Monthly Investment Report - September 2023

Ruffer Investment Company Limited

06 October 2023

 

RUFFER INVESTMENT COMPANY LIMITED

(a closed-ended investment company incorporated in Guernsey with registration number 41996)

LEI 21380068AHZKY7MKNO47

Attached is a link to the Monthly Investment Report for September 2023.

http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/0306P_1-2023-10-6.pdf

There was a growing sense through September that a combination of US economic resilience and higher oil prices would force the US Fed to keep interest rates higher for longer. The latest 'dot plot' of Federal Open Markets Committee board members' expectations for interest rates over the coming few years, which the Fed uses to influence the market's expectations of the level and path of future interest rates, seemed to confirm as much - suggesting for the first time that rates would stay above 5% for all of 2024. A persistently strong economy with a persistent inflation problem demands persistently high interest rates. Equity and bond markets had already started to roll over in anticipation, but the release of the dot plot on 20 September encouraged them both lower into month end.

That the fund largely sidestepped these falls was thanks to the large allocation to very short-dated UK and US government bonds, which carried positively even as longer-term interest rates rose. The fund's position in oil and energy and related equities also made a positive contribution, benefitting from supply-side discipline from both OPEC and marginal US producers. It is our view recession risks are building, and oil will not be immune once the market downgrades demand expectations, so we took some profits.

On the other side of the ledger, the fund's longer dated bond holdings, in US (TIPS) and UK inflation-linked bonds, were the biggest detractors from performance. Towards the end of the month, we decided to take advantage of these falls to add to US TIPS, allocating 5% of the fund's capital to ten year bonds offering real yields of nearly 2.3%. This was partly funded by a sale of the small remainder of the fund's gold bullion exposure. The latter has remained remarkably resilient in the face of persistently high US real rates, giving us an opportunity to switch the exposure into TIPS at what we deem very good relative value.

We also took advantage of the spurt of US dollar strength in September to reduce US dollar exposure in favour of further bolstering our yen position, which now makes up c20% of the fund. We continue to expect the yen to be one of the assets at the epicentre of an unwind of trades that have proved popular this year but that we deem unsustainable.

On the flip side of US dollar strength was sterling weakness, which also allowed us to exit the position in Australian government bonds on favourable terms. We remain cautious on sterling, but it has fallen hard and fast over the last couple of months and we don't want a temporary reversal to hold back performance.

A darkening economic reality, combined with tight monetary policy in the UK and US and incrementally restrictive policy from the Bank of Japan, we think will ultimately cause a great, and quite possibly sudden, reversal of the market moves over the first eight months of 2023. When it comes, this should benefit the fund's biggest positions, in UK and US inflation-linked bonds, and the yen. We may well look back on September 2023 as a turning point.

We are holding a meeting for shareholders on Tuesday 5 December at our London office. If you would like to attend please email [e-mail]

Enquiries:

Sanne Fund Services (Guernsey) Limited

Jamie Dodd

Email: [e-mail]

 

END