After five consecutive months that saw the MSCI EAFE index deliver positive returns, September was down -2.60%. Despite this fall, September was a good month for materials, industrials, consumer discretional, information technology and communication services. We were over-weighted in consumer discretionary and information technology and underweight in financials, which generally helped our portfolio performance on both fronts.
Henry James International Management October Market Commentary
October was a good month for markets, and not just in the ‘growth despite raging volatility’ way that has become the 2019 norm. We believe we are seeing evidence of an economy that has resiliently chugged along despite being burdened and destabilized by a range of geopolitical and economic issues. Market performance spiked encouragingly in the month of October: the MSCI EAFE was up 3.60%, while the MSCI Emerging Markets and MSCI World ex USA Small Cap indices jumped by 4.23% and 4.12%, respectively.