countries, which marked the start of a recovery from 8 April – strong gains were made. From 8 April to 20 May, the average technology fund is up 19.9%. This strong period reduced year-to-date losses to just -2.9%.

Sector performance

Source: FE Analytics. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. 

Drilling into those individual sectors, the best global equity fund performer year-to-date is Ranmore Global Equity, up 13.9%. As Saltydog Investor pointed out earlier this week, it has relatively little exposure to the technology sector, preferring to focus on consumer discretionary, financials, and consumer staples.

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Other top performers since the start of the year include Xtrackers MSCI World ex USA, which is up 8.3%, and value-focused funds Ninety One Global Special Situations and Jupiter Global Value Equity, with gains of 7.7% and 7.2% respectively.

For US funds, topping the year-to-date performance charts is Morgan Stanley US Growth, up 7.8%. Also in positive territory is Xtrackers S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF, up 2.7%, In contrast to a traditional tracker, it holds each company in equal proportion. We explain the approach in more detail here.

For the US smaller company sector, no funds stand out in terms of making a small loss or a small gain year-to-date, while for the tech sector strategies less exposed to the artificial intelligence (AI) theme fared best.

The two technology investment trusts – Polar Capital Technology (LSE:PCT) and Allianz Technology Trust (LSE:ATT)– are down -6.3% and -5.6% so far in 2025.  

Speaking to interactive investor, Mike Seidenberg, manager of Allianz Technology Trust, said that his job is to “build a portfolio that can perform in a variety of macro conditions, that’s the task at hand”. You can check out the full interview here.

Seidenberg said: “In a more bullish economy, you would probably see us tilt more to the higher-growth names, while in a more challenging economy, we’ll probably have more kind of GARP-y value stocks. But, ultimately, it’s building the portfolio from a bottom-up perspective with a macro overview, and that’s our job.”

His view is that over the long term the investment case for technology remains firmly intact, but over short time periods there may be more bumps in the road, particularly given how unpredictable Trump is. He notes that technological innovations are an “increasing part of creating a competitive advantage for companies”. He also said that: “It’s going to zig and zag, but the technology story isn’t a year story, it isn’t a decade story, it’s a multi-decade story.”

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Turning to the best overall performance since markets started recovering on 8 April, WisdomTree Blockchain UCITS ETF tops the table with a gain of 40.6%. This ETF was the worst overall fund performer during Trump’s first 100 days (from 20 January to 29 April 2025), down -33.6%, but has since rallied. It is, however, still in the red year-to-date, down -5.8%.

When investors buy ahead of a nasty dip it can be an uphill struggle to get back to even, as percentage losses require bigger percentage gains to recover. For example, a loss of 10% requires a gain of 11% to break even; a loss of 20% requires a gain of 25%; a loss of 33% requires a gain of 50%; and a loss of 50% requires a gain of 100%. 

Top 10 funds that bounced back, with some still in the red so far in 2025

Source: FE Analytics. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.