View all posts

Global Strategy Fund: May 2022

Summary

  • The same sentiments that were felt in the first three months of the year were echoed during April, as global markets sold-off. Markets remained volatile as uncertainties around how the Russian-Ukraine conflict, China lockdowns due to COVID and US monetary policies will affect economies. The best performing and only positive underlying sector was Consumer Staples returning +0.71%. Global equities, as measured by the FTSE All-World Total Return Index returned -7.86% for the month.
  • For the past month, 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 April with a return of -5.65%.
  • The Ashburton Global Strategy Fund priced for the last time in April, returned -3.36% between 30 March 2022 and 27 April 2022, outperforming its SAA that returned -6.33% over the same measurement period.
  • With all asset classes ending the month in the red, the star performer for the period was the Aurum exposure with a return of +1.82% (between the periods 30 March 2022 to 27 April 2022).
  • Global property had a negative month, and the AB Global Real Estates Securities Fund returned -5.10%.
  • From the three main equity managers, the core equity manager, Epoch and deep value manager, Lyrical, albeit a negative return outperformed the benchmark for the month, returning -3.90% and -6.56% respectively.
  • Mundane, produced returns lower than the benchmark for the month, returning -9.67%.
  • The bond exposure via the Colchester Global Bond Fund had a negative return for April of -5.94%.
  • 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.