It was a strong month for the Global Security Fund, which was up 3.1 percent and 3.2 percent for the R and S share classes, respectively. Again led by the technology sector, it was growth stocks that benefited from falling long-term yields that found their way back to their downtrend. A weak dollar has long acted as a headwind for the fund's returns, but strong economic figures in the US have now supported the weak dollar we have seen for a while and this benefited the fund significantly by over 3.2 percent.
Cybersecurity allocations were the best performers in June, led by Crowdstrike. The company reported on June 14 and beat sales and profit expectations. The company has long been one of the fund's largest holdings, which has benefited from the soaring share price. After a quiet start to the year where we saw price consolidation in the first quarter, the company was up over 35 percent in the second quarter. Despite the high valuation, we believe that the company is well positioned. The company's share price was up 16.9 percent for the month with a contribution of 0.9 percent to the fund.
The cyber security company in the network segment Fortinet continues to deliver and is up over 67 percent for the year. The company has strong fundamentals and even after this year's strong price rise, there may be more upside to the valuation. The company was up 14.6 percent for the month with a contribution of 0.8 percent.
Microsoft's price rise continues after a short-lived consolidation. The company benefits from the strong cyber security trend with an increased demand for cloud services. The company was up 13.2 percent for the month with a contribution of 0.6 percent.
Palo Alto Networks is another cybersecurity company in the networking segment that performed strongly in June. In contrast to Fortinet, the Company has invested aggressively in inorganic growth with the acquisition of smaller companies. The company has a wider group than Fortinet and also invests in cloud services, which are a significantly smaller proportion of the company's income. The company was up 6.4 percent for the month with a contribution of 0.16 percent.
Cyber security company FireEye was down 6.2 percent for the month with a negative contribution of 0.25 percent. FireEye has been working on its market strategy for a long time and announced in June that the company will split the group, where network, email and cloud security products will be sold to the private equity company Symphony Technology Group for usd 1.2 billion, while cyber forensics (cyber investigation) will be part of a new company , Mandiant Solutions. The name FireEye will also be transferred. The company has had great success with its cyber investigations, which was the first to discover the Solarwinds cyber breach, and even if the market's reaction to the news was negative, this will give the company a clear niche.
Saab was down 6.6 percent for the month of May, which resulted in a negative contribution of 0.18 percent. The company's share price development continues to be weak and, from a relative perspective, cheap. The company has attracted interest from the global investment company Alliance Bernstein, which has now flagged that it owns more than 5 percent in the company.
Other companies with negative price trends in May were Boeing, Honeywell and Raytheon which were down 2.7 percent, 2.6 percent and 0.8 percent with a respective contribution of 0.08 percent, 0.04 percent and 0.02 percent.
The conclusion of the NATO meeting is a stronger alliance while wanting to admit several countries. Cyber security continues to be an important focus area at the same time as upgrading the traditional security area and space investments.
The European Union announced on June 22 that, together with the European Space Agency, EUR 9 billion will be invested in new programs that the organization has flagged as necessary if it wants to reach the green goals.
