Charles Hovenden: Absolute Return funds are failing to deliver

A return of cash plus 3% is hardly worth bothering with, right? After all, the FTSE All Share Index (including gross dividends) has returned more than 11% p.a. since the end of the financial crisis in 2009. And that is despite the tortuous Brexit shenanigans and the stock market's painful 10% decline in 2018.  Since the beginning of the century, however, a return of cash plus 3% p.a. would have beaten the return of the same FTSE All Share Index by a whopping 62%. Indeed, since the beginning of 2000 (and up to the end of October 2019), The FTSE index has delivered an annualised return of ...