2019/09/04 00:00:00

It's an interesting environment with tail events (both to the upside and downside) taking place in various areas of the market - this offers opportunity, but also results in extreme manager relative performance differences. There are effectively two camps of managers, those participating in the 'trend' or momentum area of the market, which means heavy resource exposure and then those less exposed to resources due to concerns around capital preservation. The unique market structure in South Africa (where 21% of the JSE All Share index is constituted by commodity exposure) lends itself to binary outcomes and tail events for market participants. What is also worth noting is that the center of the market - good businesses that are non-resource based has been in limbo.
South African equities have been a mixed bag in 2019, outperformance (albeit with extreme volatility) of commodity companies has dominated (resources are 21% higher year-to-date) the market while domestically focused companies have underperform both in terms of share price performance (the local financial index has gained 5% year-to-date and the industrial index is down 5.8%) and with respect to their earnings trajectory. Certain local stocks look cheap - although not many, there are a grouping of SA companies where free cash flow yields are elevated and ratings are no longer high, but earnings projections are dismal as underlying economic growth in the system is vacant. Contrast this to commodity businesses where ratings are high when applying normalized earnings but profitability levels are also elevated as spot prices for certain commodities have exceeded market expectations. It is also true that capacity is being well managed amongst the mining giants, helping to control supply in tight markets caused by supply disruptions. The resource story and the level of bullishness by managers invested within that space becomes more questionable when the demand-side of the equation is thoroughly interrogated. Chinese investment spending growth peaked in 2003 and has been falling ever since, year-on-year growth is now under 8%, having been closer to 20% between 2003 and 2013. Air pollution regulations and Chinese interventions to stimulate the economy have certainly played a meaningful role in buoying commodities, but the extent of appreciation of share prices, driven by spikes in physical metal prices to levels significantly higher than the marginal cost of production, makes for vulnerability. We remain underweight commodities which is consistent with our quality at a reasonable price philosophy. This is hurting performance from an allocation perspective - we are not exposed to a sector of the market going parabolic, but we are redeeming ourselves by continued positive selection effects - our stock picking within the rest of the market is adding value.
With regards to fixed income exposure, we have enjoyed success in the fund by betting on South African fixed bonds as well as inflation-linkers, both having performed well in 2019 - the ALBI has gained 9.8% this year, second only to resources. We have subsequently de-risked our fixed income position by purchasing floating rate notes. Capturing yield at relatively low risk is attractive in this space. As far as property is concerned, the fund is underweight, we are concerned that the systemic risks in the economy, culminating in low distribution growth, has not been adequately captured in the valuations of property stocks. We continue to seek opportunities where this might not be the case.
The fund has been reducing equity exposure offshore as markets rally and valuations by our estimates look stretched. This continues to be our approach as we apply our buy list disciplines, only holding companies with reasonable upsides to intrinsic value and with a fair margin of safety. In conclusion, our overall asset allocation in the fund is one that reveals caution, as mentioned above, we have paired offshore equities and without visible earnings improvements in the domestic market, we are taking a slow and methodical approach to increasing domestic equity positions. We are also holding steady on the fund's gold position which has been in place for about a year.