This is the audio version of our 2021 Brands Fund Letter. Welcome to Mr. Toads Wild Ride market in 2021.

I highlight the kind of market environment we had in 2021, what we see for 2022 and how we are positioned.

I talk about the spending categories we are invested in as well as which brands are the most relevant based on our analysis.

I talk about the distortions that have been created through Covid and what we see normalizing in 2022.

I show how the fund has performed in the 2 year stack of 2020 & 2021 - hint - we outperformed the S&P 500 ~575 bps annual due to a strong 2020 Covid stage 1 year. I compare the fund to the S&P 500 and a plain vanilla, traditional ETF-only blend which lagged the S&P 500 by roughly 300bps annual with this blend. The ETF’s & weights we used for this analysis are: SPY(15%), QQQ(25%), SPHD (20% - low vol, high dividend), IWS (5% - mid-cap value), IWP (5% - mid-cap growth), IWN (5% - small-cap value), VGK (5% - broad based Europe), GEM (5% - emerging markets), IWD (15% - large cap value). This is a fairly typical broad market portfolio using ETF's.

If you would like to read the commentary, please email me at [email protected] and Ill send you the PDF.

I will post the commentary on the www.globalbrandsmatter.com homepage soon.