LHV World Equities Fund

In March, the spread of the novel coronavirus reminded us all that we are still living in a world full of uncertainties and unexpectancies. Just within one month all the borders between countries were closed and economic activity stopped. Equity markets fell 30-40% just in a few weeks. In an ordinary crises, declines with this magnitude are made in 3-6 months, not in weeks. We were holding larger than usual cash positions in the fund as we were entering the current crisis. At the beginning of the month we reduced some stock positions and increased our cash position in the fund close to 25%. In a few weeks, corona crisis escalated rapidly. In just one month, we saw our equity investments going down around 20% and the fund unit value fell by 14,6%. The larger cash position as well as gold related investments offered some hedge in the fund, even though the latter experienced a lot of volatility during the month. Several stocks included in our active watchlist fell to so low levels that we decided to take advantage of the panic sales and bought positons in them. Best purchases in the stock markets are made when investors have lost hope that the situation will get any better. If one month ago it was generally believed that the coronavirus will disappear as fast as it hit us, then now the expectations have become very negative. In March, we bought from the market turmoil Kone shares from Finland, Swedbank and Sweco shares from Sweden, DSV and Carlsberg shares from Denmark. We also bought emerging market index fund position and added some existing positions in the fund. We reduced the cash position to close to 5% by the end of the month. Probably we will see continued volaltilty in the coming months but in general it is time to take more risks. In the current economic situation we can only guess that whatever the expectations are in terms of economy, probably the reality will be even worse in the short term. Our long-term view is that we are at the beginning of an era with vast government budget deficits. Meaning, in order to boost economic activity, governments will inject exceptionally large amounts of money into the economy. Naturally these measures will not help as long as the consumers are not willing to consume. That being said, when the demand recovers, we will be in an environment where government support will boost consumption and central banks support it with low interest rates. Very realistic scenario is that inflation will pick up in such environment. We believe that after the current crisis, it is better to own various real assets – including value stocks and gold related positions, that would offer protection against increasing inflation.