Ruffer Investment Company Ltd (LON:RICA) has announced its Monthly Investment Report for April 2024
April saw the fund make good progress despite a less friendly market backdrop. The expansion of global liquidity that had accompanied the rise in stock markets over the past 18 months may have started to reverse, with US bank reserve balances held at the Fed (a basic but adequate proxy) falling by $172bn, the largest monthly fall since September 2022. Against this backdrop of marginally tighter liquidity, alongside concerns over persistent inflation, it was unsurprising to see global stock and bond market indices both falling.
Commodities provided shelter from the April showers, with both base and precious metals benefiting from expectations that the US economy might stay stronger for even longer (albeit at the expense of a deteriorating fiscal position). At the same time, the Chinese economy might be bottoming and the geopolitical situation in the Middle East might be deteriorating. This unusual cocktail of ‘might be’s’ saw commodities such as gold and oil, that often move in opposite directions, rising together in the first half of April.
While commodity exposure drove the fund’s positive April performance, it was the silver position that we added in March that was the single biggest contributor as it started to catch up with the rise in gold bullion, much as we hoped it might. Beyond silver, it was also a strong month for gold mining stocks and our copper and oil commodity positions. We were trimming them all as the month progressed, fully exiting the oil position as concerns about an escalating conflict between Iran and Israel boosted spot prices, although we have maintained some exposure to oil related equities.
Beyond commodities, the other notable contribution to the fund’s performance in April came from short-dated US and UK government bonds. These more than offset losses from the long-dated UK inflation-linked bonds, which continued to be a drag despite long-dated break-evens quietly rising.
On the other side of the ledger, the fund’s protective position in the yen (held both via Japanese government bonds and call options on the yen) continued to be a significant detractor from performance, with the aforementioned burst of enthusiasm about the US’s economic prospects seeing dollar/yen interest rate differentials again widen in favour of the greenback. The last couple of days in the month seemed to bring Japan’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) in to play in defence of the yen, with the MoF selling billions of dollars to discourage speculators from taking the dollar/yen rate quickly beyond the 160 level. It is too early to tell whether the intervention will be a definitive change in momentum.
Current extended market positioning in both US equities and credit is at odds with the geopolitical and economic risks we see all around us. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that liquidity conditions will remain challenged through the coming months, so we are maintaining our defensive posture, using cash and cheap derivative protection to prepare for an environment that will eventually be more friendly to risk-taking.
Ruffer Investment Company is a British investment company dedicated to investments in internationally listed or quoted equities or equity related securities.
