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Modesty is a virtue.

Till one day it is not.

And quite frankly, if we were to be falsely modest about our July performance, as well as for our Year to Date Performance, globally, across all products, we would be being extremely unfair to our boys, girls and the computers, that turned in fairly eye-popping stuff this July.

And this year.

Our Team of Humans+ Machines really put up a show. You will see, in a moment

Global Funds Performance: July'20

The Global Freedom Fund SPC - Global Tactical Strategies SP (GFF-GTS) was up 7.9%. 

The GMAAP was up 10.2%

Vs MSCI World that was up only 5.1%

And the S&P500 that was up 5.5%. 

Global Funds Performance: Calendar 2020 Year to Date 

GFF-GTS (US Dollar terms): +21.2%

GMAAP (US Dollar terms): +22.2%

Vs

MSCI World: -3.2%

S&P500: +1.2%

India PMS Performance: July '20 

The Pure Equity India Super 50 (IS50) was up 9.3%

The Asset Allocation India Multi Asset Allocation Portfolio (IMAAP) was up 5.1% (this, quite frankly, is remarkable, given the IMAAP's very low volatility Profile)

While the Nifty was up 7.5%

And NSE 500 was up 6.6%

India PMS Performance: Calendar 2020 Year to Date 

The IS50 is up 19.0%

The IMAAP is up 12.3%

Vs 

NIFTY 50 that is down 9.0% 

NIFTY 500 that is down 8.5%

That means that our equity portfolios are a full 30% ahead of the indexes for the year!

Global Performance Analysis

In the past 3 months, our global products have delivered ~35%. 

This is way ahead of practically any broad index in the world.

So what exactly went on that delivered these numbers?

In one line, it is our Human+ Machine Model.

Some of you may recall that in the month of April, we put on the oil trade. 

That trade has done very nicely since, and continues to do very well.

We have had a reasonable position in gold right through this year.

And we added copper and silver.

Of course, our commodities weighting remains ~ 8%, but all of these well chosen commodities have done extremely well in the past few weeks and months.

The US Dollar Weakness Trade

Our  "Eagle Eye" system  detected a weakening of the US dollar right from April itself, because it scours the world, looking for patterns, correlations, causalities (sometimes, even casualties) in various securities, markets, asset classes.

The US dollar weakness trade kept becoming clearer and clearer as our systems kept picking many, many signals from the entire world, adding to our Weight of Evidence (WOE) Model.

Which is exactly why we increased our positions in commodities (the inverse relationship between the USD and commodity prices was discovered by us, two decades back and was covered on the front page of The Wall Street Journal back then).

And in a cross-section of Emerging Markets.

All these tactical shifts have paid off handsomely last month and this entire year.

You see, that's the entire point of managing money: anybody can go and buy a narrow list of stocks/ single market, and look good for a limited period of time. BUT that also sets you up for a big fall/ underperformance sometime in the future.

The entire trick is to carefully construct a Portfolio of absolutely the best risk: return securities and positions from across the world and across asset classes. That's what our RARO Model does.

In July, we had massive winners like Overstock, Etsy, Square, China, Brazil, Silver, etc.

Emerging Markets delivered excellently for us in July ( again, this came out of the" Weak US Dollar" trade).

Overall, we continue to like every single position that we have right now.

And as everybody knows, the maximum attachment we have to anything, is a like" and that too for "only as long as the data supports it".

Never "love".

Our massive dashboard called the "Eagle Eye" keeps very close surveillance (all wholly legal. Probably), on the goings-on in this world, and keeps feeding the data back to our computers. 

It's a pretty interesting world, we can tell you with great confidence.

And most important: these results were delivered with a very diversified (and hence low volatility, low risk) portfolio, with around 40+ positions, across the world. 

India Performance Analysis

Our India numbers were... well... bloody good!

Again, on a wide basket of stocks.

None of this small, "concentrated" list of “high conviction" bs, for us. 

July delivered us very good winners in the form of Essel Propack, Reliance Industries, IT services, Diagnostic chains, Payment play, Metal producers etc.

Our pharma bets were on fire.

Readers will know that we lagged the market in June and they will know why that happened: because we did not have the beaten down, riskier end of the market: the banks, NBFCs, real estate.

Those had run up in the month of June.

And in our June letter, this is what we had written: 

Quote

It is not that we did not anticipate a rally in beaten down, high beta, riskier plays. 

It was pretty clear and evident from the first week of May when our systems detected a broadening of the market rally globally.

Our systems also detected a rally in small cap stocks across the world.

The question in such situations is: should you do a large scale change in your portfolio to chase temporary Momentum in highly risky stocks in the market?

Logic and common sense will tell you: by all means do a bit.

But do not go the whole hog.

Because when the tide turns, these high beta names will come back and bite you in some of the most hurtful places in your body. 

So we played the rally in India modestly. 

And we are absolutely fine with lagging a market rally in which low quality, debt-laden, high beta names, rally.

These situations happen routinely and normally in markets and frankly we have seen dozens of them in our three decades of investing.

We just ride them out.

Unquote

It is precisely this discipline that helped us deliver these numbers in July.

And of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating: our India PMS is far, far ahead of the competition. 

YTD, we are UP 19% even as the Indian market is DOWN nearly 9%.

There is absolutely nobody else who is within even catching distance of us 

And our Human+ Machine delivers these Returns with the lowest possible risk.

We do not run "High Conviction" risk.

We do not run "Storification" risk.

We do not run "High Concentration" risk.

And yet we deliver. 

Or maybe, that's why we deliver.

That is the beauty of our proprietary Human+Machine investment model.

For those who aren't invested with us, but want in, just drop us a line via this link and we will get in touch quicker than a Bumrah Yorker.

By the way, you can also WhatsApp us on +91 8850169753 

Chat soon!

From Your Friends at First Global

Trusted Financial Advisors to some of the world's largest Funds, Institutions & Family Offices, for 30 years

https://firstglobalsec.com

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