Performance
Sparinvest Ethical Global Value fund rose by 11.66% in the first quarter of 2010. The general equity market, as measured by the MSCI World index, rose by 9.47% in the quarter. Meanwhile, the value stock universe (MSCI World Value) rose by 9.58%, compared with 9.36% for growth stocks. Small caps were relatively strong, with a return of 14.05%.
The fund performed well in both absolute and relative terms. In the first quarter the fund outperformed the overall market by 2.19%, despite the fact that we have a large exposure to Europe which, compared with the U.S. and Japanese markets, performed poorly. Our Japanese exposure was beneficial, while our relatively low weighting in the well-performing U.S. market worked against us. In terms of sectors, we benefited from our allocation. Our high weighting in consumer discretionary and industrial stocks benefited from an outperformance by cyclical stocks.