While businesses have been severely affected by the pandemic, many have quickly learnt to adapt and cope, including through remote work and digitisation — and the cloud is a prime medium for these.
Stocks saw a bit of a pullback last week, after chalking up strong gains at the start of the new year. This is perhaps unsurprising. Expectations have risen significantly on the back of better prospects for 2021. We suspect a fair amount of potential good news has been priced into stocks. It is, therefore, likely we may see more volatility, if and when reality fails to meet the lofty expectations. And with the start of the US quarterly reporting season, there will be opportunities for disappointment. That said, we remain upbeat on the outlook for further gains and are keeping our Global Portfolio near fully invested.
Many of our investments are made based on what we believe are secular trends that will drive sales and earnings over the longer term. One such trend is the migration to cloud, which has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
