Just how well have your investments fared recently; and, just as pertinently, how much are you paying for the privilege?

Twice a year, online investment company BestInvest names and shames what it colourfully calls “dog funds” which, in its own words, are “the bad mutts of the fund management industry”.

To make the list, a fund must have failed to beat its market benchmark in each of three consecutive years, highlighting consistent underperformance; it must also have underperformed its market by more than 5% over the entire three-year period under review.

BestInvest has named 86 such funds in its most recent six-month round up, and these would generate a whopping £463 million in annual fees in a flat market. And, while the number of funds is only nine higher than the previous count last August, the total value of assets held by them has surged by 54% up to £45.4 billion.

JP Morgan’s US equity income fund and Janus Henderson global equity income fund were the two worst performers, while the biggest global equity income fund that gets called out is BNY-Mellon Global Income Fund at £3.47bn, which lagged its benchmark by 26%.

The £3.79bn Halifax UK Growth (£3.79bn) and £3.08bn Invesco UK Equity High Income (£3.08bn) were the biggest UK dog funds. They lagged their benchmark by 10% and 29% respectively.

Just behind them came St James’s Place global equity: with £3.05bn in assets, it returned 41% to investors… but that was 23% worse than the index.

BestInvest managing director Jason Hollands said: “Unsurprisingly, ‘Spot’ doesn’t win any popularity awards with fund managers, particularly those with the funds in the list who will soon be howling out their excuses.

“But it has helped shine a spotlight on the problem of the consistently disappointing returns delivered by many investment funds. In doing so, not only has it encouraged hundreds of thousands of investors to keep a closer eye on their investments, but it has also pushed fund groups to address poor performance.

“£45.4bn is a lot of savings that could be working harder for investors rather than rewarding fund companies with juicy fees. While turbulence has increased recently, that’s no excuse for consistently failing to match benchmark returns, sometimes by drastic margins.”

The report goes on to advise that: “It is important to stress that Spot the Dog is not a list of funds that should be sold automatically, as it is based purely on factual analysis of past performance which is not necessarily a guide to how a fund will perform in the future.”

You can find out how more and download the full report on their site: https://www.bestinvest.co.uk/research/spot-the-dog

Make sure your retirement plans are on target…

If your investments have under or overperformed the market, you can see what impact that is having on your long-term retirement plans using your RetireEasy LifePlan. You can test out different scenarios too, based on how well you think the market is going to perform in the upcoming years, how much inflation might eat into your estimates, and what happens if you elect to delay or bring forward your retirement date.

If your subscription has lapsed, why not get back on track for just a few pounds a month by clicking here: www.retireeasy.co.uk