Global Equity Fund

Super Amazing Fund Management  |  Month ended 31 August 2026

Benchmark: MSCI World Index (NZD, unhedged)

Fund returns

Attribution

Total attribution effect for the period: -1.43%

Positioning

Attribution by country

Positioning by country

Attribution by holding

Positioning by holding

Macro drivers

• Interest rates: US Fed funds rate held at 4.25%-4.50%

  The Federal Reserve held rates steady for a third consecutive meeting, with commentary continuing to lean on incoming inflation data before signalling any cutting cycle. This kept discount rate assumptions for growth-oriented sectors broadly stable over the month.

• FX: NZD/USD ended the month at 0.585, down 1.2%

  A softer New Zealand dollar over the month added a modest tailwind to unhedged offshore returns for New Zealand-based investors, contributing roughly 1.2 percentage points of the fund's total return in NZD terms.

• Bond yields: US 10-year Treasury yield eased 8bps to 4.21%

  A modest pullback in long-dated yields provided some relief for higher duration growth names, part of the same rally in the technology sector that the fund's underweight position there missed most of.

• Geopolitical events: Ongoing trade policy discussions between major economies

  Continued uncertainty around trade policy kept volatility elevated in cyclical sectors, particularly industrials and energy, though broad market impact was contained over the period.

Market reactions

How the market responded to disclosures by the companies and funds held.

Commentary

Market commentaryAI-drafted

The MSCI World Index's 2.58% gain in the month to 31 August 2026 came against a backdrop of sharp intra-month swings in global equities, particularly across technology and semiconductor names. Early in the month, US stocks were lifted by a resumption of the AI trade after a subdued inflation reading, with investors turning their focus on a bumper earnings season after a subdued inflation reading helped ease interest-rate hike concerns, with results from Coreweave Inc. and Super Micro Computer Inc. affirming confidence in the AI trade. That strength reversed sharply around 17 to 18 August, when a selloff in chipmakers sent stocks lower, with the market also falling as growing anxiety about inflation and rising government debt kept bond yields elevated, driving a closely watched gauge of semiconductor firms down by 5% and the Nasdaq 100 down 1.7%. Gains were trimmed again into month end as a flare-up in geopolitical risks sent stocks and bonds lower as oil climbed, with escalating tensions in the Middle East driving US crude near $86 and lifting Treasury 10-year yields to the highest since January 2025, and the S&P 500 trimmed its August advance. Against this volatile, AI-and-rates-driven backdrop, the benchmark's monthly return outpaced the fund's 1.14% result, while the fund's stronger 14.20% one-year return against the benchmark's 12.70% points to relative positioning that held up better over the full year than in this single, choppy month.

Attribution commentaryAI-drafted

Information Technology was the largest drag on relative performance at -0.83%, consistent with the broader chip-led rout through August 2026: a selloff in chipmakers sent stocks lower as growing anxiety about inflation and rising government debt kept bond yields elevated, with a closely watched gauge of semiconductor firms down by 5%, while commentary through the month noted that investors were already fretting that AI hype had inflated a bubble in stocks, adding to existing concerns over valuation and momentum. Industrials, the second-largest detractor at -0.58%, sat alongside technology in the AI capex complex, with reporting noting that AI hardware continued to drive August's increase in import prices, as it has throughout the year, and companies faced higher input costs and rising expenses tied to the AI buildout. Energy's -0.09% effect came against a backdrop of elevated but volatile oil prices, with crude settling around $85, with the US and Iran stuck in a deadlock over control of the Strait of Hormuz, a geopolitical overhang that also fed into the industrial input-cost pressures noted above. On the positive side, the more defensive complex, Utilities (+0.15%), Financials (+0.09%), Real Estate (+0.08%), Health Care (+0.07%) and Materials (+0.05%), benefited from the same rotation away from AI-exposed growth names, with one Bloomberg piece from early August observing that if AI mania has heightened anxieties, the antidote may be as mundane as real-world assets, waste-management companies and cash, a description consistent with money moving into steadier, less AI-levered parts of the market during the month.

OutlookAI-drafted

Heading into the period after 31 August 2026, the fund's substantial underweight to information technology (-5.1%) sits against a backdrop where equity trading revenue at the largest US banks was still forecast to jump strongly in 2026, even as commentators flagged concentration risk in AI-linked names: the July FOMC minutes recorded that high equity valuations of AI-linked firms reflected favorable assessments of the sector's long-term earnings outlook, with participants noting the risk that major downward revisions could lead to a broad-based repricing of assets. That caution was echoed in markets during the period, when semiconductor companies that had led the market advance were hit with a wave of doubts about the sustainability of the AI-driven rally, a dynamic directly relevant to the fund's below-benchmark technology exposure. The fund's largest active tilt, the +8.3% overweight to financials, comes as the ECB's Financial Stability Review noted that sound fundamentals and expectations of higher dividends had supported a rise in banks' price-to-book valuations from early 2025, though rising concerns about AI disruption and private-market exposure triggered a decline in bank stock valuations in early 2026, while Bloomberg reporting pointed to Wall Street banks pushing back their Federal Reserve rate-cut forecasts as jobs and inflation data made a case for the Fed to keep rates on hold until at least the end of the year, a rate path that bears on the net interest margin outlook embedded in that overweight. The +4.5% industrials overweight aligns with strategists' framing of defence and infrastructure as a structural rather than cyclical theme, with one Bloomberg Indices commentary arguing that as geopolitical competition intensifies, defence policy is being recalibrated toward resilience, regional stability, and control over critical inputs, extending into energy security, critical materials, the grid, and supply-chain infrastructure, though Bloomberg Intelligence also flagged that trade tariffs, softening demand and geopolitical uncertainty could be key risks for the cyclical and volatile industrial sector in 2026. The underweight to communication services (-3.5%) and to real estate (-1.7%) sit alongside broader market commentary that mega-cap concentration itself has become a live debate, with one Bloomberg Indices piece observing that concentration risks from the magnificent seven are prompting investors to reassess diversification, a consideration relevant given the benchmark's heavy weighting toward a small number of dominant technology and communications names.