During the quarter Gartmore's overweight holdings in Marks & Spencer, Spectris, and Carphone Warehouse contributed most positively to performance. After Carphone Warehouse was introduced to the portfolio, the company's shares rose strongly on optimism about the company's US expansion plans and stated aim to target 3.5 million broadband customers in the UK over the next three years.The investments in Aviva and Yell were sold. Additions to the portfolio included BP and Royal Dutch Shell and the mining company, Kazakhmys. UBS continued to be underweight the basic materials sector which turned out to be one of the strongest performing sectors within the FTSE AllShare Index over the second quarter following its strong run in the first quarter. At a stock level Vodafone continues to be one of the largest stock bets, and this has benefited the portfolio.The second quarter saw the best US equity returns come from Acadian. Stock picking has been particularly strong, especially in May, when the manager's choice of companies added over 2% to the rise of the portfolio that month. The choice of industry has also been generally good and, in the same month, this aspect of the manager's returns contributed just under 0.5% to the portfolio.
