By PAULA OLIVER
AMP Henderson's funds have notched up their strongest quarter in years, but its investment boss has warned that the gains are not sustainable.
A particularly strong performance was turned in by AMP's hedged global equities fund - which was helped to a gain of almost 18 per cent
in the quarter by its hedge against the rising New Zealand dollar.
A non-hedged global equities fund returned 9.3 per cent.
New Zealand equity funds returned just under 15 per cent gains.
AMP Henderson chief investment officer Paul Dyer yesterday said the extremely good results came from the failure of fears around Sars and war in the Middle East coming to any significant fruition.
Dyer said that commitment from the world's central banks to keep interest rates low to generate economic growth also had a positive effect.
Global sharemarkets had bounced back strongly since the end of March, while in New Zealand very few stocks had given a negative performance.
But Dyer warned that the quarter's results were not sustainable.
He said that returns were positive across the board, not just in some areas.
AMP Henderson's high risk fund returned 13.4 per cent, its balanced fund 8.6 per cent, and its low risk fund 5.6 per cent.
He said that although it was too early to be definitive, it appeared that the New Zealand dollar's steady rise was coming to an end.
During the quarter AMP Henderson unloaded almost all of its fixed interest rate holdings because it became concerned about extremely low global fixed rates.
Dyer said that AMP Henderson had now started buying back into those markets as yields were rising.
