Trade war rhetoric was once again the primary source of market volatility last month. Initially, markets were buoyed by lower than expected tariffs placed on imports by both the US and China, as the trade war was then deemed to be less severe than initially expected. At the same time, the US invited China to further trade talks, on which practitioners were most likely placing a high probability of a promising outcome. At the drop of a dime, this quickly changed when China called off the talks, which sent emerging markets into a tailspin. The MSCI World index added 4.53% in Q3 as demand for quality assets rose. Conversely, the MSCI Emerging Markets index lost -2.02% over the same period as risk off sentiment took its toll. US and EU markets were mostly up over the quarter with the S&P 500 and the CAC40 indices closing 7.20% and 3.19% up respectively. The DAX index lost -0.48% in Q3 as fears grew that Germany was next in line to face the wrath of Trump's nationalist policies.
Domestically, SA officially entered a recession, which caught markets off guard to some extent. To counter this, President Ramaphosa released plans to ignite domestic growth, which was well received by markets. Nevertheless, the JSE All Share index ended the third quarter -2.17% in the red. This was driven largely by the Industrials sector, which shed -8.25% over the quarter. The Resources and Financials sectors on the other hand proved to be more resilient and ended up 4.60% and 4.20% respectively. The Fund returned -4.57% for the month, marginally behind the FTSE/JSE SWIX Index (-4.54%).

Contributors to Performance The positions that contributed the most to the performance of the fund were Anglo American PLC (+7.77%), Impala Platinum Holdings (+53.63) and Old Mutual Ltd (+4.64%).

Detractors from Performance The largest detractors from the months' performance were Naspers (-6.36%), Aspen (-41.88%) and Sasol (-3.63%).