It has long been the case that tech stocks account for the single biggest sectoral exposure in the IA Global sector.
This has probably not been a disaster for global equity funds, as the "magnificent seven" tech stocks (Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia and Tesla) have driven all of the gains in global stocks this year.
The pandemic tech boom has now given way to investor excitement about artificial intelligence.
But the dominance of tech stocks has wained slightly in recent years within global equity funds, with the sector's average allocation falling from 27 per cent in November 2020 to 24 per cent today.
So with that in mind, we thought we would take a look at how the most popular global equity funds among allocators see things, and whether they have been following a similar path.
Global equity funds in our database are dominated by two funds.
The most popular global equity fund in our database is, and has been for a good long while, Fundsmith Equity which is held by six DFMs.
Seasoned fund pickers will know Terry Smith takes an idiosyncratic approach to his fund which means it does not particularly reflect its sector - and this may well be why it's so popular.
Almost half of the fund - 42 per cent - is invested in consumer products with an exposure to tech of just shy of 20 per cent. That tech exposure has come down from 33 per cent since December 2020 - a significantly larger drop than the sector average.
Fundsmith's rival is Ninety One Global Environment, which has grown in popularity among DFMs recently and is now held by five DFMs.
This is another fund which takes a distinct approach to its sector, with nearly half the fund - 45 per cent - invested in industrials.
It has a slightly larger tech exposure than Fundsmith at 23 per cent but this has also fallen - from about 31 per cent in November 2020.
The only other fund which approaches these two in popularity is Schroder Global Sustainable Value which is held by three DFMs and, as its name might suggest, also takes an approach which perhaps doesn't reflect the wider global sector.
This fund has 34 per cent in consumer products and 22 per cent in tech. Comparisons with the past are slightly awkward with this fund, since it rebranded and changed its investment objective in 2021 but its tech allocation has fallen from 28 per cent since that point.
One global equity fund to suffer at the hands of allocators in our database has been Brown Advisory Global Leaders. It entered 2023 held by three DFMs but is now only held by one.
This fund has long had a large overweight to tech, with a 49 per cent exposure in 2020 and while this has fallen in recent years to 31 per cent it remains well above average.
It seems that lately DFMs prefer their global equity funds to keep their exposure to tech underweight. We will explore the global equity funds which DFMs have been moving towards and away from in the coming weeks.
