By Zimele Mbanjwa
The second quarter of 2025 saw the FNB ETNs recover strongly after a bumpy start to the year as global markets sold off significantly in April following United States (US) President Donald Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" tariff announcements. This was followed by a tit-for-tat spat between the two largest economies in the world, the US and China. Trump later paused reciprocal tariffs for 90 days and the US and China rolled many of the levies imposed on one other. The delay and tentative agreement boosted market confidence, with the S&P 500 touching record highs on 27 June.
The notable quarterly outperformers within the ETN basket were Palantir, Broadcom, Microsoft and Meta. Nvidia also had a strong showing while LVMH fell the most as the luxury goods market continued to wane amid heightened geopolitical and trade uncertainty and a softening in consumer confidence globally. Apple lagged peers on fears of high-cost implications related to targeted tariffs as the hardware giant manufactures most products consumed by US customers in Vietnam and India.
Booking, JP Morgan and Goldman Sacks also held up reasonably well, while Berkshire Hathaway and McDonalds also took a dive.
Over the period the rand gained ~3.2% against the greenback, thus seeing to it that the Quanto ETNs (without currency exposure) outperformed the Compo ETNs (with currency exposure). At the end of March, FNB launched ETNs tracking eight new exposures, namely AirBNB, ASML, Blackrock, Broadcom, LVMH, Novo Nordisk, Palantir and Walt Disney. There are now 64 FNB ETNs, tracking 32 exposures listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
