In November our average prudential balanced portfolio returned 1.8% (October 2.79%). Top performer is Stanlib (2.70%), Allan Gray (1.21%) takes bottom spot.

Since our previous newsletter no significant changes have occurred in global financial markets that would make us change our views on investment strategy. In our view, we are experiencing artificial market conditions that underpin global equity markets at a cost still to be amortised in future at the expense of the man in the street. While these conditions prevail, equities will do well. These conditions will only change once global consumer sentiment has turned positive, which is likely to still take a while.

Under these circumstances the investor will have to ask himself, will I be cautious and continue suffering from underperformance for the sake of greater peace of mind, while still earning respectable inflation beating returns or should I rather trust in the current artificial environment prevailing for the foreseeable future and therefore drop my cautious position?