August’s investment market commentary

August proved to be a relatively quiet month, as it often can be, with many market participants enjoying time away from their desks, albeit mainly on staycations this year given travel restrictions. Lingering concerns regarding the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19 and further regulatory changes in China occasionally disrupted the calm. Sentiment was supported by positive employment data out of the United States at the start of the month and the dovish stance of Federal Reserve (Fed) chairman, Jerome Powell, at the annual central bank meeting at Jackson Hole towards the end of August. 

In fact, Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole (which was actually held remotely this year due to COVID-19 concerns) was the main focus of attention for markets during the month.

The key highlights of Powell’s speech were:

1. He thought tapering of Fed bond buying could begin this year as clear progress had been made in terms of employment
2. He stressed that tapering was not a signal for interest rate increases
3. He warned that monetary policy should not respond to transitory inflation pressures; as any moves to tighten prematurely could needlessly slow hiring and keep inflation too low.

Global equity markets were overall positive (+2.6%), with emerging market equities (+2.3%) lagging developed markets only slightly. This could be seen as improvement on July, when concerns over regulatory changes in China dragged emerging market stocks down sharply. In terms of style, persistent concerns around the Delta variant meant growth stocks (+3.2%) outperformed the more value (+1.8%) orientated equities. This was also reflected in sector performance with information technology and communication services (stay at home stocks) among the best performing areas, while cyclical sectors such as energy and materials lagged.

Within fixed income markets, the general risk on environment meant that global high yield generated the best performance (+0.7%). In comparison, global government bonds generated negative returns, the slight increase in government yields over the month was mainly as a result of the increasing expectation that most major central banks around the world will soon be reducing the amount of bonds they buy.

In terms of real assets, property markets generated an equity-like return over the month with the global REITs index up +1.7% over the period. Commodities were mainly unchanged, the only exception was crude oil (-6.9%) which fell sharply on the back of concerns over slowing economic growth due to the Delta variant.

This month’s values quoted as at 31/08/2021. The above values are sourced from Bloomberg and are quoted in the relevant currency.