The performance of our client portfolios has been surprisingly robust since the sudden drop in market values in March of last year. We’d expected a very rocky ride going forward from the discovery of the new Coronavirus, but we didn’t expect the fast recovery that many stock markets experienced.
That said, not all stocks recovered during that initial bounce back & not all of those that struggled to recover have managed to do so in the last 20 months either. So, if one was invested in travel & leisure & in the hospitality industry, one generally lost a lot of money, while those invested in pharmaceuticals & in IT, generally made good money.
The investment world is not as simple as all that though. There are many stocks in the IT sector that are not attracting investors, while there are some previously out of favour stocks that are attracting huge interest in recent months due to the steps they are taking to improve their business models in order to adapt to the new environment.
There are also other reasons for some stocks being out of favour, such as their being in polluting smokestack industries and due to having poor environmental reputations and there are also other firms that are simply not deemed to be innovative enough to keep up with their competitors.
Whatever the case behind a stock’s fortunes of late, research into each one of them by a capable investor or by analysts is essential before one can have any form of conviction about that stock’s future prospects.
At Fish Eagle we select managers who have an excellent track record (not always an indicator that they will continue to choose wisely though) and also those who have a known process that they follow when researching and selecting or rejecting stocks and other assets for our clients’ portfolios.
Being careful in selecting these managers and their funds whom we deem as suitable is even more important during difficult times than it is during good times, but we maintain this approach throughout all investment cycles and we also overlay this attention to stock selectors with a rigorous cost reduction stance towards each potential fund and investment platform offering in order to ensure a very compelling investment return for you as our valued client.
