In July, the positions which added the most performance versus the benchmark were the overweighting of industrials and the underweighting of financials. However, we were underweight the best-performing sectors: oil & gas, basic materials and healthcare.At the stock level, the fund benefited from the positions in EVS Broadcast Equipment, following good results, FL Smidth and Arcadis. Negative contributions were made by Demag Cranes and Gurit, which both announced profit warnings, and Francotyp-Postalia, which was negatively impacted by the dollar's weakness against the euro.During the month we purchased the Dutch engineer Imtech, the French care homes operator Orpea and the the German foundry equipment manufacturer SKW. We sold Demag Cranes, Domino's Pizza and Datamonitor.
The general global economic outlook is still positive, though trading can be volatile in small caps, especially when the market in general behaving unpredictably. We believe there will be opportunities to buy good stocks cheaply.