After a turbulent April, where customs news dominated, May \u2013 to our delight \u2013 became significantly more focused on companies' fundamentals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the month, the majority of our holdings reported their first quarter results, and we saw continued strong momentum, especially among companies exposed to the ongoing rollout of AI infrastructure. In addition to the fundamental results, we closely followed the companies' investment forecasts (capex), which show a clear increase in investment levels compared to last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meta raised its capex forecast further, with a particular focus on AI infrastructure. Microsoft, Amazon and Google maintained their already high levels of investment, and a significant number of our portfolio companies are expected to benefit directly from this. Nvidia reported at the end of May. Although restrictions related to China have had some impact this year, this is more than offset by a stronger-than-expected increase in demand for some of Nvidia\u2019s newest AI chips. Demand for their products still clearly exceeds what the company can deliver. During the year, so-called \u201creasoning models\u201d have become the new standard in AI. These models require significantly more computational capacity for inference compared to the previous chatbot models. We see this both in the short-term demand for computing power and in the fact that more use cases are being enabled for AI \u2013 something that is crucial for long-term demand and adoption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The portfolio rose 4.9% % in May, with strong performance in our AI-exposed semiconductor companies \u2013 driven by strong earnings and data points pointing to continued high demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n