Thank you so much, Joe. And hello to everybody listening. If we move on to the first slide, please. So, I'm going to obviously cover the outlook today and particularly with events in the Middle East and, you know, how that, how I'm seeing things as a result of that and how the trust is positioned. But I just thought I'd start with some important sort of background pages just talking about City of London, some of the features which we think are very attractive for investors. As you probably know, our objective is long-term growth in income and capital, and that picture just shows our origins, which actually was originally as a brewery company and that we had a brewery on the banks of the River Thames until about the 1930s. So, but we've obviously for many years we've been known for our dividend growth record and also producing very good total return. And one feature of a good investment trust is an independent board of directors, and City of London has Sir Laurie Magnus as our chairman, who has a long career in corporate finance and is still an adviser with Evercore. But lately he's become quite known because he's also ethics adviser to the prime minister. He started that job with Rishi Sunak and has carried on doing it under current prime minister Keir Starmer. And he gets involved when he has to make decisions on whether ministers have broken the ministerial code. And we've grown to 2.7 billion of net assets, which is the largest in our investment trust sector by some degree. We're in the UK equity income sector, and our chairman, Laurie, when we've announced our full year results, we're June year end, so we announced them on 17th of September, and he made two quite important announcements, you know, relating to sort of issues which are quite important as regards investment trusts.
And the first is that, you know, we've grown a lot over the years through issuing shares at a small premium, typically a premium of kind of two to 3%, and occasionally when we've fallen to a discount we've issued, we've bought back shares on a 2 to 3% discount. And by issuing on a premium and buying back at a discount, you do enhance NAV. Buying back at a discount, you enhance NAV for existing shareholders. And we've kind of tightened what we've been doing into a policy. It was previously an aim, but it's now a policy. So we've kind of made a very big signal to the market: we won't let our discount slide. We would buy back on a 3% discount, and, you know, we have in fact carried this out for about 15 years, but we've kind of solidified it into a policy, which I think means that City of London is going to have less volatility in terms of its NAV relative to its share price. And the majority of investment trusts don't have anything like this type of policy, unfortunately. And the second issue on which Laurie pronounced was really on paying dividends out of capital, which is what some investment trusts have been doing, and it's something you can do under the investment trust structure. We've made very clear that City of London, in very exceptional circumstances, will carry on paying ours out of income, and we just think that in falling markets, shareholders won't want some of their capital paid out to them as dividends. They want to see it earned. And so we've kind of nailed our colours very firmly to the mast of only really paying dividends as we receive them from the companies we invest in. I mean, there are exceptional circumstances, and I'll talk a bit more about that, in periods where you have a lot of dividend cuts across the market, when we can use our revenue reserve to keep our dividend growth going. But that's the kind of very exceptional circumstances, not normal conditions. Next slide, please.
So I've been manager of the trust for a very long time. Coming up to, I started in 1991. So, you know, it's coming up to 35 years and it's been a huge privilege. I've done some other things in my career, but it's been a huge privilege to have managed this trust for so many years. And I've worked very closely with David Smith for over 10 years, and he was appointed deputy in 2021. And we're both members of the Janus Henderson Global Equity Income team, and you may know some of my colleagues. A feature of the trust is that we have a very competitive management fee. It's only 0.3% in terms of investment management fee. All the charges come out at 0.36, which is the lowest in our sector and also one of the lowest, is very low for an actively managed fund. Another feature of investment trusts which we've taken advantage of is to have issued some very cheap debt when interest rates were low. So we've issued these two private placement notes, which, as you look at those coupons, which are 2.67% and 2.94%, and this is way lower than the government can now borrow at. And we issued those when interest rates were ultra low, and they've secured cheap financing for investment in equities for our investors for the next quarter of a century, which is a real advantage we've got. I mean, all you have to beat is a sort of weighted average of about 2.8% on that borrowed money. And if we can't do that on a per annum basis, obviously it's going to be a very sad old world. Next slide, please.
Just a little bit about Janus Henderson. Henderson was the British bit of it, which goes back to 1934. We merged with Janus in 2017. That's been a very successful merger. It's obviously given us a big insight into the US market, which tends to drive things globally, as you appreciate. And in particular, Janus came with them a collection of very strong analysts across the board, and we've really benefited from that. We've in particular, you know, in City of London, we have an excellent European banks analyst, and he was a key person who persuaded me to go overweight in the banks two and a half years ago, which has worked out very well, having been underweight for many years since before the global financial crisis in 2007. Next slide, please.
So in terms of my investment philosophy, it is valuation-driven. I mean, for me it's kind of equating the share price valuation with the growth prospects of the company that is critical, and I like to buy sort of quality when it's a bit out of favor, and we might end up selling things when they start to get expensive or at least reducing them, but we don't operate a sort of deep value philosophy. We do look at the macro factors which are obviously relevant in our view to company's growth prospects, and we start with dividend yield, but we look at a range of share price valuation methods and measures, and in particular we need to be in companies that are growing their profits and growing their dividends and investing enough for the future. We don't want to be in the high-yield value traps, the companies which end up probably cutting their dividends and being poor investments. So we're looking for the sweet spot of decent yield and growth. And we do need companies to invest enough for the future because if they're not doing that, they don't have a long-term future. And then it's a pretty conservative approach. I'm a conservative personality, and so we like companies with good cash generation. Typically, they're best able to both pay dividends and make the necessary capex. And we also like strong balance sheets, especially for cyclical companies. I mean, a mixture of operational and financial gearing can be toxic in a downturn and lead to cut dividends. And we're looking as much at the downside protection as well as the upside potential. So that's a key factor. It's, you know, avoiding the disasters can be as important as being in some of the winners. Next slide.
So this is our long-term performance since I became portfolio manager back in 1991. You can see we're well ahead of the index. And we've also got reasonably good short-term performance. To the end of January, we're up 25.3% total return, which is comfortably ahead of both the FTSE 250 and both the AIC, which is the investment trust sector, 15.3, and the equivalent O sector, which is 17.3. And we're actually ahead of our benchmark, the index or share index, over one, three and five years. We're marginally behind over 10 years by around two percentage points, but we are comfortably ahead of both the AIC sector and the O sector over 10 years, as we are over one, three and five. Next slide, please.
So in terms of the revenue, we're obviously well known for having the longest record of consecutive dividend increases of any investment trust going back to 1966. And last year we increased our dividend with June year end by 3.4% and our earnings per share by 3.3%. But obviously, you know, we do have to have a core of consistent companies, that's important, but in addition we do use investment trust structure. So during the pandemic, as you can probably remember, there were a lot of dividend cuts across the UK market. 2020 FTSE dividends were down by some 36%. So during that period we did use our revenue reserves. So the year to June 21, which was the second year of that period, we actually dug into our reserves by 11.8%, as you can see from the table on the right. The previous year it was actually 21%, which was the biggest reserve draw in my 34 years. But since then we've covered our dividend and we've put back a bit into reserves. So you can see, for example, last year we paid out 98.7%. So that 1.3% would have gone back into the revenue reserve, which grew actually by, the revenue reserve per share grew by 5.3% in that 12-month period and provides us a buffer for the future. Next slide, please.
So this gives you the very long-term dividend record going back the whole way back to 1966. It shows how the dividend compounds, and actually, as you probably know, we pay a dividend quarterly, and the quarterly dividend is now worth more than the full year dividend when I started in 1991. It shows you the sort of value of compounding over time, and, you know, part of what we do is we do believe in diversification. We don't like having all our eggs in one basket, particularly when it comes to dividends. So you can see we've got a decent spread across sectors. Our biggest single sector income is consumer staples, followed by insurance at 13.9% and then banks at 13.3%, and then financial services at 10%. So financials are quite a big weighting. Oil comes in at 8.6%. Next slide, please.
So let's now talk about the macro, and obviously hugely significant what's happening in the Middle East and the move in the oil price. And, you know, I was thinking back to early in my career when I came back from holiday, and the date was actually 2nd of August 1990, and it was my first day back in the office, and Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis had invaded Kuwait. And it was quite a big shock at the time, understandably. And basically the equities did sell off for the next four months. And then in January 1991, the American coalition forces swept back into Kuwait and reconquered it, then of course stopped at the border, and equities absolutely roofed it the moment the American forces started going back in. And I think obviously this conflict is different, and, you know, but it's obviously the same part of the world, but there are some marked differences. But I think overall it's difficult for equities to perform while the uncertainty persists, particularly with the Strait of Hormuz being closed and the upside potential on the oil price. But I think once people can, you know, are convinced that, well, once we get a glimmer of some light at the end of the tunnel, then I think that equities, you know, will perform well and rebound quite strongly. So it's a question of really the duration of the war, I think, both with the oil price itself. I mean, the oil market is quite oversupplied with oil up until this point, but obviously that's changing with the Straits of Hormuz being closed. And so, and the oil price obviously had a big move already. But so I think a lot depends on duration. I mean, Trump, sort of President Trump, you know, you feel he doesn't want a long war, and he sort of, I think he said as much. But, you know, how he extracts himself from it, the off-ramp as they call it, is kind of going to be interesting to see, and, you know, how the Iranians react to everything. But so it's obviously, you know, has changed things a bit, and, you know, I think it adds to the policy uncertainty which has already come from the US with the kind of various tariffs, etc. And I think up to, up to like the weekend before last, I think we could confidently say UK rates were on a downward path, inflation was likely to hit 2%, and we probably could see between 25 and 35 basis points of base rate cuts this year. But that's probably being put on hold a bit by, you know, what happens to the oil price. I'm still thinking, certainly if we get a short war, then I think, I think we're still back on for interest rate cuts. But the longer it goes on and the more the oil price rises, the kind of less certain one can be of that.
But I think in terms of UK equities, I very much strongly feel that investors are paid to hold on. I mean, on a yield basis, equities may yield slightly less than fixed income. The bottom chart shows the various yields that are on offer, and we may yield slightly less than fixed interest and base rates. But of course, with equities you've got dividend growth, and so you'd expect that to be the normal relationship. It only differed a bit during the period of ultra-low interest rates. But I would say that I would expect equities to have a lower yield given the kind of growth you get in both dividends and earnings from equities. In terms of price-earnings ratio, it's another basic valuation we look at. It's slightly above the very long-term average, but the UK market looks cheap compared to other equity markets. Admittedly, we don't have such a big technology sector, which might be a blessing in some times, but certainly compared to our sort of 10-year average PE, we're kind of in touch with the 10-year average, whilst the American market is very expensive, and most other markets are more expensive compared to their kind of long-term averages than the UK market is. And I certainly think you have got a combination of a reasonably attractive dividend yield of around 3%, but also you've got a lot of companies buying back their shares. There's talk of a lack of marginal buyer in UK equities, and, you know, with so many institutions investing globally or into fixed interest, and the public the same, and I think as a result companies have stepped in, and some of our biggest companies like Shell or Imperial Brands have got large share buyback programs, and overall companies' share buybacks are worth some 2% of the market cap of the UK market. So if you add that on to the dividend yield, you've got a total distribution yield around 5%, which is pretty attractive, and our share buyback yield is higher than the American market. So we've got a better dividend yield and a better share buyback yield. So I think, you know, you are paid to hold on in UK equities, and as a result of cheap valuations, you're getting a lot of takeovers, and we've seen it in our portfolio over the years at City of London. We've had two takeovers already in 2026. We've had Beazley, which is a specialist insurer, being bid for by Zurich Insurance, and Schroders, the fund manager, has been bid for by Nuveen, which is a US company. So it's two classic examples from our portfolio. There are many of them out there. So our gearing at the end of January was 6.5%. The kind of combined Beazley and Schroders holdings which we have are worth about two and a half. So the gearing is probably a net 4% if you, because they're kind of quasi-cash now. So we're kind of pretty defensively positioned, but those very cheap borrowings, you know, are there for kind of strategic gearing, but we have got bank facilities which could enable us to increase the gearing when we think there's a good opportunity. Next slide, please.
So in terms of the overall structure of the portfolio, we've got about 78 holdings. So, obviously we're a 2.7 billion portfolio. We, you know, we have smaller holdings for some of the kind of medium-sized companies, but we're predominantly in the large cap. We're 84% in the FTSE, we're 89% in the rest of the UK market. But some of the kind of the division is slightly artificial between the kind of smaller FTSE 100 companies and the sort of top end of the mid-250. We've reduced our overseas-listed portion of the portfolio. You know, we were as high as 17% a few years ago. We're now down to 7% because we're seeing so much better value in the UK market. But it does give us some extra diversification in some sectors, like we have TotalEnergies, the French oil company, in addition to Shell and BP, and in pharmaceuticals we have Merck of the US and Novo Nordisk and Johnson & Johnson in addition to AstraZeneca and GSK. And then as I mentioned, gearing was 6.5%. So in terms of the biggest sector weights, the biggest single weight is banks, where we're slightly overweight relative to the index, and we've got 16.4%. It's got 16.1 in the index. Our biggest holding is HSBC, where we're actually slightly underweight. It's a very big index weight, but our kind of main overweights in the sector are NatWest and Lloyds, and we're also slightly overweight in Barclays. And that sector we've been very positive about. What our analysts spotted a couple of years ago was something called the structural hedge, which is the sort of balances the banks have, the UK banks, which they are hedged very conservatively on a kind of five to seven-year basis. So those hedges, taken out when interest rates were very low, as they roll over, they can reset on much better interest rates. That's been a very positive tailwind for the sector. And in addition, I think there has been a sea change in regulation. I think the years immediately after the financial crisis, the regulators, you know, wanted the banks to become safe again, and they said to rebuild their capital, and obviously that was the primary objective of politicians. But now I think the mood has shifted, and what politicians want is growth, economic growth. You don't get growth without the banks lending. So I think you're definitely seeing a situation where the banks are being told they have got enough capital, and it's more a question of kind of enabling them to lend more. You know, for example, mortgage lending has got very restrictive, and they're obviously going to make it easier for young people, first-time buyers, to get mortgages with less restrictions.
And then the second biggest sector is financial, what's called investment banking, brokerage service. That's a sort of name for it, but it's better described as financial services. This is something I think the UK does well. We've got some really good companies in this sector. M&G is the biggest, which is a mixture of fund manager and life insurance in our portfolio. But we've also got Schroders in this sector, as well as IG Group, which is a kind of alternative financial markets operator and broker. And then we've got 3i, which is included in this sector, where we've taken some big profits, but the private investment in private companies. And then our third biggest sector is personal care, which is drug and grocery stores. So this includes Unilever, which we've been adding to. They've recently demerged their ice cream business, and we think this is a good move. We sold that part of it, and the rest of it is higher quality. This gives you a lot of exposure to emerging markets. Some 50% of the turnover is in emerging markets, and so we think this is on a better growth trajectory now. But also within this sector we have Tesco, which has done very well for us, and it's a very dependable, good cash flow business. And in addition, Reckitts is another important holding in this sector. Pharmaceuticals is our fourth biggest sector. AstraZeneca is our biggest holding. We've got a decent weight in it. It's been very successful. It's not a great dividend payer, so we are quite underweight Astra. It's been successful on the pipeline, so it is a decent holding, but difficult for us to be overweight given its very low dividend yield and hasn't got a great dividend growth record.
And then oil, we've got 7%. Shell's the biggest holding. We also hold some BP and TotalEnergies. We've added a bit to BP and Total, you know, over the last week, given circumstances. And obviously this is quite helpful, you know, narrowly from the oil company's point of view. You know, they are quite correlated with the oil price, so they're better placed. We, you know, we think the sector's in better shape than it was in terms of dividends. I mean, obviously I was very disappointed when Shell cut its dividend, as did BP, in 2020, but we think from the base they're at, these dividends are much more reliable, and, you know, and so we're, and Shell's also got a big share buyback as well. Total didn't cut its dividend that period. That's when we initially bought it, and we've kept a decent holding in that one. And then tobacco was a controversial sector. I'm also not at all in favour of cigarette smoking, but these are very cash-generative companies, BAT and Imperial Brands, and almost 100% of profits gets translated into cash. And so these have been, these are very dependable in terms of their earnings estimates, also developing much less harmful next-generation products like nicotine pouches, where BAT in particular, and in vaping, is the leader in the US, got a very strong business in that area. So those leading six sectors make up about 54% of our portfolio, and you see the advantage of a kind of diverse mixture of companies within that area, but with a sort of slight bias towards financials. Next slide, please.
So this talks about, this makes one very important point, is that our portfolio, although we're predominantly in UK-listed companies, if you drill down to the underlying sales of our companies, you can see that almost 60% is actually overseas. So around 41% UK, the rest is overseas, with a good spread, you know, 21% North America, but plenty in Europe, Asia Pacific, and emerging markets. So we would argue that you are investing in UK equities but getting global exposure to global growth at a discounted rating. And then the chart on the right just compares our weightings with the index, our index benchmark. And you can see our biggest overweight is financials. I talked a bit about banks, but we also think there's a lot of value in insurance companies and financial services. So that's a sector we like. The second biggest is consumer staples. That's a mixture of the tobacco and also companies like Unilever and Tesco. And then real estate is an area we like a lot. We've been adding to that. That's our third biggest overweight. And these real estate investment trusts are standing at discounts of sort of 25 to 30% to the net asset values which are calculated by professional firms. And we've seen a lot of takeover activity in the sector over the last 12 months. Around six UK-listed REITs have been taken over by private companies over the last 12 months, which indicates the private buyers are seeing value in the sector, and they're also throwing up very attractive dividend yields. You know, we hold Land Securities and British Land, which have a mixture of retail and London offices, but we also have Segro.
which is the leading company in industrial property, including and also got some exposure to data centers. And in addition, we've bought in the last nine months, we bought a holding in Big Yellow, which is a big self-storage company, leading in the UK. And that's a very attractive prospect in our view on a much cheaper rating than you've been able to buy it for many years. In terms of our underweights, they're mainly cyclical. So we're quite underweight industrials and particularly don't hold Rolls-Royce, which has had a spectacular recovery from the lows but only started paying a dividend again at a very low level about a year ago. And then we're pretty underweight consumer discretionary, which includes sectors like retailing and hospitality, and of course those areas being very badly hit by the Labour government's taxes on employers' national insurance and also by the minimum wage going up well above inflation. So we're pretty light in that area at the moment. Of course it includes airlines which are suffering a bit with the latest problems in the Middle East. And then our third biggest underweight is healthcare, which is primarily due to our underweight position in AstraZeneca, which I've already mentioned. Next slide, please.
So this is the final slide before I throw it open to questions. So it's 59 years of annual dividend increases. We actually announce our third interim dividend on the 9th of April, which is usually the dividend where we announce an increase in the rate. So if we announce an increase, and it will be the decision of the board, but they've expressed a lot of confidence that they'll be able to, it'll be 60 years of annual dividend increase, which obviously is an interesting mark to achieve, and we're very proud of it. And that's been achieved through having a core of consistent companies in the portfolio, but also we could only have done it through the investment trust structure, having the revenue reserves in the difficult years like 2020-21 and to pay out of those revenue reserves in those difficult years and then put money into the reserves in the good years of dividends. We think our charges are very competitive. They're the lowest in our sector and at 0.36 are very low for an actively managed fund, and we've achieved a long-term outperformance of the UK index through a conservative investment style. So, thank you very much for listening, and I'd be very happy to take any questions.
Yes, well, there's quite a lot in that question. Maybe you just go back one slide, please. That just shows you the discrete performance compliance slide. Thank you. So, yeah, there's a lot in that, but you know, people talk about the concentration in the UK market, but if you look at the US market, it's incredibly concentrated towards technology companies, much more so than the UK, which tend not to pay dividends. So I wouldn't, I don't find the concentration is as marked as some people make out. In particular, you know, you've got different blocks to it. You've got kind of obviously you've got oil companies which are quite big, but and people think, you know, a few months ago people might have said they were dinosaurs, but everyone realizes actually the world is still, oil is actually pretty important for the world, and so it's not a bad thing to have a bit of oil exposure, you know, particularly in times like we have today. And then obviously financials are a big part of the UK index, but then financials are a big part of our economy, and you know, and obviously the banks went through a really difficult time, you know, during the global financial crisis, but as I've said earlier, you know, I think they're in much better condition and we're seeing very good dividend growth from the banking sector. I should have mentioned that earlier. So that's a really good area of dividend growth. And then some of the kind of consumer staples type companies. I mean, these have been around a long time. You know, they tend to be pretty consistent dividend payers. I mean, Unilever, you know, it's incredibly global. You know, it's got a huge presence in emerging markets. Tesco's is our leading food retailer. Almost a third of the UK buys their groceries from Tesco's, and you know, they kept the nation fed during the COVID period, etc. And obviously Tesco had its issues going back, but it's in much better shape now. They divested a lot of their peripheral overseas interests and they focused on being price competitive in the UK, and they got their Clubcard, which gives them a big advantage. It's much more sophisticated than competitors. So I would say they're in really good shape. And obviously, you know, within staples, GSK did cut its dividend. We have got a holding there. It's, you know, so just because you're a staple stock doesn't mean to say you can't end up overdistributing and cutting. But the tobacco companies, you know, are very good cash generators and I'm very confident they can carry on growing their dividends. So, you know, when you look at our top 10, you know, we also got some growth stocks in it like AstraZeneca as well. And BAE Systems, I should mention, is our biggest industrial company, and that's been obviously that is in a really good place at the moment. I mean, given the world we're in, you know, we do have to spend more on defense, and they are a very global company, and their biggest market is America, but they've also got obviously they're Britain's biggest defense contractor. They also got a very big interest in Europe and also in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia, and also in Asia Pacific with countries like Japan and Australia. So, you know, and then they got, you know, we got the mining sector again, which is, that's been quite volatile for dividends. I mean, our main holding, Rio Tinto, has actually been the best dividend payer, but you know, the world needs, it may seem a bit old-fashioned, but actually all this electronics and data centers, I mean, we're going to need a lot, and electrification, we're going to need a lot of copper going forward, and we also need iron ore to build things, etc. So, I mean, the commodities that Rio Tinto and Glencore, which is the other holding in that sector, produce are pretty fundamental to kind of economic growth and modern life. So I don't find, I think I find there's plenty of diversification in the UK. You know, we got a small technology sector. We hold Relx, which is now classified as a technology, as a software company. It's got some incredibly high-quality business information and analytics, as well as providing information for insurance companies and legal firms, scientists, etc. And I think it's a very high quality. We also got some Sage as well, but it's a small sector in the UK market. So I would look at other markets and say they've got their own concentrations. Obviously, you know, you want exposure to technology, you want a global technology fund or a fund invested in the American market, and that will complement City of London very nicely. But you know, we don't, I definitely don't see us over-concentrated in terms of income at all.
Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. I must say one's thoughts do go to everybody out there in that region. Actually, my daughter was flying home from holiday from Australia and flew into Dubai on the Saturday, and of course couldn't fly out on the Sunday, and fortunately she did manage to fly back home on the Wednesday. So it brought it home to me very much, you know, just all the people out there in Dubai and the whole region. But yeah, in terms of, I mean, as I think I said in the presentation, up until now there was actually an excess of oil out there in the world relative to demand, and there are some sort of features, for example, which are affecting demand, such as the growth of electric vehicles, which may have stalled a bit in Europe and US, but in China has grown at a pace. And as a result, Chinese demand for oil, which has been one of the big growth factors behind oil demand over the years, has actually slowed down significantly. So, but this obviously changes everything. And I mean, there are other areas, the world isn't quite as dependent on Middle Eastern oil as it was back in the 1970s. And Saudi Arabia's now got a pipeline which goes east to west, and means some of their oil they have to go through straight, but it still is a critical pinch point for the whole world oil sector. So the longer it lasts, I mean, the more the oil price is really going to go up, has to be said. And also, it's pretty important for liquefied natural gas, you know, which is produced in great quantities in places like Qatar. And a lot of that passes through the Straits of Hormuz, and you know, so I think it is, you know, it is a concern, you know, the longer it goes on. And oil is pretty fundamental still to the world economy, you know, not just transportation, you know, cars and airplanes, but also electricity generation. It's very important in many countries, particularly liquefied natural gas, and also the whole plastics complex, and you know, fertilizers, you know, so on and so forth. So it is, it's a pretty important, oil and natural gas in the world economy. So it does have a kind of stagflationary impact, you know, both adds to inflation and also, but also it acts like a tax on consumers, and it will, you know, and it will kind of reduce demand for other things. So, and that's what we had in the 1970s. You had both high inflation and very, very low growth, or kind of economies not growing. It was kind of termed stagflation. I think that's when the term got invented during that period. And so it's not good news at all, in addition to the kind of all the many other sad aspects to what's going on. So the longer it goes on, obviously the more negative it is really. So, but as I said, I think, you know, stock markets are discounting mechanisms, and you know, the stock market today will be reflecting all those worries. And so, and you know, the gilt markets reacted very quickly, and other bond markets, you know, in the sense that they were anticipating interest rate cuts, and they've now put that on hold, and that's meant gilt prices have declined and gilt yields have gone up, as with other bonds. So, so all of this gets, so I think, you know, the key thing, and I go back to, you know, 1991, and you know, once the kind of market gets to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, then people will stamp back into equities, and so it's a balancing act, and it's, you know, it's obviously nobody knows quite when that turning point's going to come, particularly when you've got quite a mercurial president of the United States like Donald Trump. You know, he quite likes, I saw Game Show Host, he quite likes kind of teasing people and surprising them. But obviously it's all deadly serious what's going on, and we just have to watch it very closely. And you know, I mean, as I said, City's portfolio is pretty defensively positioned, and we got no exposure, very little exposure to sort of airlines, and consumer discretionary is very light, and cyclical generally. So we think the portfolio is decently positioned, but you know, these sort of periods, you know, it doesn't stop the whole market getting dragged down for a time, but in the long run equities, you know, rebound, and you know, it could be, you know, it could be over sooner than we all think, but it obviously, you know, it is continuing as we speak today.
