Equity markets in several countries reached new highs in November. Resilient macroeconomic news and the prospect of continued loose monetary policy helped US equities to record levels; the announcement of new state reforms in China saw the Hang Seng hitting its highest level for 30 months. Some other markets, however, fared less well. Amid continued concerns over their external balances, Turkey, Brazil, India and South Africa all fell.The majority of our fund's holdings, meanwhile, reported third-quarter results. Regrettably, this prompted a degree of activity on our part. Disappointing results prompted us to sell our holdings in Qualcomm, Synaptics and Ingram Micro (in the technology sector), along with Atwood Oceanics, Carrizo Oil & Gas and Rosneft (in the energy sector).We used the proceeds to increase our exposure to financial stocks, buying Partner Re (US), PICC Property and Casualty (China), Allianz and Commerzbank (Germany) and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.On balance, we have increased the fund's exposure to European and emerging markets at the expense of North America. At 31% (a 20 percentage-point overweight versus our benchmark), our emerging market weighting is as high as it has been in the 10 years that we have managed this fund. China stands out as our single most significant country position in emerging markets. India and Hong Kong are also material overweights.At a sector level, overweights in chemicals, basic resources and construction are offset by underweights in healthcare, retail and food & beverages. The fund thus has a clear bias towards companies that stand to benefit from an acceleration of the global business cycle.
393.37p
