PERFORMANCE REVIEW for the month ended 31 Mar 2019

Buoyed by an increasingly dovish US Federal Reserve and optimism surrounding US-China trade negotiations, emerging markets (“EM”) equities posted positive returns in March. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index (“Index”) returned 1.39% in local currency terms during the month. Led by India, emerging Asia was the top performing region group within the Index. The emerging Latin America and emerging Europe, Middle East, and Africa (“EMEA”) regions also delivered positive returns during the month. Real estate, communication services, and consumer discretionary were the top performing sectors within the Index in local currency terms. Industrials, health care, and utilities were the weakest performers.

The Portfolio outperformed the Index in March 2019. We use both bottom-up and top-down factor categories to seek to forecast alpha for the stocks in the Portfolio's investable universe. Our earnings growth factor was the top performing bottom-up category during the month, rebounding from a weak start to the year. Our value factor category was a neutral indicator during the month while our price momentum category was modestly negative. Our macroeconomic factor was the only top-down category in positive territory during the month. Our country, sector, and currency factors posted negative returns.

Over the month, Portfolio positioning in the emerging Asia region contributed to performance relative to the Index, primarily driven by positive stock selection in India and South Korea. Within the EMEA region, an overweight position in Turkey detracted from relative performance. Positioning in the emerging Latin America region was neutral for performance. From a sector perspective, the largest contributors to relative performance were real estate, materials, and information technology. Positioning in the industrials, energy, and consumer staples sectors detracted from relative performance. The greatest stock-level contributors to relative performance included overweight positions in mortgage lender, Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd. (India), real estate developer, Shimao Property Holdings Ltd. (China), online services company, Tencent Holdings Ltd. (China), apparel & footwear manufacturer, Fila Korea Ltd. (South Korea), and bank, ICICI Bank Ltd. (India). The largest stock-level detractors from relative performance included overweight positions in financial and industrial holdings company, Investimentos Itau (Brazil), power generation & construction company, Tekfen Holding AS (Turkey), mobile phone operator, Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS (Turkey), and oil & gas exploration & production company, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (China), as well as an underweight position in electronic & print media platform operator, Naspers Ltd. (South Africa).*

*The market commentary expresses the portfolio managers’ views as of the date of this report and should not be relied on as research or investment advice regarding any stock. These views and the portfolio holdings and characteristics are subject to change. There is no guarantee that any forecasts made will come to pass. The securities identified and described in this report do not represent all of the securities purchased, sold or recommended for client accounts. The reader should not assume that an investment in the securities identified was or will be profitable. Past performance does not guarantee future results.  For a description of our performance attribution methodology, or to obtain a list showing every holding's contribution to the overall account's performance during the quarter, please contact our product manager, Kevin Moutes, at 310-231-6116 or moutes@causewaycap.com.