Fund Objective

The Scheme is designed to achieve growth in capital and income

View on Past Performance

This last year has seen the US Federal Reserve act to nudge interest rates up from 2.25% to 3.0% in three incremental stages, beginning in February 2005. There has been a limited response from equity markets, which had broadly anticipated the shift in policy from what were accepted as unsustainably low levels.In Europe both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank (ECB) kept rates on hold at 4.75% and 2% respectively. The UK housing market is no longer a runaway train and this, together with retail sales weakness, has allowed the Bank to refrain from pushing rates any further upwards.In the Far East, some dollar sensitive markets have fallen, as rising US rates and a resurgent dollar pegged back competitiveness. Other markets not pegged to the Greenback (Korea, Indonesia) enjoyed good gains. In China, growth is slowing from the peak of 2004, but exports are still some 35% up year-on-year.Addressing the statistics on portfolio performance, I can report that the Fund portfolio has risen 2.2% in capital terms. This represents a successful year of out-performance of the MSCI Index.

Fund Details