However, what the performance tables do not show is the underlying strategies of the funds, which can be very different.
Dig a little deeper into the data and it is possible to see when and why certain funds do better and when they lag.
One of the cornerstones of FE Research's process is diversifying active strategies, aiming to create portfolios that outperform in a variety of markets.
"Our philosophy is that we are not making a call. We don’t know what is going to happen in the future so we want to be prepared," said Rob Gleeson, head of research at FE.
FE Trustnet looks at funds in the popular IMA Asia Pacific sector that have different and complementary underlying strategies and the circumstances in which they are likely to do well.
Martin Currie Asia Pacific
This fund has a more defensive approach than many others focused on the region, and is in the quartile of funds with the lowest volatility in the sector.
It is more concentrated towards large cap funds than many of its peers and is well diversified across the Asia Pacific.
While many funds are dominated by large positions in China and Australia, Jason McCay and Andrew Graham’s £112m portfolio has a high weighting to Thailand and Indonesia.
The managers aim to benefit from inter-Asian trade and invest in companies that are dealing internationally.
Data from Style Research shows that it has a much higher weighting to companies selling across borders than its peers.
This, along with a high weighting to mega and large caps, means that the fund is more likely to do well when the overall economy is growing.
Unlike other portfolios focused in the region, the managers are less interested in companies that are undervalued.
They believe that rising income and low levels of debt are causing a permanent shift to a new consumer economy in Asia and have positioned their portfolio to take advantage of this trend.
The fund’s returns of 30.6 per cent over three years put it ahead of the sector, which has made 23.51 per cent.
Performance of fund vs sector and benchmark over 3yrs
Source: FE Analytics
However, it still lags the sector and benchmark over five years, having been slower to recover from the crash of 2008.
It is available with a minimum initial investment of £1,000 and has a total expense ratio (TER) of 1.75 per cent.
Schroder Asian Alpha Plus
This is a more volatile fund: it has lost more in falling markets and made more in rising markets than the Martin Currie portfolio.
In 2008 it was down 36.55 per cent while the MSCI Asia Pacific index lost 19.49 per cent, and then in 2009 it made 77.02 per cent while the index made just 22.5 per cent.
Performance of fund vs sector and benchmark 2008 to 2010
Source: FE Analytics
The fund reacts to the business cycle and manager Matthew Dobbs has the ability to hold companies in any sector he likes.
He is more sensitive to valuations than McCay and Graham, and seeks to tilt his portfolio in favour of sectors he thinks are cheap; he has been moving the portfolio away from defensive areas to cyclicals, which he believes are better value.
The fund, which has five FE Crowns, uses derivatives to enhance its returns.
It is available with a minimum initial investment of £1,000 and has ongoing charges of 1.7 per cent.
Templeton Asian Growth
This fund looks for companies with strong growth potential, but waits until their price hits certain targets before investing.
It is a strategy that has proven spectacularly successful in recovering markets.
In 2009 the fund led the sector with returns of 83.6 per cent, having been one of the worst performers in 2008. The portfolio also led its peers in 2007.
The team, led by Dr Mark Mobius, is not afraid to make big sector or country bets. It has 26.15 per cent in Thailand, one of the fastest-growing markets over the past year, and 11.85 per cent in Indonesia.
This compares with 3.49 per cent and 3.55 per cent from its benchmark, and makes it a very different portfolio from the Martin Currie and Schroder funds.
The portfolio has a higher proportion of its holdings in Thailand than any other fund in the entire IMA universe, and only two equity funds have more in Indonesia.
Investors need £5,000 to get access, however, and the ongoing charges are steep, at 2.21 per cent.
Newton Asian Income
Jason Pidcock’s five crown-rated, £3.4bn portfolio has a heavy exposure to Australia, unlike the other funds on this list.
This is not unusual for an Asian income fund, given the strong culture of paying dividends in the country, and the portfolio’s 29.17 per cent weighting is marginally lower than the 30.42 per cent of L&G Asian Income.
This means the health of the fund is strongly dependent on one country, the economy of which is itself dependent on the heavily cyclical mining sector.
So far the fund has managed to perform well in falling markets, however, perhaps helped by the defensive nature of many of the dividend-paying companies it invests in.
Performance of fund vs sector and benchmark over 3yrs
Source: FE Analytics
Losing less money than the market in the bad times has pushed it to second in the sector over one, three and five years.
It is available with a minimum initial investment of £1,000 and has ongoing charges of 1.65 per cent.
Our data shows that if an investor held an equally weighted portfolio to these four funds over the past five years, they would have made 95.96 per cent, better than the returns from Templeton Asian Growth and Martin Currie Asia Pacific.
The annualised volatility of 20.33 per cent would have been superior to all but the Newton Asian Income fund, as would the maximum drawdown and the downside risk.
The investor would also have had the peace of mind of knowing that their portfolio was positioned for a variety of circumstances.