Energy funds have surged in recent weeks on the back of surging oil prices due to the conflict in the Middle East.
The threat of attack from Iran has meant that oil tankers have stopped travelling through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint between the Middle Eastern oil-producing nations and the rest of the world.
The narrow body of water usually sees roughly 20 million barrels of crude passing through daily, which represents about 20% of global consumption.
Although countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been able to divert some oil through pipelines elsewhere, it has only been a fraction of the previous volume.
As a result, the price of crude oil has spiked from $70 per barrel to over $100 per barrel in the weeks following the start of the conflict.
Funds focused on energy stocks and oil futures have surged on the back of this and are among the best performing funds year-to-date, according to data compiled from FE fundinfo.
Three funds that invest exclusively in crude oil futures contracts are the best-performing funds available in Hong Kong and Singapore year-to-date.
The Mirae Asset Global X S&P Crude Oil Futures Enhanced ER ETF, the Samsung S&P GSCI Crude Oil ER Futures ETF and the UBS CMCI Oil SF ETF are up 70.8%, 65.7% and 42.5% year-to-date, respectively.
Elsewhere, funds that invest in oil and gas equipment, exploration and services stocks are also performing well year-to-date.
These include four exchange-traded-funds: State Street SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Equipment & Services ETF, State Street SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF, iShares U.S Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF and VanEck Oil Services ETF.
Energy funds are also top performers, with both actively managed and passive ETFs delivering high double digit gains year-to-date.
ETFs tracking the US and global energy sector are performing well, including SSGA State Street SPDR S&P U.S. Energy Select Sector UCITS ETF, iShares S&P 500 Energy Sector UCITS ETF, iShares Global Energy ETF and iShares US Energy ETF.
Three actively managed global energy-focused equity funds also feature with strong returns, namely Schroder ISF Global Energy, Guinness Global Energy and BlackRock BGF World Energy.
The $282m Guinness Global Energy fund is run by Will Riley and Jonathan Waghorn and is benchmarked against the MSCI World Energy index.
The $579m Schroder ISF Global Energy fund is managed by Mark Lacey, Alex Monk and Felix Odey. It aims to outperform the MSCI World SMID Energy index, which focuses on small- and mid-sized energy stocks listed globally.
The $2.12bn BlackRock BGF World Energy is managed by Alastair Bishop and Mark Hume. It is benchmarked against the MSCI World Energy 30% Buffer 10/40 index, which limits the weight of the largest companies to manage concentration risk.
