The Asset Allocator carrier pigeon has a bit of a bad back this week after bringing forth a bountiful haul with the latest update from the Evelyn Partners Core MPS fund range.

James Burns and his team revealed they have significantly increased their exposure to fixed income, but are to some extent sitting on the fence on how the bond market plays out in the coming weeks, as they have added short dated UK corporate bond funds, long-dated US bond funds, and also US Tips. 

All of the exposure to US bonds has been done on a currency hedged basis, and the increase in fixed income exposure involves adding to existing fund holdings, rather than buying anything new. 

Among the bond funds added to were Vanguard US Government Bond Index, M&G UK Inflation Linked Corporate Bond, Artemis Corporate Bond, Lyxor US Tips ETF and TwentyFour Absolute Return Credit. 

The capital for those investments was raised through trimming equity and absolute return exposure. 

Burns and his team elected to reduce UK equities on the basis that the market has enjoyed a strong run of late, and so reduced their holdings in L&G UK Index, the Lindsell Train UK Equity, and Ninety One UK Alpha.  

Within the equity allocation, they increased exposure to US equities in some mandates.   

In the absolute return space, they substantially reduced their holdings in JP Morgan's Global Macro Opportunities fund, while adding some to the NB Uncorrelated Strategies fund which is the most widely owned alternative fund among the allocators we cover, and the Fulcrum Diversified Absolute Return fund. 

There was a reduction in the level of cash in some of the portfolios as well, in what was an exceptionally busy month for the guys and gals at Evelyn.