Investment styles

Growth shares are those of companies whose sales or earnings are expected to grow faster than the average for the market. Growth investment managers scour markets for companies with a track record of rapidly growing sales, revenue and profit. They investigate the soundness of each company's business strategies and management, and the outlook within the industry. This style carries the potential for high returns at a higher risk than other styles.

Nobody wants to pay more for an item than it is really worth. Value investment managers want to buy shares cheaply and sell when they are expensive. Value managers concentrate on establishing an opinion on companies that are out of favour or under-valued. The idea is that sooner or later, the market will wake up to the hidden value and push these stocks higher.

Core investment managers buy shares in companies that they consider to be the best stocks all around, with no intentional style bias. As a result, the spread tends to contain a mixture of both growth and value shares.

Core managers focus on deep fundamental analysis of individual companies to come to conclusions about their long-term worth.