The year of the stockpicker favours small to mid caps

In 1999 a successful UK fund manager was one who made the right sector choice - to back TMT stocks. As the market has become less one-sided, the year 2000 has seen the importance of good stock picking increase. Peter Davies, who manages the Mercury OST UK fund, says: "Last year a lot of performance came from the TMT sectors. This year, it has been much more on strong stock selection across the board. The fund is now overweight pharmaceuticals and underweight consumer staples but this is not a built-in strategic bias, but a reflection of stock valuations." Companies that have done particul...