Monthly Investment Report - May 2023

Ruffer Investment Company Limited

20 June 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 May 2023.

http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/3182D_1-2023-6-20.pdf

Might discretion be the better part of valour? So far this year it seems not. Taking a cautious view on markets for the first five months of 2023 has proved a painful experience. The Company, with its focus on protection assets, is down 6.5% this year on a NAV total return basis, giving back much of what we made last year as markets tumbled.

Losing money for clients is always painful, but we have been here before. For more than a quarter of a century now, Ruffer has protected investors from every major market crisis. In order to achieve this, however, we have at times delivered dull or disappointing short-term performance. Losing money in 1999 in the tech bubble, flatlining in the easy markets of 2006-2007 and struggling in the run up to the covid crisis. Strikingly, each of our disappointing periods has come before a sharp decline in stock markets, as we focused portfolios more on protection than growth, albeit often seemingly too early. We have been willing to sit on the sidelines as we wait for the problems we have identified to manifest themselves, even if that means suffering the costs of holding protection with progressively less on the growth side of the ledger as an offset.

We are where we are for a reason. With a 5.25% risk free return available in US money market funds, cash has only been such an attractive alternative to equities twice this century: in 2000, during the tech bubble and in 2007, just before the financial crisis. Neither period ended well for investors, and we fear a similar outcome could be lying in wait for markets now. Even more worrying is what happened after these crises. In both 2000 and 2008 markets were immediately 'medicated' by dramatic interest rate cuts. Today, a similar rescue may be difficult. With inflation more persistent than promised, central bankers would have to choose between monetary stability (fighting inflation) or financial stability (supporting markets). Add into this worrying picture a TMT-like boom concentrated in just a few US stocks (year to date the unweighted S&P 500 is actually down in price terms).

All of this points to an emphasis on protection rather than growth, though as ever we aim for an appropriate balance of 'fear' and 'greed' so as to make time our friend. We are confident our protection assets will more than prove their worth and whilst timing is always difficult, we would always choose being too early over being too late. This year, however, it has more been our focus on commodities for our growth exposure that has failed to offset the costs of holding protection.

For us, this certainly looks like a situation where 'discretion' should still prove to be the better part of 'valour'. Taking a cautious view so far this year has been painful, but we think the evidence suggests that caution may win out.

Note to investors - The financial effects of the Company's formal equity fundraising in November 2021 were not accurately reflected in performance calculations, leading to past performance figures being understated by a non-material amount in the Company's interim, annual and monthly reports published between December 2021 and April 2023. The performance methodology has been updated to amend this error. The dividend paid by the Company on 7 March 2023 was erroneously omitted from monthly investment report performance calculations in March and April 2023, leading to past performance figures being understated by a non-material amount in those two reports. This has been rectified in this report.

Enquiries:

Sanne Fund Services (Guernsey) Limited

Jamie Dodd

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

 

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