For many months, even after it was clear that the wheel had turned and investments in China, which had yielded high returns for Altshuler for a long time, no longer produced the same positive effect, the investment house insisted on maintaining great exposure relative to competitors in the Chinese market. However, it now turns out that last month Altshuler Shaham ended up holding shares in China when he sold the last shares he still held.
The change in trend was reported in Globes in February when the investment house significantly changed the mix of investments and exposure to the various markets. Most of the changes, as early as 2021, were to reduce exposure to China and increase exposure to the US. Altshuler Shaham then began to refer to China, which had previously been a major source of investment, as another Asian country, transferring 10% of Asian investment to the US. Altshuler also transferred investments from Europe to the United States, mainly to the S&P 500 index.
The results came pretty quickly and already in March you could see a mini-comeback of the company’s provident funds and pension funds to the top of the yield table. Funds and funds exposed to the US market enjoyed good performance last month, after the Dow Jones industrial average rose 2.3%, the S&P 500 rose 3.6% and the Nasdaq rose 3.4%.
Thus, Altshuler Shaham recorded a return of 0.85% in the general track of the study funds that ranked it third in March in this track and a return of 1.18% in the young track in the pension funds (up to age 50), which placed it in second place in the category.
At the same time, the investment house that was known as the one over the years preferred investments abroad over investments in Israel, and its head – Gilad Altshuler, has said this many times, increased in recent months its exposure to stocks in Israel. The major stock exchanges in the world when it comes to yield.
The Chinese regime brought down the shares of local companies
A number of issues concern the Chinese government, including: national security in light of the geopolitical struggle with the US, technology companies taking over databases and power, a rising demographic and birth problem, economic disparities between rich and poor, and the strategic need for financial independence alongside rising demand for companies’ products. .
To address all of these, the Chinese regime has launched a series of regulatory measures. However, these led to a drop in equities and the flight of foreign investors from the Chinese capital market, which surprised the markets and led to sharp declines in Chinese stocks, damaged China’s reputation as an economic force and raised the level of general uncertainty.
Altshuler Shaham, who was exposed to the giant stocks from the East more than any other body, suffered greatly from this, and also as mentioned, from lacking exposure to the Israeli market in relation to others, so that the combination of the two led to a decline in his status as a star of returns.
In response, colleagues, most of them through insurance agents, began to transfer the savings from the investment house’s products. Thus, since last July, it has lost more than NIS 20 billion to competitors in the camel market.