January 2025 performance
It was a favourable month for financial markets with both bond and equities gaining over the month. There was a small shift downwards of the yield curve, meaning longer bonds gained more than shorter dated ones. Notably sovereigns outperformed credit and high yield over the month. Global equities similarly experienced a stronger month with all regions posting positive returns. Europe led the way up 8.3% followed by the UK (5.5%). Value (5.3%) outperfomed both Growth (3.5%) and Quality (4.7%) over the month, although all were positive.
Equity sector wise, only Information Tech (-0.7%) posted negative returns due to the AI sell-off following the emergence of DeepSeek’s low cost AI model. All other equity regions experienced positive returns over the month with Financials (7.4%) and Healthcare (7.2%) the strongest performers.
All this resulted in strong positive returns over the month for portfolios, in both absolute and relative terms with all portfolios ahead of their IA sectors. The Active and Sustainable ranges enjoyed the best performance over the month returning 1.6% to 5.1%, and 1.7% to 5.0% respectively. The Passive range lagged behind a little returning between 1.5% and 4.6% over the month, indicating that our fund selection was a benefit to the portfolios throughout January. Predictably the Blended range was between the Active and Passive range returning between 1.6% and 4.8% over the month. The Income range returned between 2.0% and 4.0%.
