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After almost twenty years of occupation, NATO and its allies withdrew from Afghanistan. It is a historically significant security event and will have a lasting impact around the world. The monthly report concludes with a more detailed analysis of how the events of August 2021 may affect the global security picture.
It was a strong month for the Global Security Fund, which was up 1.25 percent and 1.10 percent respectively for share classes R and S. It is the positive price development for cyber security companies that continues to have the greatest impact on the fund's performance, where large differences are observed between the month's best and worst performing company.
The cyber security company Fortinet continues to perform. After July's strong report, the price trend continues up with a series of upgraded analyses. The company operating in the niche network segment has seen a marked increase in business orders with the company reporting a rising rate of investment. The company is up 123.24 percent for the year and was up 16.24 percent for the month with a contribution of 0.93 percent.
Cyber security company Crowdstrike, which was last year's best performing holding, has now broken out to the upside after a price consolidation. The company is considered best in class and benefits from the investment trend in cyber crime protection. The company reported better than expected in August and continues to show good conditions for growth. The company's sales growth was 69.7 percent from the previous year. Crowdstrike stock rose 11.27 percent on the month with a contribution of 0.77 percent.
Another cyber security company with a focus on networks is Palo Alto Networks. The company continues to show strong growth and benefits from the same investment trend as Fortinet, where companies are investing heavily to protect against cybercrime. The investment trend in the corporate orders segment continues to be strong. The stock was up 16.07 percent for the month with a contribution of 0.44 percent.
Microsoft has had a fantastic year where growth in cloud services continues. The world is becoming increasingly digitized and company infrastructure is in most cases with Microsoft, Amazon or Google. Microsoft was up 6.35 percent for the month with a contribution of 0.28 percent.
Cyber security and antivirus company NortonLifeLock announced in August that it will acquire Avast, a rival company. NortonLifeLock, formerly Symantec, has for a long period worked on its corporate identity, but with this latest deal seems to have focused on its long niche area - antivirus and VPN. The company was up 7.46 percent for the month with a contribution of 0.26 percent.
A reminder that there are companies whose share price can fall back in the cyber security sector can be seen with the losers of the months. The cyber security company FireEye is now going through a restructuring where the company's product division will be sold to an investment consortium while Mandiant Solutions, FireEye's Software as a Service platform, will continue as FireEye, but under a new name, Mandiant Solutions. The restructuring is attractive in the long term, even if there is uncertainty in the short term. FireEye was down 9.48 percent for the month with a contribution of 0.30 percent.
Within the cyber security segment there are a number of consulting companies that work primarily with it
American state. These companies performed poorly in August with Mantech, Leidos, Booz Allen and CACI all down 9.13 percent, 7.47 percent, 4.21 percent and 3.2 percent.
It was a tragic end to a long occupation in which many lost their lives. When the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the goal was to defeat Al Quaida, which is considered responsible for the September 11 terror attack. The fact that they stayed so long may be due to the fact that the goal was changed or that they were unable to defeat Al Quaida. Perhaps the explanation lies somewhere in between. What is clear is that the US's actions as the leading nation in NATO have diminished considerably. To deaf ears, the US president acted like someone who is out in the deep without a map. What NATO and its alliances contributed to over 20 years was to give opportunities to people who otherwise would never have had them, and there are many great examples of this.
As a result of the poorly handled terminations, there are many risk factors that can increase the security threat. There has been too little time to vet all the people who were evacuated, and there are many instances where Taliban fighters or other high-risk citizens were swept up in the evacuation. NATO's strength is in the alliance, but if the largest member can dictate terms without responsibility, the other members will probably review how the alliance can function more democratically and not get involved in conflicts on the other side of the world. There has been some criticism of NATO from some of the more powerful countries and it may be that recent action by the US is pushing European members to form a more concentrated defense in Europe, which would also benefit Europe. Countries that previously saw the United States as a protection against conflict from, among others, China must review their strategy. While Sweden and many other countries have cut ties with Afghanistan in the form of grants, Russia and China want a good relationship with the Taliban. There are plenty of natural resources that can replace the funding that Afghanistan is losing in the form of grants. The risk of extremism growing is high and it can be stated that the security situation is worse today than it was in 2001.