MARKET OVERVIEW
After a relatively weak August in equity markets, September 2010 will go down in history as one of the most profitable months ever. World equity markets rose across the board as the MSCI World and Emerging Market indices put on gains of 9.1% and 10.9% respectively. Within the developed markets, the US equity return of 9.0% represented the largest September gain in 71 years. Other excellent returns were posted by Hong Kong, up 8.9%, Germany 5.1% and the UK and Japan rose 6.2% each. Emerging markets were on the charge as excellent gains were posted by India, up 11.7% and Indonesia 13.6%. Reasonable increases were also seen in Brazil of 6.6%, Russian 5.9% and let's not ignore the 15.0% gain in SA equity market in dollar terms! China lagged other emerging markets with a monthly return of only 0.6%. The dollar was weak, falling 6.9% and 2.5% against the euro and sterling respectively. The dollar weakness propelled commodity prices higher; copper rose 9.4%, platinum 9.7%, oil 10.3%, nickel 12.1%, palladium 16.0% and silver 17.0%. The gold price only managed a 4.9% gain. The Rand was 5.8% stronger against the dollar, weakened 1.5% against the euro but rose 3.2% against sterling. On the local front the All share index rose 8.8%, with the laggard again being the resource sector which rose "only" 7.2%, whereas the financial and industrial indices rose 8.0% and 10.0% respectively. SA large caps in the form of the Top40 index (9.1%) outperformed their mid (7.0%) and small (6.3%) cap brethren. The All bond index rose 0.8% during September as yields continued to fall. The one month return on cash was 0.5%.


INVESTMENT ADVISOR'S COMMENT
During September the NAV rose 8.3% versus the 9.5% and 8.8% gains in the Maestro equity benchmark and the All Share Index respectively. Due to the basic materials index underperforming and the industrial index outperforming the All share index, there was quite a large (0.7%) difference between the All share index and the Maestro equity benchmark. Altech declined 7.5% after disappointing results and Arcelor Mittal fell 0.1%. The monthly gainers include Blue Label up 34.0%, Cashbuild 14.7%, Naspers 14.5%, Aspen 11.8% after its excellent results, Capitec 11.6% after even better results, Mr Price 11.3%, Abil 10.7% and Wilson Bayly 10.6%.