Summary

• It was a strong start of the year for developed markets equities, however toward the end of the month this was reversed. This was due to some big market moves in the last few trading days of January, mainly from the whole GameStop debacle, that led to significant volatility. On a more positive note, emerging markets equities ended the month in the green, led by China.

• Global equities as measured by the FTSE World Total Return Index returned -0.43%.

• Government bonds (FTSE WorldBIG Index) and Global property (FTSE EPRA NAREIT Global Index) had a negative month returning -1.00% and -0.78% respectively.

• The Ashburton Global Strategy Fund returned a satisfactory +2.97%, (this is the NAV on NAV move between the 30 December 2020 and 27 January 2021). This performance is higher than if we would have priced with each underlying fund’s actual month end’s valuation.

• Given the strong performance from China, it should be no surprise that the exposure to Cederberg Greater China Equity Fund performed the best for the month returning 9.4%.  As a result, within the equity bucket, four of the five underlying managers underperformed the benchmark and posted negative returns.

• The fixed income fund, Colchester Global Bond Fund also posted a negative return of -1.3%.

• The alternatives bucket, consisting of Aurum Isis, Goldman Sachs Absolute Return Tracker and Franklin Templeton Global Total Return Funds likewise posted negative returns across the board.  

• The Ashburton Global Strategy Fund reflects the macroeconomic house view of Ashburton Investments. From a tactical asset allocation perspective, the last changes were made during December where the exposure to equities was increased by 2%, resulting in the allocation to cash to decrease.