As mentioned in our Market Update, the quarter was characterized by concerns around higher-than-expected inflation, a more hawkish policy response by the US Fed in terms of rate hikes, and the war in Ukraine.

How have these factors impacted our portfolio positioning?

Dynasty-selected portfolios that are aligned with a quality style investment philosophy, generally underperformed in Q1, partially on the back of a global investor rotation into value-style equities from growth style. In addition, as depicted in the chart below, one of our most preferred funds, the Fundsmith Equity Fund, succumbed to uncharacteristically, pronounced underperformance due to a couple of stock-specific issues, most notable of which was Meta (Facebook). However, what is noteworthy is that the long-term trend line remains upward sloping, the Fund has significantly outperformed its benchmark since inception, and previous periods of sharp drawdown have been followed by even stronger periods of recovery.

Source: Infront; Dynasty

Fundsmith recently hosted their AGM and we have pleasure in providing our clients with two options:

Option one: A 90-minute AGM recording in which Terry Smith, Fundsmith founder and Chief Investment Officer, and Julian Robins, Fundsmith head of research, address and expand on each of the above specific concerns, as well as provide their insights on several related aspects.

Option two: For our more time conscious clients, we have extracted six highlights from the presentation and placed them into distinct video links that can be found below.

Irrespective of which option is selected, we trust that you will find the content not only to be insightful, but that it will reinforce these reasons why we consider the quality investment philosophy so defendable.

The video extracts, which can be individually selected based on your individual preferences, are as follows: