US market lagging its major peers

Investors, worried about the impact of a stronger dollar on corporate earnings, adopted a wait-and-see stance. Profit-takers remained cautious, however, as profit margins should be boosted by the ongoing decline in oil prices and the relative robustness of the economy.

From a sector point of view, no real trends were observed. Healthcare was one of the few sectors to post a positive performance, but this was obviously due to a lot of M&A activity.

• There haven't been any significant changes in our sector allocation this month as our most preferred sectors remain IT and Healthcare.
• We cautiously increased our Energy exposure, as oil prices seem to be bottoming.
• We raised or increased positions in Apple, Oxydental Petroleum and Gilead, while reducing positions in Walmart, Rockwell Automation, Timken, Monsanto and Reed.
• We continue to build our portfolios to benefit from a global economic recovery (with much emphasis on cyclical sectors like IT and Consumer Discretionary). Combined with low interest rates, reasonably priced equity markets, high free cash generation, increasing dividends and stock buy-backs, and a lot of M&A activity, the environment for rising equity markets is still in place