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Global Strategy Fund: December 2021

Summary

• Developed market equities had a volatile month as concerns around the new variant wiped out the gains from the start of November, resulting in global equities ending the month in the red. All the global equity sub-sectors posted negative returns except for the Technology sector that returned +2.1%. The worst performing sectors were the Real Estate, Energy and Financial sectors, returning -7.4%, -7,2% and -6.2% respectively. Returns out of China were also negative, after having a positive return in October. Global equities, as measured by the FTSE All-World Total Return Index returned -2.5% for November.
• On a year-to-date and one month basis, growth is making a solid comeback and is outperforming value stocks.
• It was another bumpy and negative month for global bonds, which continued to come under pressure since the start of the year, with government bonds (as measured by The FTSE WorldBIG Index), ending the month -0.4%.
• The Ashburton Global Strategy Fund priced for November, returned a satisfactory +0.42% between 27 October 2021 and 24 November 2021.
• Global property had a particularly negative month, but the AB Global Real Estates Securities Fund outperformed the index and returned -2.3%.
• From the three main equity managers, Mundane slightly outperformed the equity benchmark, returning -2.4% for November.
• The core equity manager, Epoch and deep value equity manager, Lyrical underperformed the benchmark for the month returning -3.3% and -3.1% respectively. 
• The bond exposure via the Colchester Global Bond Fund had a negative return for November of  -1.3%, underperforming The FTSE WorldBIG Index. 
• The small exposure to China via the Cederberg Greater China Fund had another negative month, returning -6.9% for November.
• The Ashburton Global Strategy Fund reflects the macroeconomic house view of Ashburton Investments and post the implementation of the new Strategic Asset Allocation in January 2021. There have been no changes made from a tactical asset allocation perspective.