March 2024 performance
It was a good month for bonds with longer duration holdings faring better than shorter dated ones. Similarly, global equities enjoyed another strong month with all equity market regions up over the month, with value (4.8%) outperforming growth (2.0%) over the month. Whilst all sectors were positive, there was much more differentiation within the sectors with energy (9.3%) and materials (6.6%) the top performers and information (1.8%) and consumer discretionary (1.0%) bringing up the tail end.
All this resulted in average performance for our portfolios throughout March. The strong bond performance combined with weaker equity performance has resulted in quite similar returns across the risk profiles. The Active range returned between 1.5% and 1.9%, the Sustainable range between 1.6% and 2.1%, and the Income range returned 2.5% across all three risk profiles. The exception to this is the Passive portfolios which returned between 1.5% and 3.5% due to the exposure to Energy which was the top-performing sector over the month.
Year to date 2024
Year to date, all of our portfolios have experienced positive performance. The Sustainable range has experienced good performance returning between 1.9% and 6.5% outperforming the Active and Income portfolios but sitting a little behind the Passive portfolios at the upper risk end. The Passive portfolios have experienced returns between 1.7% and 6.9% and are ahead of the Active range which has returned 1.7% to 5.7% this year so far. These three ranges have enjoyed excellent relative performance, exceeding their comparative IA Sectors. The exception is the Income range which has experienced weaker performance but caught up over March and has returned between 1.7% and 3.4% year to date.
