Fund Objective

The Fund aims to provide a high monthly income and some long-term capital growth.

View on Past Performance

Within the equity portion of the portfolio holdings in National Grid, United Utilities and Scottish & Southern Energy were positive contributors to performance as was a position in pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch Shell, Man Group and Inchcape however were among those detracting from performance.For fixed income performance was hit hard by a position in Lehman Bros and additional volatility across our broader holdings in financials. Holdings within high yield have underperformed as investors adopt an increasingly risk averse stance. Slowing economic growth and a more challenging funding environment have pushed default expectations significantly higher - depressing the outlook for high yield and increasing the importance of individual issue selection.

Future Expectations

Continued signs of a slowdown in economic growth means that we remain relatively cautious on the near-term outlook. There are however, some grounds for optimism. Recent efforts by governments have reduced some of the uncertainty surrounding the banking sector and a significant drop in oil and other commodity prices means that central banks have greater scope to cut rates and stimulate growth.

Fund Details