EVO - Harding Loevner International Small Companies Equity Composite Q1 2024 Report

2024-05-29 12:45:00 ET

Summary

• Harding Loevner is an investment manager that invests primarily in publicly traded global equities. We were founded in 1989 by former managers for the Rockefeller family. Harding Loevner is a Delaware limited partnership. We operate independently of Affiliated Managers Group.
• The International Small Companies Equity composite declined 0.09% gross of fees in the first quarter, compared with a 2.21% gain in the MSCI ACWI ex US Small Cap Index.
• Japan accounted for nearly two-thirds of our underperformance, as investors in the region continued to favor the cheapest stocks, which are typically associated with the least-profitable and slowest-growing companies.
• Finding companies poised to benefit from big waves, and allowing time for their profits to grow and compound, can have a powerful effect on returns.

What Happened

US stocks outpaced international markets in the first quarter, due in no small part to ongoing interest in the prospects for artificial intelligence ('AI'), which propelled the shares of many large-cap American companies in the technology sector. International small caps lagged their large-cap counterparts by 260 basis points (‘bps’), although benchmark returns were mixed by region and sector....

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