Global Equity Fund

Super Amazing Fund Management  |  Month ended 31 August 2026

Benchmark: MSCI World Index (NZD, unhedged)

Fund returns

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

Global equity markets moved through a volatile August 2026, with the technology and AI-related complex driving much of the swing that ultimately saw the MSCI World Index (NZD, unhedged) outpace the fund over the month. Early in the period, easing inflation data lifted US equities, with a subdued inflation reading helping ease interest-rate hike concerns, lifting the S&P 500 by 0.3% and the Nasdaq 100 by 0.9%, aided by strong results from data-centre names such as CoreWeave and Super Micro Computer, whose shares rose as much as 24% and nearly 18% respectively on confidence in the AI trade. That leadership reversed sharply mid-month, when a selloff in chipmakers sent stocks lower amid growing anxiety about inflation and rising government debt, driving a closely watched semiconductor gauge down 5% and the Nasdaq 100 down 1.7%. Volatility persisted into month end as hawkish comments from Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh on the prospect of higher US interest rates hit emerging-market equities, with South Korean and Taiwanese indexes leading losses, while a flare-up in Middle East geopolitical risk sent stocks and bonds lower as oil climbed, lifting Treasury 10-year yields to the highest since January 2025. Against this backdrop of a concentrated, AI-and-mega-cap-led index swinging between rate-cut optimism and inflation and geopolitical anxiety, the MSCI World's heavier weighting to the large US technology names that led both the rally and the subsequent pullback appears to have driven its stronger single-month result relative to the fund, even as the fund's broader positioning delivered ahead of benchmark over the three-month, one-year and since-inception periods.

Attribution commentaryAI-drafted

Information Technology was by far the largest drag on the fund's relative performance in the month, a period bookended by a mid-month semiconductor rout and a late-month rebound. In the middle of August, 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, and a closely watched gauge of semiconductor firms fell by 5%. That volatility persisted into the following week, when a selloff in chipmakers outweighed a drop in oil as traders parsed plans to isolate Iran from the global economy, with semiconductor giants sinking just days ahead of Nvidia's earnings, before sentiment reversed on 27 August as Nvidia's blockbuster outlook lifted equities and rekindled the artificial intelligence trade, though that exuberance did not spread to Alphabet, whose shares slipped amid worry the company is losing its edge in the AI race. Industrials, the second-largest detractor, faced a similar cost squeeze, as AI hardware continued to drive August's increase in import prices, commodity-price volatility from the Iran war raised the cost of industrial materials at the border, and companies faced higher input costs and rising expenses tied to the AI buildout. The month also closed on a weaker note for cyclicals generally, with a flare-up in geopolitical risks sending 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, trimming the S&P 500's August advance, a backdrop consistent with the drags recorded in Consumer Discretionary and Energy. Against that AI- and geopolitics-driven tape, the smaller positive contributions from Utilities, Financials, Real Estate, Health Care and Materials were not large enough to offset the scale of the Information Technology and Industrials shortfalls.

OutlookAI-drafted

Heading into the period after 31 August 2026, the fund's largest active exposures sit around financials (+8.3%) and industrials (+4.5%), set against a large information technology underweight (-5.1%) and smaller underweights in communication services (-3.5%) and utilities (-2.5%). Bloomberg's compilation of more than 60 institutions' 2026 outlooks found the optimism is almost universal, with Fidelity International calling AI "the defining theme for equity markets" in 2026, a backdrop that leaves the fund's technology underweight running against the dominant consensus theme even as even the most bearish firm, BCA Research, stays neutral on stocks on the tailwind of AI capex, with JPMorgan Wealth Management warning that the biggest risk is not having exposure to the technology. Federal Reserve policymakers have flagged the same tension from the other side, noting in July that some participants discussed the possibility that AI developments could disappoint, leading to a significant repricing of stocks, and focused on vulnerabilities associated with the financing of the rapid AI-related infrastructure buildout, given high equity valuations of AI-linked firms, a risk that bears on both the industrials overweight (data-centre and capex-linked names) and the technology underweight. On rates, survey-based measures pointed to only gradual easing rather than a sharp cutting cycle, with the January FOMC minutes showing market-based measures of policy rate expectations indicating one to two 25 basis point rate cuts this year, a path that would offer only limited relief to the fund's underweight positions in rate-sensitive utilities and real estate while remaining broadly supportive for the financials overweight. More broadly, Bloomberg's indices team characterised the macro backdrop as broadly supportive of risk assets, with growth proving resilient, inflation pressures moderating, and financial conditions easing, even as elevated U.S. stock market valuations argue for strategic and disciplined allocations, a caveat that applies directly to a portfolio running a heavy technology underweight against a market where valuation and AI-capex sentiment remain the key swing factors.

Sector

Country

Holding