The Sage Capital portfolios produced solid returns in March. The CC Sage Capital Equity Plus Fund delivered a net return of 3.30%* and the CC Sage Capital Absolute Return Fund delivered a net return of 1.65%*, outperforming their respective benchmarks by 0.86% and 1.65%.

Stock selection drove performance during the month with a top contributor being a long position in Graincorp which rose 24%. Stocks within the Growth Sage Group# were strong contributors to performance including short positions in Zip Co and A2 Milk. The Buy Now Pay Later segment as a whole was weak and Zip Co was no exception, falling by 29%. A2 Milk continued its downward spiral, falling by 13% as it continued to lose market share to domestic infant formula brands in China. Long positions in several COVID-19 winners also drove performance, with JB Hi-Fi up 19%, Metcash and Ansell both up 9%.

Key detractors to performance included a short position in Premier Investments which reported a strong result and rallied 23% along with other Consumer Discretionary stocks and a short position in Crown Resorts which rose 18% after receiving a highly conditional takeover bid from Blackstone Group.

View our monthly reports below for additional commentary around performance, market review, portfolio positioning and outlook.

• CC Sage Capital Equity Plus Fund
• CC Sage Capital Absolute Return Fund

* Past performance is not indicative of future performance. # Sage Capital uses a custom grouping system for long short positions (Defensives, Domestic Cyclicals, Global Cyclicals, Gold, Growth, REITs, Resources and Yield). With a focus on the principal macro earnings drivers for each stock, Sage Groups allow for comparisons to GICS for selecting stocks within a sector.