What happened during the month?
QSR was up 13,5% for the month (vs MSCI in EUR 5,5).
What happened to the markets and our portfolio?
The markets had their best January in decades, based on negative sentiment having investors very cautinously positioned. Inflation numbers came in better than expected and the economy – although slowing – is also holding up reasonably well. Europe saw strong outperformance vs the US and cyclicals over defensives, partly fuelled by China reopening. US tech stocks rallied back strongly from oversold levels, as tax loss selling stopped and hopes for a stop of FED tightening in March (and subsequent easing later in the year) grew. that hurt us somewhat, but it provides even better short entry levels in some of the cash burning loss producing tech stocks.
Our long European Bank call spread was the main winner, as european banks rallied 16% in January. We took profits in the trade, as being long european banks seems now much more consensus among hedge funds. Still, despite the rally, lots of banks in Europe trade at P/TBV of 0.5 or below and ECB turning from negative interest rates to strongly positive is a major tailwind, manifesting itself in good 4Q numbers. We will revisit the sector, on a more stock specific basis, during a pullback.
Gold was up 9% for the month and is getting closer to breakout level. if Gold breaks out many investors might jump on the momentum which should give leveraged upside to the gold mining positions in our portfolio. We are long 6 different stocks with a total weighting of just over 20%. Gold hit all-time-highs last year and historically has performed well when inflation is high and interest rates are declining.
Factsheet QSR Global – January 2023
Monthly Reports
Every month we review the evolution of the fund with investors by video conference. Find below the latest video conference monthly.
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