Market Commentary - May 2016

Global equity markets rose 0.1% (USD terms) during May, with ongoing resilience in the United States economy driving gains in the U.S. market (+1.8%) against a backdrop of renewed weakness in non-Asia emerging markets (-9.2%). The Federal Reserve remained upbeat about the prospects of further policy rate hikes prompting USD outperformance, particularly against commodity currencies (AUD -5.1%, BRL -4.2%, ZAR -9.8%). With the return of dollar strength, Gold (-5.7%) gave up gains despite Crude Oil (+7.7%) climbing in response to declining US production. Global sector wise, Information Technology (+4.3%), Health Care (+1.3%) and Consumer Staples (+0.3%) outperformed whilst Materials (-4.8%) and Energy (-3.0%) lagged. The two-speed nature of the U.S. domestic and global industrial economy has been evident since mid-2015 and though the Chinese and U.S. manufacturing PMIs experienced a small rebound, the cycle remains weighed down by the collapse in commodity related capital spending and weak E.M. growth. To find out how Antipodes has positioned itself in global markets, read our May Monthly Report: (VIEW LINK)