The £3.3bn JPMorgan Global Growth & Income trust (JGGI ) is encouraging investors to look past short term market swings as it lags the benchmark in full year results. 

Over the 12 months to the end of June, the trust delivered net asset value (NAV) total returns of 1% compared with 7.2% for the MSCI All Countries World index, while its share price dropped 1.6%.

Managers James Cook, Helge Skibeli and recent addition Sam Witherow said momentum-driven markets leading up to the US election and President Trump’s victory had triggered a ‘surge in animal spirits’ which drove the outperformance of lower-quality companies — particularly in cyclical sectors such as banks and energy — through the first half of 2025.

‘While our long-term performance record remains strong, our inherent focus on fundamentals and valuations can lead to underperformance in the kind of market conditions we have seen over the past year, when investors respond to shorter-term momentum effects.’

The results drew out JGGI’s strong ten-year NAV total return of 245.7%, comfortably ahead of the benchmark’s 197%, supporting the managers long term, quality-oriented approach. 

Repositioning for growth

The trust’s overweight to defensive financial assets offset losses over the year.

Hong Kong Exchanges and German-listed stock exchange Deutsche Boerse did particularly well – the latter returning almost 40%. 

Despite their volatility, some of the portfolio’s high-growth names, like Alphabet and Meta Platforms, were also overall contributors. 

Results in the semiconductor space were more mixed. While giants TSMC and NVIDIA delivered 17% and 18% returns respectively, South Korean chip manufacturer SK Yynix had to be exited due to unexpected volatility. 

Healthcare was another drag, as well an overweight to LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. 

Looking forward, the managers said: ‘Following a period of such market dislocation, we believe that stock picking across our global investment universe of around 2,500 stocks is more attractive and potentially rewarding than previously, and we see many well-priced opportunities.

‘The company has exposure to several long-term trends, such as the rapid adoption of AI tools and cloud computing, which we expect will drive the market over the medium to long term.’

They added that while the trust continues to be ‘cautious about the near-term outlook and persistent market volatility’ it has been reducing its exposure to defensive names, down to 2% from 7% in December, and reallocating to high quality cyclical stocks.

This has been done via top ups to the likes of US domiciled power management company, Eaton, and Trane Technologies, also in the US, which specialises in heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration systems.

JGGI issued 101.6m new ordinary shares during the year, including 64.3m shares as part of the combination with Henderson International Income (HINT ). Buybacks into treasury totalled 2.8m shares at a weighted-average discount of 1.7%, adding 0.03p to the NAV per share. 

A total dividend of 22.8p per share was paid for the year, equivalent to an increase of almost 24.5% per annum since the introduction of the enhanced dividend policy in 2016, with the board sharing intentions to raise this further next year.