The Southern Charter Growth Fund of Funds will change it's name to Southern Charter MET Growth Fund of Funds, effective from 10 December 2012

Equity markets were boosted in September by announcements of more monetary stimulus, with the JSE up 1.6% and MSCI World Index up 1% for the month. This was despite the local resource stocks coming under pressure from strike activity. Notwithstanding this, our managers made no major changes to their top ten holdings as valuations and dividend yields are still attractive on these stocks.

In contrast to the positive global news, South African's credit rating was downgraded in the wake of the Marikana fallout. This resulted in an extremely volatile bond market with yields on long bonds moving up 34 basis points, then down 32 basis points at one stage finally ending the month flat. Our managers traded this and added to bonds at the higher levels, switching out of cash. Our underlying fixed interest managers are currently achieving yields of around 6.7%.

Property stocks declined in the month in line with the kick up in bond yields. Despite this, listed property remains attractive given improving vacancies and distribution growth in excess of cash.