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• February proved to be a very eventful month initially dominated by Australian corporate earnings, which were much better than expected and revealed that corporate Australia is recovering from Covid-19 faster than expected. In the second half of the month, the focus was on the events in the Ukraine rather than corporate earnings
• The Atlas High Income Property Fund had a solid month gaining +3.3% after the companies held in the Fund showed a continued improvement in their financial results. Additionally, management teams guided to higher distributions through the rest of 2022.
• Due to the Fund’s focus on distribution and earnings stability, the February reporting season held few surprises for the companies we own. This is due to rent-collecting trusts offering greater earnings visibility with average lease terms between five and twenty years, whereas trusts with development earnings can be volatile and were sold down.

Go to Monthly Newsletters for a more detailed discussion of the listed property market and the fund’s strategy going into 2022

Investments to avoid in 2022

While history doesn’t exactly repeat itself, the lessons from these two time periods can help investors avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Hugh Dive, chief investment officer at Atlas Funds Management, believes investors should look to avoid tech stocks and growth stocks on high price earnings multiples, as rising interest rates will be unkind to them.

* January proved to be a very volatile month dominated by macroeconomic news predominantly around global central banks raising rates rate rises, rather than company fundamentals as companies were in blackout before the February reporting season. Australian listed property was hit hard and declined by close to -10% over the month.
* The Atlas High Income Property Fund declined by -6% in January on general market sentiment rather than investment fundamentals, effectively giving up the gains from December 2021. Atlas is looking forward to the February profit season which we expect will show both a continued improvement in the financials of the Trusts that we own and that management will guide to higher distributions through the rest of 2022.
* The first week of February has seen the Fund recover a significant portion of January’s falls after several large holdings have reported solid profit results for the six months ending December 2021.

Go to Monthly Newsletters for a more detailed discussion of the listed property market and the fund’s strategy going into 2022

My biggest investment mistake … and what I learnt from it

Multiple authors, Magellan Financial Group, Atlas Funds Management , Firetrail Investments, Intelligent Investor, Burman Invest Vihari Ross is Head of Research, Portfolio Manager, Magellan Financial Group Hugh Dive is Chief Investment Officer, Atlas Funds Management Kyle Macintyre is Investment Director, Firetrail Investments Nathan Bell is Portfolio Manager, Intelligent Investor Julia Lee is Chief Investment Officer, Burman Invest

Australia’s biggest companies set to reveal the costs of COVID-19

It’s that time of the year again – when investors get flooded with updates from the nation’s largest companies about how much money they’re earning. Market experts are expecting strong results from ASX-listed companies in the next few weeks as reporting season ramps up.