Investing in funds: All aboard the 'Tugboat'

The Saltydog Investor strategy aims to boost fund investors' returns via a simple momentum strategy: buy what's rising, and avoid what's falling. You can read more here. Saltydog's Richard Webb looks at the latest updates to their cautious portfolio, the Tugboat'.

As momentum' investors, we look for the best-performing sectors (using Investment Management Association definitions), pick the top funds in each, and average out their performance to see which area of the market from least risky to most risky is performing most strongly.

Our latest analysis shows that all sectors rose for the second week in a row (for the week to 8/5/13). In our Slow Ahead' group (containing the least-risky sectors), the top sector was Sterling Corporate Bonds'. In the slightly higher-risk Steady As She Goes' group, UK Equity Income' and UK Equity and Bond Income' are leading the way.

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But the top sector, by a long way, is in the most volatile Full Steam Ahead' group. Japanese equities have beaten all others in recent months: the top six funds have each returned more than 20% in the last 12 weeks.

How does this affect our Tugboat' portfolio? We have reflected the resurgence in the Steady As She Goes' sector by hanging on to the Chelverton UK Equity Income Fund (up 24% since we bought it seven months ago). We have now added the Cazenove UK Equity Income Fund, investing £5,000 (10% of the portfolio).

Our top performer, the Legg Mason Japan Equity Fund, is up over 20% in less than two months, and we have raised our holding. We believe in cutting our losses and letting our winners run and we're keen to let this one run.

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Safe Haven	Cash	27%	43%
Slow Ahead	Fidelity Moneybuilder Income (Acc)	20%	20%
Slow Ahead	Henderson Long Dated Credit	16%	16%
Steady As She Goes	Chelverton UK Equity Income	7%	7%
Steady As She Goes	Cazenove UK Equity Income	10%	0%
Full Steam Ahead	Legg Mason Japan Equity	14%	7%
Full Steam Ahead	Neptune Japan Opportunities	7%	6%

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