A rollercoaster ride is one way of describing Irish Life's performance in the Rehab Great Investment Race over the past two months.
After losing nearly 28 per cent of his fund in September, Irish Life's fund manager, Mr Seamus Magner, bounced back in October with a whopping rise of 38 per cent.
He made €23,647 over the course of the month by sticking with his favoured strategy of actively trading equities.
"I picked the right stocks this time," said Mr Magner, adding that the likes of Finnish telecoms group Sonera came up trumps for him.
Although Irish Life remains in sixth place overall, the fund manager is closing the gap on his rivals and could yet be a contender, particularly if Mr Magner can continue to deliver similar-sized gains over the remaining five months of the contest.
The race pits six fund managers, each with a purse of €100,000, against one another and the market over the course of a year. The one to make the most money wins, with all gains going to the Rehab Group.
The top spot in the race was retained last month by Hibernian Investment Managers, which has occupied it since the competition began last April. With a fund value of €168,626, according to official race monitors Mercer, Hibernian remains well ahead of the rest of the field.
However, Hibernian recorded its most lacklustre performance in the race to date. It lagged the other funds with a gain of just 0.7 per cent in October, a month that saw the Dow rise by nearly 3 per cent, the ISEQ gain almost 6 per cent and the FTSE increase by 5 per cent.
"We were trading in and out of equities and we missed a good run in the middle of the month," said fund manager, Mr Dara Fitzgerald.
By contrast, Bank of Ireland delivered a solid gain of 6.6 per cent over the course of October - by doing nothing at all.
With a value of €113,981 at the end of last month, it is the only other fund in positive territory and hangs on to second place overall.
"During this period of volatility we decided not to do much," said Bank of Ireland fund manager Mr Chris Reilly.
He headed into November with an unchanged portfolio of three Irish stocks - McInerney, Independent Newspapers and Riverdeep, a share that has also found favour with Friends First, lying in third place overall.
The Friends fund is just 1.2 per cent short of its starting point of €100,000, after delivering a solid if subdued gain of 3.2 per cent last month.
Lying in fourth place is Pioneer Investment, with a fund worth €90,643 at the end of October.
Fund manager Ms Ann Barker moved some of her cash into equities in October, to record a modest gain of 2.8 per cent.
She has since switched more money into stocks, leaving her holding some 57 per cent in shares, but 43 per cent is still in bonds as she remains very much a market bear.
