English to Italian Bus/Financial Finance (general) market reports

The fund marginally underperformed its benchmark. The main detractor from performance was an aggregate underweight duration position, particularly to the US. Our managers believed that economic growth would be strong and interest rates would rise. However, the high price of oil and disappointing economic numbers led many investors to believe that interest rates would be pushed further out, and bonds rallied. The fund had good asset allocation, overweighting lower credit quality corporate bonds and smaller markets such as Mexico and South Africa. Currency selection was positive with an overall underweight to the US dollar. The fund is denominated in euros, which also contributed to performance given the dollar weakness over the period.