Monthly Investment Report - July 2026

Ruffer Investment Company Limited

13 August 2026

 

RUFFER INVESTMENT COMPANY LIMITED

(a closed-ended investment company incorporated in Guernsey with registration number 41966)

(the "Company")

Attached is a link to the Monthly Investment Report for July 2026:

http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/4494Q_1-2026-8-12.pdf

The fund return was positive in July, driven by strong performance from the equity book and the commodity holdings.

The best-performing major asset in July was Brent crude oil (+24%) as the US-Iran conflict re-escalated, and bond yields rose too (bond prices fell), with the US 30 year yield reaching its highest level (5.3%) since 2007.

The portfolio proved robust to both dynamics, firstly thanks to the position in agricultural commodities (all of which rose strongly in the month) and the lower weighting to oil-consuming cyclical companies. Secondly, and more relevant for future returns, the exceptional asymmetry on offer in many of the assets the fund currently holds means small changes in news flow or fundamentals can lead to outsize positive performance whilst proving resilient to bad news.

For example, one of the catalysts for the sell-off in global AI stocks was (like DeepSeek in January 2025) the announcement of a powerful yet cheap new Chinese AI model, Kimi K3, trained using Alibaba's cloud technology. Whilst semiconductor stocks had their worst month since 2008, Alibaba was the largest positive contributor to the fund in July, with its share price up nearly 30%.

The yen contributed positively in the month, rising more than any other G7 currency (+3.3%). The fund has owned the yen since late 2022 as a hedge to its risk assets; our thesis at the time was that it would be a lower-cost tail hedge than the alternatives. That part was wrong (it has been an expensive hedge) but the yen is starting to come good, with evidence of US and Japanese intervention in the currency towards the end of July. It continues to offer protective characteristics and perhaps, finally, a lower cost of carry.

The main negative contributor in the month was the bond position in the fund. Bond yields rose in part because the new Chair of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, failed to live up to market expectations that he would deliver on a stated intent to control inflation. Investors are easily led astray by listening to central bankers' words rather than looking at the context in which they operate: we do not believe Warsh is different to any of the central bankers who have preceded him in the last 30 years. Politicians (to whom central bankers are answerable) almost never want higher deposit rates, and Warsh is unlikely to deliver them unless he is absolutely forced to by rising inflation or bond yields. So we expect higher US inflation and bond yields until both are driven into reverse by a falling US equity market, making bonds structurally dangerous but cyclically useful - indeed we added to 30 year inflation-linked bonds in the US (TIPS) at the end of the month, as real yields exceeded 3%. We also further reduced the position in the UK long-dated linkers in favour of 10 and 30 year TIPS, preferring the US's higher real yields and greater political certainty.

In the short term, investment is mainly about positioning: financial markets have a marvellous way of turning a good idea into a bad investment by funnelling too much capital towards it. Our view is that the utopian narrative surrounding AI makes it a bad place to find a margin of safety; meanwhile, there are rich pickings in the rest of the equity market. For protection, we are confident that bonds and the yen (alongside the short credit position) should provide good returns if equity markets fall materially.

Enquiries:

Aztec Financial Services (Guernsey) Limited

Company Secretary

Lewis Germain

DDI: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

 

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