Monthly Investment Report - January 2024
RUFFER INVESTMENT COMPANY LIMITED
(a closed-ended investment company incorporated in Guernsey with registration number 41996)
LEI 21380068AHZKY7MKNO47
Attached is a link to the Monthly Investment Report for January 2024.
http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/3940C_1-2024-2-7.pdf
Global asset markets started the year almost unanimously priced for a perfect soft landing, following the strong rally in both equities and bonds into the year end. This left scope for disappointment in January if either assumption of early interest rate cuts or steady growth were dialled back. In the end it was bonds that gave way as doubts emerged over the speed of likely US rate cuts, whilst equities in aggregate continued to make gains. Tensions in the Middle East remained high, leading to the oil price rising 6% and freight costs rising sharply to more than double the post-covid low seen in October. As yet this has had no impact on inflation expectations, with markets now convinced that this dragon has been slain.
The backup in bond yields, especially in the UK, meant that our remaining holding in long-duration UK inflation-linked bonds was a drag on performance. Having chosen to add risk into portfolios through a significant increase in bond duration in the final quarter of 2023, we took the profits on this position by the year end, adding instead to our net equity exposure this month, in light of continued US economic resilience. We believed yields had fallen too far, too fast, given our concerns over the likely stickiness and volatility of inflation, and so started this year with just a core holding in UK inflation-linked bonds. This was the largest detractor to performance in the month, but we see this as temporary volatility in a core element of our long-term inflation protections. Gold and gold equities also fell back in January.
Global equities were positive overall in January, with the S&P 500 hitting an all-time high during the month. However, it is worth remembering this merely constitutes a recovery from the 2022 bear market, with equities still broadly flat over the last two years and in our view does little to support the current, almost euphoric, levels of stock market positioning. Once again, as we saw last year, equity gains in January remained narrowly based. The S&P 500 rose 1.7% in the month, but the equal weighted version was in negative territory. There has also been what might be considered a worrying concentration of performance within the dominant mega-cap tech stocks. NVIDIA and Meta recorded double digit gains, but Tesla fell 20%, and Apple and Alphabet were flat to down. Elsewhere, investors continued to shun value, with the cheapest markets (China, emerging markets and the UK) all down on the month. For us, the UK appears anomalously undervalued while China now seems to be pricing in despair.
Overall, the big questions for investors remain unresolved. Most equity markets have now recovered their 2022 losses and are increasingly priced on the assumption that inflation will fall to target and stay there, without a decline in profit margins or economic growth. Bond markets appear to be more realistically pricing in a regime of higher interest rates, even if they show periods of over optimism. Has the Fed 'put' now been restored, with the central bank free to cut rates if growth falters, or will sticky and volatile inflation leave them facing more difficult choices? In other words, are equities and bonds still positively correlated or have we returned to the 'Goldilocks' conditions of the pre-covid era? We remain unconvinced that inflation has vanished for good and that there will be no lasting impact from higher interest rates. Therefore protection remains key to the Ruffer portfolio.
Enquiries:
Sanne Fund Services (Guernsey) Limited
Jamie Dodd
Email: RIC@apexfs.group
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