Temperatures and stock markets heat up

20 aug 2018

Dear investors,

Much like the temperature stock prices generally were in an upward trend during July. A strong job market and earnings season in the US and an apparent de-escalation of the US-EU trade conflict made investors hope that the geopolitical tensions, that had so often dominated the news during the first half of the year, were a thing of the past. On the back of this good economic news the MSCI World NR ended the month 2.9% higher.

Emerging markets, however, remained in the backseat - continuing to lag behind their developed market counterparts by about 1% during the month. This brings the year-to-date differential between the developed and developing regions to a considerable 8.4%. Valuation wise the P/E of emerging markets now stands at 14.1, which is substantially below that of the MSCI Europe (17.5), let alone that of the MSCI USA (23.1).

Vector Navigator recorded a return of 3.25% in July, outperforming its Morningstar category by 0.94% during the month. Flexible gained 2.15%, which allowed it to outperform the competition by 1.11%. While most funds in the Flexible Allocation category are still struggling to achieve positive returns in 2018, Flexible now stands at a year-to-date return of 1.46%, comfortably placing it within the best quartile of its Morningstar category.

Kind regards,

Thierry, Werner & Nils