Fund Objective

The aim of the Fund is to achieve long-term capital growth.

View on Past Performance

The concerted effort to rescue the world's financial system continued unabated in October. Equity injections, increased liquidity provisions, talk of coordinated rate cuts and even government orchestrated mergers were all thrown at the ever worrying issue of expensive and scarce debt.We have recently met with companies with robust balance sheets and investment grade credit worthiness who express concern over their ability to acquire funding in this environment.For those with less worthy finances, the credit market must be all but shut.Though still at elevated levels in comparison to when the financial crisis first emerged, inter bank lending rates did appear to show the first tentative signs of easing. What is more difficult to gauge, and will take longer to work through is the extent to which this results in a more liquid market with less fear of counterparty risk.The equity markets suffered another month of steep declines with the FTSE World Europe ex UK declining by 14.9%. A result flattered by a strong rally in the last week of the period.

Future Expectations

The Fund underperformed over the course of the month with the relative underperformance coming mainly from the final week's rally.The fund does still tilt more toward a defensive stance, however, we are aware that markets have fallen to an extent that a lot of bad news is in the price.

Fund Details