The panic of March gave way to a calmer April which proved to be a false dawn as financial and cyclical stocks collapsed during May and June as further evidence of the credit crunch's damage emerged. Inflation growth and asset pricing pessimism clouded the macro background. The Bradford & Bingley rights issue debacle coupled with perceived and actual fund raising led to a frenzied and near panic attack on almost all stocks outside the Mining and Oil sectors.Share price falls have been indiscriminate and without any floor. It is hysteria on a scale not seen since 1974! We believe that UK equity earnings could fall 30% and still offer good value. For the moment valuations do not count with the only safe havens seen as cash or commodities.Support Services, the fund's largest sector overweight, has demonstrated its attractions as Corporates, Government and Military become more focused on improving the efficiency of all their services. We believe growth will continue through a more challenging economic environment. The fund's largest stock overweight is Serco which, in our opinion, is the purest growth stock amongst large UK companies.The fear surrounding all things financial has uncovered some outstanding value in the General Financials sector. We believe our holdings will demonstrate resilience through the difficult economic environment. Cattles is a leading non-standard consumer lender. It has a robust non-standard credit business with an excellent long term track record. It is benefiting from the withdrawal of competition from the market enabling it to write higher credit quality business at better prices.
89.21p
