Global Strategy Fund: June 2022

Summary

• There was significant volatility present in May, however markets attempted a slight recovery towards the last few days of the month. The same sentiments as the previous few months were experienced: uncertainties around the Russian-Ukraine conflict, COVID-19 restrictions in China and US monetary policy concerns. The best performing underlying sector by a large margin was the Energy sector returning +10.82%. Global equities, as measured by the FTSE All-World Total Return Index returned +0.19% for May.
• For the past month, value stocks outperformed growth stocks and have done so on a year-to-date basis.
• Global bonds took a turn and had a positive return (as measured by The FTSE WorldBIG Index), ending May ahead of global equities with a return of +0.30%. 
• The Ashburton Global Strategy Fund priced for the last time in May returned -3.46% between 27 April 2022 and 25 May 2022.
• With markets being so volatile during the month, the star performance for the month came from the core equity manager, Epoch and deep value manager, Lyrical, outperforming the benchmark by a large margin, returning 2.52% and 2.23% respectively.
• The alternatives hedge fund of funds manager, Aurum returned -0.87% for May.
• Global property had a negative month, and the AB Global Real Estates Securities Fund returned -4.37%.
• Mundane, produced returns lower than the benchmark for the month, returning -0.84%.
• The bond exposure via the Colchester Global Bond Fund had a positive return for May of 0.68%, outperforming the bond index. 
• 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 May 2022. The equities exposure was reduced from 67% to 65% and the fund is now neutral to its Strategic Asset Allocation. The Alternatives exposure was increased by 2%, to 32%.