InvestNow News 11th Oct – Morphic – Monthly Update – Sep 2019
Ethical Investing in Focus
September saw massive numbers of people turn out both in Australia and globally in the latest round of support of the 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg’s student movement against the Climate Emergency. This was ahead of the UN Climate Change summit in New York on the 23rd of September where Greta, gave an emotional and powerful message to world leaders: “you are failing us”.
United across time zones and cultures, the recent rallies were the biggest climate protests in history. We would hope many of our investors were able to get down and attend the rallies in their respective cities and hear some of the younger generation speak. Our thoughts are summarised in our latest blog – Greta, Hugo And the Power of “You”.
Portfolio review
The Fund rose 1.4% in September, underperforming global markets which rose 2.0% in AUD terms. Global equities rallied +1.9% in USD terms as markets took comfort from the Fed easing monetary policy and the ECB cut the deposit rate and reintroduced QE. During the month, Japan (+3.2%) and Europe (+2.6%) performed best while the US (+1.6%) lagged.
A jump in bond yields drove the outperformance of Financials while the bounce in the oil price in the Saudi Arabia drone attacks drove a large rally in Energy stocks, which negatively impacts the Fund which doesn’t own fossil fuel stocks.