Gold funds were the strongest performers last month, and international equity funds were the weakest, according to Morningstar Canada.

In January, the precious metals category’s median one-month return was 13.4%, fueled by an 11.6% charge by the Toronto Stock Exchange’s Gold and Precious Minerals Index. Funds in the natural resource category produced the month’s next best return, with a median return of 2.6%.

“The precious metals group is a notoriously volatile one,” says Mark Warywoda, senior analyst with Morningstar Canada. “These funds’ performance might not have been as wildly up and down as for tech funds of late, but no other category has experienced more volatility over the last decade.”

Most other fund categories, however, struggled to break even, or suffered negative one-month returns. Canadian small cap equity funds out-did their larger cap and diversified counterparts during January, with a 1.4% median return.

The median Canadian large cap equity fund slipped 1% and the Canadian equity category slipped a median 0.7%, while Canadian dividend funds were off 0.3%. But equities on this side of the border outpaced those to the south as the median U.S. Equity fund fell 1.7%.

The fixed-income funds in general broke even, while balanced funds came up slightly short. The median foreign bond fund lost 1.2% and the median global balanced fund dropped 2%.

Mackenzie Financial Corp. continued to have the most five-star funds of any fund company. At January 31, Mackenzie had 13 five-star funds, well ahead of AIM Funds Management Inc., with eight (a drop of one from December).

Tied for third, with seven top-ranked funds, were Franklin Templeton Investments and Great-West Life Assurance Co.