Summary

• It’s been a very volatile first three months of 2022 for developed market equities that only recovered at the end of March, after negative returns the previous months. Markets remained volatile due to uncertainties around how the Russian-Ukraine conflict will affect economies. The best performing sectors were utilities and the basic materials, returning +4.78% and +4.65% respectively. Global equities, as measured by the FTSE All-World Total Return Index returned +2.20% for the month.
• For the past quarter, albeit in negative territory, value stocks outperformed growth stocks.
• It was once again another negative month for global bonds, which continued to come under pressure, with government bonds (as measured by The FTSE WorldBIG Index) ending the month -3.03%.
• The Ashburton Global Strategy Fund priced for the last time in March, returned +0.75% between 23 February 2022 and 30 March 2022 even though it lagged the Strategic Asset Allocation (SAA) for the month. The fund is comfortably ahead of its SAA for the year so far.
• Global property had a positive month and the AB Global Real Estates Securities Fund returned +3.38%.
• From the three main equity managers, the core equity manager, Epoch had a positive month and outperformed the equity benchmark, returning +3.17%.
• The deep value manager Lyrical and Mundane, produced returns lower than the benchmark for the month, returning -0.32% and +1.72% respectively.
• The bond exposure via the Colchester Global Bond Fund had a negative return for March of -2.89%, however, it outperformed the FTSE WorldBIG Index.
• The small exposure to China via the Cederberg Greater China Fund also had another negative month, returning -13.79% on the back of a new outbreak of Omicron and the subsequent lockdowns in Shenzhen, Shanghai and other cities.
• The Ashburton Global Strategy Fund reflects the macroeconomic house view of Ashburton Investments, and subsequently the Tactical Asset Allocation of the fund was changed in March 2022. The equities exposure was reduced from 70% to 67%, however, the fund remains overweight vs. the SAA. The alternatives bucket was increased by 3%, mainly allocating to more gold exposure.