Active Global Equity Shariah ETF Report | July 2024

Shariah Active ETF Key Takeaways

Last month we summarized some of the key policy differences between Joe Biden and Donald Trump and how a Trump election would lead to significantly different approaches from what we have seen the past four years. With the president’s disastrous debate performance at the end of June, the odds of a Trump victory have clearly improved, especially since the Democrats appear loathe to face up to the truth and seek a Biden alternative.

If we look at one stated Trump policy desire, a 10% across the board tariff on imports, we can draw a few quick conclusions. Firstly, it would be negative for overseas companies importing into the US, which could encourage us to shift a higher percentage of Shariah Active ETF holdings to the US. On the other hand, it would be inflationary, so we would want to reduce positions in our most-interest rate sensitive US holdings, such as in the consumer discretionary sector or anything related to housing. Higher inflation and higher for longer interest rates would obviously be detrimental to any companies featuring highly leveraged balance sheets. Fortunately, our investment guidelines preclude the ETF from suffering negative consequences in that regard, given our debt limitations.

In June, the Shariah Active ETF appreciated 3.65%, outpacing global Islamic and conventional indexes. Performance was driven strong stock selection and stellar returns from our US technology investments, led by Adobe, Broadcom, ServiceNow Intuit and Apple. Excepting Broadcom, all of these investments struggled through the first quarter or longer. Indeed, Adobe remains down for the year, while Adobe, Intuit and ServiceNow all sold off in May before staging a June recovery. We remain convinced of the investment thesis for each of these positions. Most are beneficiaries of the development of AI, either through providing the chips, which Broadcom does in cooperation with Alphabet, or through applications utilizing AI in the case of ServiceNow, Adobe and Intuit. Despite their recent announcement of cooperation with OpenAI and the introduction of “Apple Intelligence,” Apple remains an AI show me story. Taiwan Semi, ASML, Microsoft and Eli Lilly rounded out the top performers, with only the latter a non-technology stock. Stocks detracting from returns were more varied with L’Oreal the worst performer, most likely due to Macron’s snap election and the likelihood of a strong showing by the far right, followed by Johnson Controls, GSK, Kenvue and Ferguson. June was clearly “risk on.”

Source of all performance data: HANetf / Bloomberg as of 30.06.2024. Additional sources available upon request. Please note that all performance figures are showing net data. Past performance is not indicative of future performance and when you invest in ETFs your capital is at risk.

Is there an AI Bubble?

For the second consecutive year, Nvidia and other AI-related mega-cap tech stocks provided the majority of index returns in the first half. We should consider whether the situation has gotten out of hand. We do not believe so. In short, we do not believe there is an AI bubble, and we firmly expect companies to succeed at monetizing their huge capex investments in building out data centers and AI training facilities. Just since the pandemic the capabilities of artificial generative intelligence have increased dramatically. As companies bring more compute to bear, algorithms improve and models are unhobbled, we see no reason not to expect continued Orders of Magnitude improvements in capability leading to broadening applicability in business operations.

Shariah Active ETF Performance Table                                                                                                                                       
As of 30.06.2024

 1M3M6MYTD12M3YSI
Saturna Al-Kawthar Global Focused Equity UCITS ETF3.65%3.64%12.11%12.11%19.02%1.30%17.21%

Please note that all performance figures are showing net data. Source: Bloomberg / HANetf. Data as of 30/06/2024. Performance before inception is based on back tested data. Back testing is the process of evaluating an investment strategy by applying it to historical data to simulate what the performance of such strategy would have been. Back tested data does not represent actual performance and should not be interpreted as an indication of actual or future performance. Past performance for the index is in USD. Past performance is not an indicator for future results and should not be the sole factor of consideration when selecting a product. Investors should read the prospectus of the Issuer (“Prospectus”)

before investing and should refer to the section of the Prospectus entitled ‘Risk Factors’ for further details of risks associated with an investment in this product. When you invest in ETFs and ETCs, your capital is at risk.

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