The Minotaur Global Opportunities Fund rose 3.2% in June, slightly outperforming the benchmark’s 2.6% gain. Both our portfolio and broader markets remained remarkably resilient, brushing off a geopolitical news cycle that felt more like political theatre: a very public break-up/spat between Elon Musk and President Trump, militarised crackdowns on immigration protests, Israel-Iran conflict and US intervention, continued trade volatility, and a tragic Boeing crash - the worst in the company’s history.

Winners and losers
Amidst this chaos, performance was broad-based, with several standout contributors:

On the downside, Duolingo declined following a backlash to the CEO’s comments about transitioning to an "AI-first" model and replacing contractors with AI, which may have contributed to both user and visits growth deceleration from 1Q. European defence names RENK and Rheinmetall also slipped, impacted by a short-term rotation out of the sector.

AI 2.0 back with a vengeance
After February’s deflation, AI momentum is accelerating again. Oracle’s Q4 results revealed 52% YoY growth in Cloud Infrastructure, with next year’s forecast ramping to 70%. OCI enables plug-and-play AI capability via rentable compute, offering a cost-effective alternative to hyperscaler platforms. The stock jumped 22% in two days.

We’re also watching CoreWeave, the GPU cloud provider that IPO’d in March at US$40 and is now trading near US$150. Originally built for crypto mining, the business has successfully pivoted to AI workloads. Revenues are expected to rise from US$229m in 2023 to US$5-8B in 2025, underpinned by a US$25B+ backlog. These data points reinforce our thesis: AI demand remains intense, compute supply remains constrained, and there is still considerable room to run.

Meanwhile, Apple, a key short in our portfolio, continues to lag. Its WWDC event underwhelmed again, especially compared to Google’s I/O showcase. The iPhone company still has no idea how to market and monetise AI. With only 17% of global consumers expecting to buy an iPhone in the next 12 months (a 10-year low) according to polls, and the company’s own lead engineers admitting Siri upgrades and other features are behind schedule, Apple seems years late to the AI party.

Taurient keeps evolving
We continue to push the boundaries with Taurient. This month we integrated Quartr’s API, adding transcript access to nearly 13,000 companies, helping strengthen the source base for Taurient’s reports.

We also rolled out audio narration in our Daily Market Reports using ElevenLabs' text-to-speech, further enhancing usability. Finally, we’re excited to play around with ChatGPT’s DeepResearch API which has just been released. DeepResearch has already boosted the depth and precision of our sector and company deep dives.

European defence: Short-term pain, long-term conviction
European defence was under pressure this month, driven by short-term profit-taking and an aggressive rotation away from the sector. But at June’s NATO summit, member nations committed to raising defence spending to 5% of GDP – a major policy shift. It was a diplomatic win for both Secretary-General Mark Rutte and President Trump, who emerged from the summit saying: “It’s not a rip-off – we’re here to help them protect their countries.” Rutte had worked for months to ensure the US renewed its Article 5 commitments on collective defence.

We continue to believe the global security landscape is structurally shifting. Armed conflict is becoming more likely, more prolonged, and more globally consequential. However, after significant outperformance, we trimmed our European defence allocation from 27% to 13%, reducing positions from nine to five, primarily for risk management.

Prime Book Trading Flows for European Defence

Steady as she goes
Overall, the month was reflective of our whole first financial year - at times tumultuous, and with headlines that bordered on ridiculous, but we concentrated on our strengths and delivered consistent execution. We have learned to let the headlines wash over us and stay anchored to process: combining fundamental insight with increasingly powerful AI tools. We continue to refine our systems, strengthen our research process, and compound our AI advantage both as we learn more and as the models themselves get exponentially better.

As Heraclitus put it, "Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character." We believe the same applies to building a resilient investment portfolio.