Property companies, healthcare companies and manufacturers of alcoholic beverages and tobacco are traditionally viewed as part of the defensive companies club – given their historic ability to deliver consistent volumes and cashflow.
Some of the traditional defensive companies were suddenly in unknown territory. The share prices of some listed property companies are still down about 50% year to date, hospital counters around 30% down and Anheuser-Busch InBev is down just over 20% for the year relative to the overall market, which has recovered to flat for the year to date.
Supply and demand dynamics in the Resources sector also played out “more defensively” than expected for a sector usually seen as more cyclical. Less geared and safer balance sheets helped the resources companies going into this crisis. The demand disruption for commodities was countered by supply disruptions , which meant that a lot of commodities were still in a well-balanced supply-demand dynamic, which supported the commodity prices.
We believe longer-term structural changes over the coming years are likely to be accelerated by the arrival of COVID-19 such as:Deteriorating fiscal positions following stimulatory emergency policies could pave the way for increases in policies to improve revenues of governments across the world ;