The global equity story in recent months has been more about who lost the least rather than who made the most, but despite the MSCI World index falling by more than 12% in the first quarter, some managers were able to stay fairly close to level par.

Figures collated by data provider Camradata show none of a group of 52 global equity funds produced a positive return in the first three months of this year, but some 70% of them outperformed the index by up to 7 percentage points.