John W. Henry, the Florida-based fund manager, returned 22.35% for its G-7 currency portfolio in December, making it the top performer of the Parker FX Index.

Overall, 41 foreign exchange programmes represented in the Parker index posted returns of 5.22% for December, the highest gain since March 1995. On a risk-adjusted basis, the index was up 3.7%. Only 7% of the programmes reported losses in December. The 41 programmes, with $11bn (€11.7bn) in currency assets, belong to 35 firms.