Best and worst: Unit Trusts

UNIT TRUSTS invested in Japan have been putting up strong competition to gold funds. The average increase in Japanese trusts was 90.75 per cent after expenses for the year to 1 August.

Steve Harker, manager of Prudential's Japan fund, said the newly installed government there is pro-business, but he is not particularly positive about Japan after a 'fantastic year'. He said the gains in the last few months for sterling investors has come from the rise in the value of the yen.

John Govett's futures-linked bear funds, designed to do well when market indices are falling, are behaving predictably considering the general view that European shares will react well to the disintegration of the ERM. Over one month the Govett European Index fund is up 4.03 per cent before expenses, against a loss of nearly five per cent in the Bear fund. Investors have been moving out of bear funds into Govett's index-tracking funds, said Michael Chadney, trading manager.

Gold shares and funds were hit by an end-of-week plunge in the gold price, proving again that these are high-risk investments.

--------------------------------------------------------------------- UNIT TRUSTS --------------------------------------------------------------------- The best pounds 1 Mercury Gold & General 302.47 2 Waverley Australasian Gold 222.58 3 PM Japan Growth 219.72 4 Prudential Japanese 216.52 5 Dimensional Japanese Small Companies 216.21 The worst 1307 Barclays Unicorn Property 96.75 1308 Aetna Iberian Growth 95.90 1309 Thornton American Smaller Companies 91.55 1310 Govett MIS European Bear 89.28 1311 Govett MIS UK Bear 82.97 --------------------------------------------------------------------- The chart shows the value of pounds 100, invested over 1 year to 2 August, offer-to-bid, income reinvested. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Micropal ---------------------------------------------------------------------