Investor concerns over further contagion from the US sub-prime mortgage market continued to weigh heavily on markets during August. UK equities posted slightly negative to flat returns for the month, with the FTSE 100 Index falling below 6000 on 16 August. This was its largest one-day fall since March 2003, led sharply lower by financial companies.The UK Equity High Income Fund was affected by the volatility that hit UK equities in August, but held up better than many funds in its sector, delivering positive returns on the back of good stock selection. The Fund's monthly figures also benefited from a timing difference between when we price our funds and when other funds in the sector are priced.This difference has no long-term affect on the Fund's performance. Northumbrian water recovered strongly during the month, as investors saw a buying opportunity, boosting August's performance.In August, we mainly used market volatility to add to some favoured stock positions at attractive valuations where we see long-term value. These included furniture maker Galiform, financial companies Provident Financial and Barclays, and mining company Xstrata.
The UK stock market should find support from improving sentiment as investors start to look beyond a peak in interest rates. However, we are wary of the problems in credit markets. We remain biased towards the industrial and mining sectors, which are continuing to benefit from strong demand and supply side discipline, despite some concerns over a slowdown in global growth.We believe investors have priced in an overly pessimistic outlook for some companies in the banking sector, where we expect earnings trends to be more sustainable than the market expects.