2018 was a challenging environment for all asset classes, but particularly in equities, where negative returns were delivered across nearly all major markets and industries. We outperformed market benchmarks during the fourth quarter and for the full year, as our intrinsic value discipline kept us out of many significant decliners, especially among banks, highly cyclical businesses, and previously high-flying tech stocks.
The Altrinsic International Equity Portfolio delivered a 3.8% return during the third quarter, outperforming the 1.4% gain by the MSCI EAFE Index as measured in U.S. dollars. Strong equity market gains during the quarter masked a challenging environment characterized by a significant divergence in underlying stocks’ performance. The dominance by a small group of high-priced and crowded U.S.
The Altrinsic International Equity Portfolio gained 1.3% during the first quarter, outperforming the 1.5% decline by the MSCI EAFE Index as measured in U.S.
The world is changing fast. The threat of disruption is real and growing with the potential for catastrophic outcomes for companies and industries across the globe. Once formidable barriers to entry are breaking down under the onslaught of new, fast-moving competitors empowered by the changing dynamics of the mobile internet age.
The Altrinsic International Equity Portfolio gained 7.7% during the third quarter, outperforming gains of 6.4% and 6.9% for the MSCI EAFE and ACWI ex-US indices, respectively, as measured in U.S. dollars. Stock-specific factors were the primary drivers of outperformance, led by positions in the technology, energy, telecommunications, consumer staples, and industrial sectors.
The Altrinsic International Equity Portfolio gained 3.1% during the second quarter. By comparison, the MSCI EAFE declined 1.5% and the MSCI ACWI ex-U.S. Index was down 0.6% as measured in U.S. dollars. Stock-specific factors were the primary sources of outperformance amidst an eventful macro backdrop. During the quarter, British citizens voted to leave the European Union, concerns about the European banking system intensified, Middle East unrest spread to distant lands, and the yields on U.S. Treasuries fell near their lowest level ever.
'Imagine being a table to re-writ the genetic kode of any organism including tumans.' This sentence obviously makes no sense. Now imagine these spelling mistakes occurred in your genetic code (genome). Your genome is made up of a four letter alphabet, consists of three billion letters and resides in every one of the cells in your body. It defines who you are. To put this in perspective, the Complete Works of William Shakespeare is based on a 26 letter alphabet and has about six million letters.
International equity market returns were relatively flat for the year, measured in local currency, but this result masked the significant dispersion in performance among stock, bond, currency, and commodity markets. These muddling markets appear to be increasingly recognizing fragile underlying fundamentals including lingering global imbalances, eroding confidence in policymakers, a slowing Chinese economy, intensifying geopolitical risks, and the vulnerability of U.S. corporate profit margins.
The third quarter was particularly challenging given the broad-based nature of the selloff across asset classes. International equity markets declined 10.2% and 12.2% as measured by the MSCI EAFE and MSCI All Country World Ex-US indices, respectively as measured in U.S. dollars. This weakness was largely precipitated by a pair of factors, namely mounting concerns about China’s growth rate and the credibility of policymakers’ efforts to revitalize economies globally. The Altrinsic International Equity Portfolio declined 11.3% as measured in U.S.
The Altrinsic International Equity Portfolio gained 2.2% during the second quarter, outperforming returns of 0.6% and 0.5% by the MSCI EAFE and MSCI All Country World ex- U.S. indices as measured in U.S. dollars.1 Strong mergers and acquisitions activity, efforts to unlock value via prudent capital management (e.g., dividends, buybacks, divestitures), and growing evidence of positive change in Japanese corporate behavior contributed to outperformance during the quarter.
