Johannesburg — THE unit trust industry showed an improvement in performance in the second quarter, Plexus Group chairman Prieur du Plessis said yesterday.

Only five of the 29 unit trust categories rated were negative, according to the latest MoneyMate figures .

"These were mostly foreign categories, as the rand strengthened to below R8 to the dollar," said Du Plessis. In the first quarter, only five categories produced positive returns.

The domestic equity smaller companies category unit trusts were the best over three months with 14,7% growth, followed by domestic equity financials with 14,1%.

The worst categories over three months were foreign fixed-interest varied specialist and foreign fixed- interest bond with -11,6% and -10,6% .

Over one, three and five years, domestic real estate topped the charts with performances of 23,7%, 12,1% and 21,7% a year respectively.

The best unit trust over three and six months was the Zshares Randplay Tracker Fund, with 21,7% and 21,4% .

The top funds over a year were all in the domestic real estate category, with the Stanlib Property Income Fund returning the highest at 33,8%. The worst over this period was the Stanlib Resources Fund with -53,1%.

Over three years, the Investec Property Equity Fund performed best with 17% a year. Over five years, the best-performing fund was the Old Mutual Mining and Resources Fund with 27,5% a year.

The FTSE/JSE all share total return index increased 8,7% over the quarter. The financials total return index delivered 12,3%, industrials total return index 14% and resources total return index 2,8%.

Lower share prices of gold companies and the rand's strength against the dollar diluted the performance of the resources index, said Du Plessis.