Monthly Investment Report - March 2023

RNS Number : 5968W

Ruffer Investment Company Limited

18 April 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 March 2023.

http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/5968W_1-2023-4-18.pdf  

If ever there was a month to dig a little deeper than a cursory glance at the positive returns for both bonds and equities, it was March 2023. We began the month with US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell reintroducing volatility to the bond market after he noted that the Fed would again consider 50bp rate hikes. This moved bond yields higher for a matter of days before the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the US and the rushed acquisition of the long-troubled Credit Suisse by its Swiss counterpart UBS, as investors turned their backs on the weakest of financials. Policymakers have been swift in responding and we have likely survived a moment of acute stress. What has not been solved is the chronic shift of deposits away from bank accounts to higher yielding alternatives and the damaging effect this will pose to financial market liquidity.

The fund's duration assets, through inflation-linked government bonds and gold exposure, delivered positive contributions as yields fell. On the negative side of the ledger, the fund's exposure to commodity assets detracted from performance as uncertainty over the health of the global economy rose. Given the stability of the portfolio through these rapidly shifting sands, we resisted the temptation to make major changes. However, we did increase yen exposure to c 15% to enhance its role as a key protective asset in the portfolio's armoury.

There appears to be a growing dichotomy between the interpretation of recent events by bond and commodity markets compared to equities. The former are more than hinting that economic conditions are soon to deteriorate, whilst the latter is basking in another duration led rally catalysed by the fall in bond yields. We do not believe that both views can be held simultaneously for long. Our issue with the equity market's muscle memory is that given policymaker's battle with persistent inflation, you cannot have falling rates without a recession taking the heat out of the economy. We understand the logic that a lower discount rate makes future cash flows more valuable in the present, but we doubt that future cash flows will be unblemished in a tougher economic backdrop. Given this viewpoint, we continue to operate with a relatively modest exposure to risk assets (c 30% including equities and commodity exposure).

In 2022 investors were fixated on the rate of change of interest rates, however, we do not think financial markets are out of the woods even if policymakers appear to be reaching the final stages of their current rate hiking cycle. We operate in a financial system that has become accustomed to ever lower interest rates over the past four decades. The obvious outcome in such an environment is for leverage to increase - and increase it has. Whilst interest rates might have risen sharply over the last 12 months, the impact is not always felt instantaneously. As Warren Buffett once said, "only when the tide goes out do you learn who has been swimming naked". A repricing of the cost of capital has already taken out the giddiest parts of the market but the longer rates are held at current levels, the further the pain is likely to spread.

Enquiries:

Sanne Fund Services (Guernsey) Limited

Jamie Dodd

DDI: [phone] Email: [e-mail]

 

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