The Insync Global Capital Aware Fund rose +5.29% in February after fees and protection, slightly outperforming AFM's Global Equity benchmark and taking annualised performance since inception in October 2009 to +9.93%. The Fund's largest drawdown since inception has been -10.98% versus the benchmark's -13.60% over the same period which, in conjunction with the Fund's down-capture ratio of 58.61%, highlights the benefit of the Fund's downside protection. Before the cost of protection, the Fund returned +5.38% in February and has delivered +12.61% p.a. since inception (see the Insync Global Quality Equity Fund's profile).

Insync noted strong contributions from stock selection were marginally offset by a decline in the value of the index 'puts' due to a continued sharp market recovery and further falls in volatility. Positive highlights include Intuit, Visa, Estee Lauder, Accenture and Heineken (read Insync's latest Insights article on Heineken here). Detractors included Facebook, Tencent Holdings, Booking Holdings and Wirecard AG.

No currency hedging continues across both of Insync's funds as Insync consider the main risks to the Australian dollar to be on the downside.

The Frazis Fund rose +6.3% in February, outperforming the ASX200 Accumulation Index by +0.3% and the S&P500 Total Return Index by  +3.1%.

Frazis have reduced the risk profile of the fund considerably since the start of the year, cutting their long equity exposure to 82% and their short exposure to 17%. They believe this will allow them to increase their long-term investments by 50% incrementally (65% to 100%) during the next sell-off, and is about half the gross exposure they were running going into October 2018. Frazis noted this is defensive, however, they are highly optimistic about the individual opportunities in the current portfolio.

Frazis exited Weibo and Alibaba during the month. The Fund's only Chinese stock at present is iQiyi, a Chinese online streaming platform which, by comparison with Netflix, is adding more subscribers in absolute numbers, is growing faster on a percentage basis and trades at half the sales multiple. Also on Frazis' radar are Afterpay's progress in the US, commodity players in the Australian mining sector and Carvana (read the latest report for Frazis' in-depth discussion of Carvana).

Frazis have now taken the opportunity to reduce exposure whilst remaining invested in their highest conviction, long-term investments. They believe the portfolio is well placed to take advantage of any opportunities that arise over the coming months.

The Bennelong Australian Equities Fund rose +5.24% in February, taking annualised performance since inception in Jan 2009 to +13.30% versus the ASX200 Accumulation Index's +10.50%. This return has been achieved with only slightly higher volatility than the market; 13.12% p.a. versus the Index's 12.16%. The Fund's statistics show that the, despite the slightly higher volatility, the Fund has been successful in outperforming in both rising and falling markets; up-capture ratio of 120% and down-capture ratio of 97%, as well as Sharpe and Sortino ratios of 0.81 and 1.20 respectively versus the Index's Sharpe of 0.66 and Sortino of 0.93.

Bennelong noted most stocks in the portfolio reported strong numbers and generally positive outlooks as the February reporting season focused investors back on corporate profits. Top contributors included IDP Education, Breville Group, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and Corporate Travel. Key detractors included Reliance Worldwide, CSL and Costa Group.

Overall, Bennelong like how the portfolio is currently positioned;

• Heavily weighted in high quality, strongly growing global business franchises such as CSL, Aristocrat Leisure and Goodman Group
• Overweight the resources sector, specifically through positions in the big mining houses BHP and Rio Tinto
• Largely uninvested in, or underweight, the banks, domestic cyclicals and blue chips like Telstra, Woolworths and CBA