The Equitile Global Equity Fund (Ireland-domiciled ICAV) follows the same strategy and principles as the UK domiciled Equitile Resilience Fund. 

Equitile Global Equity Fund

Latest Overview - December 2022  (Print version: GBP Class, USD Class, EUR Class, NOK Class)

2022 ended as it begun, with a sharp sell-off in equity markets; the NASDAQ posted close to 9% losses in both January and December. This month’s NASDAQ move was exacerbated by the 37% decline in Tesla’s share price, undermined by falling auto demand, weakness in second hand car prices and, arguably, a distracted CEO.

The abrupt weakness in the auto sector is now sending the same macroeconomic message visible in weakening housing and real estate markets; credit markets have already tightened sufficiently to substantially undermine demand. Similar weakness is also becoming manifest in some other, less credit focussed, areas of consumer spending. If the standard playbook remains valid, the next shoes to drop will likely be weakening labour markets and declining inflation rates, both of which we believe have already begun falling, albeit from elevated levels.      

The role of monetary and fiscal policy is to help attenuate the economy’s natural tendency to form endogenous boom-bust credit cycles. Used with finesse these policy tools should help the economy grow more consistently with fewer wrenching disruptions. Used ham-fistedly monetary and fiscal policy can produce the opposite of their intended purpose, driving the economy into exaggerated and damaging cycles.

We view the lockdown years, 2020 and 2021, as the first stage of an especially ham-fisted series of policy mistakes, when monetary and fiscal stimulus was used entirely without discipline or cost benefit analysis. Those policies in turn precipitated the abrupt tightening witnessed in 2022. We expect 2023 will see the third phase of this drama play out as policy makers are forced, by their previous actions, to again wrestle with the levers of policy in an attempt to arrest the slowdown, which already appears to be well established in the real estate and auto sectors.