Consumer spending has diverged sharply by income cohort over the past eighteen months, which makes broad consumer-sector calls less useful than they once were.

The single clearest signal we track across the Global Brands Fund is whether a company can raise price without a corresponding loss in volume — a direct read on how replaceable it is in the eyes of its customers.

That test has quietly excluded several well-known names from the portfolio this year, and added two others we believe the market still underrates.