Stock markets come to life in Oct as global equities climb 2.6%

STOCK markets came to life and surged ahead in October; global equities climbed 2.6 per cent for the month. Fixed income on the other hand saw minute losses of 0.3 per cent, driven by a rise in sovereign bond yields. On a year-to-date basis, global equities have gained 13.2 per cent and fixed income a more moderate 5.7 per cent.

For the month, the portfolio returned 2.2 per cent, outperforming the simple benchmark's 1.7 per cent return. The outperformance can be traced to our exposure to Asian and Japan equities: Aberdeen Japan equity fund gained 5.2 per cent while First State Asian Growth and Schroder Asian Growth rose 6.5 and 6.2 per cent, respectively.

The worst performer for the month was our Latin America exposure, with the JPM Latin America fund declining 4.2 per cent as Brazil's stock market pulled back and the Brazilian real depreciated against the Singapore dollar. Our fixed income sleeve was relatively unchanged, as the defensive picks helped buffet the rise in yields. (All returns are as of Oct 31, 2017 in Singapore dollar terms, except for global bonds in US dollars.)