Quarterly Review Q1 2024 - Adventurous final - Flipbook - Page 5
Equities
With equities representing 97% of your Fund and equity markets generally performing well, this exposure
proved very additive over the quarter. This was further supplemented by the Fund being tactically
overweight to Japan, which was one of the strongest equity markets globally. Outside of Japan, it was
evident that “momentum” stocks were the primary driver of equity market returns over the quarter. This
means that stocks that have done well recently, which have typically been more growth-oriented stocks,
continued to perform well. Following this pattern, in your portfolio the Amundi Russell 1000 Growth ETF
exposure in the U.S. component rose +12.3% over the quarter. Other more growth-oriented exposures
in your portfolio like the BlackRock Continental Europe Fund (+12.0%) and the Baillie Gifford Paci昀椀c
Fund (+9.6%) also outperformed their comparators by a wide margin.
Conversely, those funds investing more in small caps or value-oriented stocks were typically the laggards,
with funds like the Baillie Gifford Global Discovery Fund (-9.8%), the Neuberger Berman US Small Cap
Value Fund (+5.4%) and the Pzena Global Value Fund (+5.6%) lagging their respective index comparators.
The Polar UK Value Opportunities Fund, which has a bias towards mid-cap value companies in the UK,
was a notable exception with the manager’s +5.4% quarterly return outperforming the FTSE All Share
Index. This outperformance was helped by a takeover bid for one of its companies at a 100% premium
as well as multiple other companies accompanying positive Q4 earnings announcements with increased
returns to shareholders through both dividends and share buybacks.
With valuations of many large cap growth/momentum stocks reaching highly elevated levels, we
continue to believe retaining deep and genuine diversi昀椀cation by style and region remains entirely
appropriate for your portfolio.
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