Last Updated on: 15th April 2025, 06:07 pm
Tech entrepreneur and academic Fabio Dias has delivered a year-end market update to investors of Stalwart Holdings, reaffirming confidence in the company’s strategy despite ongoing global financial turbulence.
The update, delivered as part of Stalwart Holdings’ 2024/25 UK fiscal year-end briefing, showed that despite turbulent market conditions driven by US trade policy and inflationary pressures, Stalwart Holdings posted a small profit, emphasising the importance of resilience and strategic discipline in times of volatility.
Navigating volatility with strategic discipline
“More than 85% of the full-year profits in our exchange traded notes have dissipated over the last month or so. Having said that, this is the nature of equity investments, which are always subject to strong and sudden corrections for one reason or another,” he said.
Despite these headwinds, Stalwart Holdings reported a positive return, a notable achievement given the broader market backdrop.
“In this context, we are happy to report that we did have a profit, albeit small, in the 2024/25 UK fiscal year, while the S&P500 and the PIMFA Private Balanced Investor – our main benchmark – were both in negative territory for the period,” Dias said.
Solid asset base and tactical positioning
At the close of the fiscal year, Stalwart Holdings reported total own assets of £1,068,486. More than 25% of the portfolio was held in cash positions across USD and GBP, giving the firm flexibility in uncertain conditions.
The company has also reported a cautious outlook for future market developments while, at the same time, looking out for future opportunities.
Challenges and opportunities ahead
Dias cautioned that markets are likely to remain volatile in the short term due to a number of unresolved macroeconomic factors.
“Market conditions are expected to be even more challenging over the next few weeks. The Fed still has to react to the new inflationary scenario and possible recession in the US and we are yet to find out how the EU and the WTO will reply to the situation. We then don’t know how the US will react to their reaction. We also still have to see how the Congress and the Senate will react. This will undoubtedly keep the global equity markets volatile for a while until the uncertainty subsides.
“Our long term strategies stay unchanged. We are not making any divestments, though we started to engage in active algorithmic hedging. Our hedging process only attempts to reduce the correlation to market moves at times of stress but does not remove overall exposure to the equity markets, so we are prepared to gain from any eventual market rebound, which always happens sooner or later.”
The company also reported that their application to the FCA for expansion of Stalwart Holdings’ licence to include regulated investment advice is still ongoing but has progressed well. Dias confirmed that with no major blockers to report, the business aims to become authorised by September 2025.
