February 2025 performance
It was a volatile month for financial markets primarily driven by the announcements coming out of the US with regards to tariffs and also Trump’s intervention in the Russia-Ukraine war. The uncertainty surrounding Trump’s trade war policies weighed heavily on global sentiment with equity markets very jittery and bonds rallying slightly given their safe haven nature.
Overall world equities were down 2% but the split across regions was mixed with Europe (2.4%) and UK (1.3%) enjoying positive returns whereas the US (-2.9%) and Japan (-2,7%) were down over the month. Style wise, there was a rotation away from Growth (-4.1%) and into Value (0.2%) and small caps suffered during the month (-4.6%).
Equity sector wise, Consumer Discretionary had a nasty month down -7.9% off the back of softer economic data and recessionary fears. Information Tech followed suit as was down -3.2%. Consumer staples was the best performing sector up 3.5% followed by Aero & Defense up 1.9%.
All this resulted in underperformance of the portfolios, given our significant weight to the US equity markets and the quality growth nature of the portfolios. The Sustainable portfolios suffered the most returning between -0.1% ad -4.1% due to their higher weight to the US and information tech specifically. The Active range also suffered for similar reasons returning between 0.0% and -3.3%. The Income range fared a little better due to its value bias and it’s greater weight to the UK returning between -0.2% and -1.3%, however the Passive range performed the best returning between 0.3% and -1.3%.
Year to date 2025
Whilst the portfolios gave back some of their strong performance in January over February, all models remain in positive territory year to date. The Passive range has returned between 1.9% and 2.7%, the Active range between 1.7% and 1.6% and the Blended range between 1.8% and 2.1%. The Income range has returned between 1.8% and 2.6% and the Sustainable range between 1.6% and 0.7%.
