Asset managers in Switzerland are more successful than their peers in Italy and Spainin achieving high returns from equity markets in an uncertain financial climate.

In common with much of continental Europe, Swiss equity funds suffered a heavy wave of redemptions in 2007 and the first half of this year as volatile stock markets scared away investors. But some Swiss fund managers have raised their game by producing outperformance, or alpha, across a slightly higher proportion of their funds than in last year's analysis.