Funds run by Axa, First State, Jupiter and Threadneedle all appear on the list, which is published twice a year by Bestinvest, an independent financial adviser.
To qualify as a dog, a fund must have underperformed its benchmark index in each of the past three years and by at least 10% over the three-year period. The survey excludes trackers.
First State’s popular Global Emerging Markets fund, which has £472m under management, appears on the list for the second time with a three-year return of 116%.
While this might seem an impressive result, the average emerging-markets fund is up 155% over the same period.
However, Justin Modray of Bestinvest would hang on to the fund, although it is no longer open for new business.
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He said: “This scheme focuses on companies with stable earnings, which means it has steered clear of energy and materials stocks and missed out on some good performance as a result. However, we would expect it to return to form over the longer term.”
Axa makes its debut in the dog-fund list thanks to the £316m UK Growth fund, which has returned 49% over the past three years, compared with a gain of 66% in the FTSE All-Share index.
Axa has recently taken over Framlington, a fund manager that boasts stars such as Nigel Thomas and Roger Whiteoak, and Modray hopes they will boost performance.
Jupiter has two funds on the list. The £38m Growth & Income fund has returned 47%, compared with 66% for the All-Share, while the £50m Global Technology fund is up 32% over three years, compared with a 77% rise for its benchmark index.
Modray said: “Jupiter is by far the worst offender in the technology sector, both in terms of the amount of investors’ money in the fund and the extent of the underperformance.
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“A recent manager change may help, but we have continuing concerns about the group’s lack of resources in this specialist sector.”
Threadneedle also has two dogs in the survey — the UK Select fund and Japanese Smaller Companies — but they represent just 2.6% of its total funds under management.
The good news from the survey is that the number of dog funds has fallen from 147 in January 2003 to just 38 today, and the number of UK schemes has dropped from 37 to just six.
But Modray doubts that this is because fund managers are getting better.
While the extent of underperformance has dropped, with some funds lagging their benchmark by less than 10% over three years and therefore falling out of the dog-fund list, a similar proportion of funds are still failing to beat their benchmarks. The figure was 42% last year, compared with 44% in 2003.
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Modray said: “Given that so many active funds underperform their benchmark, you are better off buying a low-cost tracker unless you are going to do meaningful investment research to pick out the top funds.”
You can obtain a copy of Bestinvest’s Spot the Dog guide by calling 0800 093 0700.