Renewable energy enters theme basket universe

Defence and commodities baskets are updated

Due to many client request about access to our theme baskets we have decided to pursue the availability of these baskets for our clients. Part of this process is streamlining the theme baskets which means that we have decided to reduce theme baskets to 20 stocks. The two first baskets that have been reduced to 20 stocks are the defence and commodities baskets.

In the defence basket we removed the five smallest companies on market value which were Babcock International, Chemring, Invisio, Avon Protection, and Avio. See the updated defence basket below.

The commodities basket has been changed in a more dramatic way. First of all, we have changed the name from commodity sector to commodities. Secondly, we have removed chemicals from the basket because it was too high up the value chain of commodities as chemicals are a value-added product and not a raw materials product such as coal, iron ore, or petroleum. By removing chemicals the commodities basket also gets a higher return correlation with the Bloomberg Commodity Total Return Index which is the leading benchmark index on commodities. The commodities basket has also been reduced to 20 stocks with a focus on agriculture, energy, mining, and forest products. The constituents in the commodities basket can be seen below and the basket is also the best performing basket year-to-date up 32.9% (see performance table above).