Thomas Heald provides detailed information on funds within the individual fund fact sheets.

All funds over three years old carry a Crown Rating provided by specialist rating service Financial Express. They are an authority on performance measurement, and they provide Crown Ratings for all UK authorised unit trusts and OEIC funds.

Crown Ratings are compiled using three key measurements of a fund's performance - alpha, volatility and consistency.

Funds in a given sector are rated with the highest scoring funds receiving three crowns and the lowest scoring funds receiving one crown. Any fund not rated does not receive a crown.

The crown ratings are designed to highlight funds within the same sector that have had superior consistent performance in relation to risk.

Hence they can be a useful indicator to the investor of those fund managers that have added value and provided good performance in relation to the risk that they have taken.

To be rated a fund must:

• Have a 3 year track record.
• Have a history that is accurate and consistent.
• Be in a sector of 10 or more funds.
• Not belong to a specialist or unclassified sector.

3 Crown Rating
Funds with a 3 crown rating represent the top 20% of funds in their sector. They will have demonstrated an excellent or good record across the three performance criteria.

2 Crown Rating
This rating goes to the next 30% of funds in the sector. These funds will demonstrate performance that tends more towards the average for the sector. This could arise from a consistently average showing across the three criteria, or from elements of good performance which have been mitigated by a lower score in one of the other criteria.

1 Crown Rating
This rating comprises the remainder of the funds in the sector. It does not necessarily indicate that there is nothing to recommend these funds, although this could be the case. A positive component of the rating could have been outweighed by negative criteria that would be tolerable within some investors risk profiles.

No Crown Rating
These are non-rated funds, because they do not possess the required characteristics.

N.B. Please note that this does not necessarily mean that this is a poor fund, as funds less than three years old, or in a specialist sector, will not receive a rating yet may have an excellent early or consistent track record.

Warning: These ratings are intended to offer a guide towards funds that are worthy of further investigation. Please note that past performance is not a guide to the future. The value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and are not guaranteed.
You may not get back the amount originally invested.