Fund Manager News

Feb 2019 Ethical Investing in Focus Recent weeks have seen two successful investor engagements with large mining companies. Climate Action 100+, of which Morphic is a founding signatory, has been coordinating collective engagement with the world’s largest carbon-emitting listed companies. Glencore and Rio Tinto announced improved commitments to their climate-related responsibilities including greater focus on…

Feb 2019 " Earth's global surface temperatures in 2018 were the fourth warmest since 1880 " Market Commentary Warming: Our planet is warming. According to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2018 was not far off 1 degree Celsius warmer than the average temperature for 1951 to 1980. 2018 was cooler than 2016, 2017,…

Feb 2019 Market Overview February was another strong month for markets with the NZX50 rising 3.8%. While this once again under performed Australia (200 Industrial Index +6.0%), it was ahead of the US (S&P500 +3.2%) and other world indices (up around 2% to 3%). Markets were generally upbeat as rhetoric from the US Federal Reserve…

March 2019 Here is a copy of the presentation, including a separate audio file, from the recent Nikko AM NZ Equity team update: The presentation

John McDuling, Sydney Morning Herald March 1, 2019 Morphic's Managing Director Jack Lowenstein was featured in the Sydney Morning Herald to discuss the new impact of activist short sellers. Read the article >

March 12 2019 Many readers will by now know of FOMO – the fear of missing out – the social media phenomenon, where, to quote Wikipedia, there is “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent”. Instagram and Facebook have magnified this feeling, as one can now see all their “friends” having a good…

Feb 2019 The full fund update is available here.

Feb 25 Don't forget about the cycle Another fast start to the year in financial markets. Following a disappointing end to 2018, equity markets rallied during January, with the MSCI World finishing the month up 7.7% (in USD terms). With all this volatility it’s hard to really know where we stand in the cycle and…

Welcome to the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Wrap, where AMP Capital's ESG team share the latest ESG issues in the media and their implications on investment. This month the key ESG issues making headlines are: Landmark climate ruling as NSW court rejects coal mine Vale, another dam disaster! France to increase the price of food? Sleepwalking…

Taxing our Future The recently released Tax Working Group (TWG) report “Future of Tax” should more correctly have been labelled “Taxing our Future”. Tax is an incredibly important component of a well-functioning economy and it is good to review our tax structures periodically. Unfortunately, rather than being a visionary document as we might have hoped,…

February 2019 Fund Performance & Commentary Here is a snapshot of the key factors driving the performance of markets and your funds last month. For more details about each individual fund please select the link(s) below: Income Fund Property and Investment Fund New Zealand Growth Fund Australian Growth Fund International Growth Fund

Frank Jasper - Chief Investment Officer, 06 March, 2019 The state of the global economy and volatile markets has been the focus of much discussion in past few months.  It makes for great conversation and a lot of, mostly scary, newspaper headlines. While interesting it’s not what really drives the long run return of your investment portfolio.…