Category: Stock market

Another Good Article from Terry Smith on Dividends

As usual, there were some very perceptive comments from Terry Smith of Fundsmith on dividends and income funds in FT Money on Saturday (6/10/2018). Many investors want income – for example to finance spending in retirement – so they invest in high dividend paying stocks. Some simply think that reinvested dividends will enable them to grow their portfolio value but this is a poor result in reality. As Terry explains it would be better if the companies retained the earnings and reinvested them. The maths shows the negative impact of the tax you pay on the dividends.

Terry bemoans the fact that income funds outsell all other types by some margin, even though in reality many have only a yield that is slightly higher than the average. Needless to point out perhaps that the funds he runs are not income funds. But that does not destroy the wisdom of what he is saying.

All that matters is total return. If a company can reinvest the generated profits with a good return, there is no good reason to pay them out as dividends; as Warren Bufftet’s Berkshire Hathaway has never done with great results. Retained earnings compound even faster if no dividends are paid.

A personal investor can always sell a few shares to generate a cash income if necessary, and generally at a lower tax rate than they would pay on dividends.

Companies can usually find projects or acquisitions that can generate good returns. There are a few exceptions of course. Incompetent managements who pursue mirages or make disastrous acquisitions are examples, but those are the kinds of companies you should be selling not buying anyway.

Today the stock market is falling yet again, with growth stocks badly hit. There can be a tendency to hold on to those boring defensive and high-yielding stocks in a market rout. But that is a mistake. For the same reason you probably should not have bought them in the first place, don’t hold on to them. A yield of 4%, 5% or higher does not offset the risk of share price decline. Just consider when you are cleaning out your portfolio today to get rid of the duds that won’t be generating high and growing profits in the future. That’s all that matters.

Incidentally I had a letter published in the Financial Times today on the subject of Brexit, which was very kind of them as I effectively criticised their editorial policies. It was headlined “Please – no more letters from moaning Remainers” and was in response to two previous letters from clearly biased correspondents. You can find it on the FT web site.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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A Bad Day in the Market, but Good News from Unilever and BEIS

It was a bad day in the market yesterday, with the FTSE All-Share falling over 1%. This seems to have been driven by a sell off in bonds. Equity prices are usually linked to bond prices simply because as bond yields rise from a fall in bond prices, it becomes more attractive to hold bonds relative to equities. That particularly applies to shares that are “bond proxies”, i.e. ones bought because of their high yields for income seeking investors.

These changes have been driven by the realisation that the US economy is booming. The Federal Reserve has already raised US interest rates and is therefore likely to do so again if the US economy continues to race ahead. But a booming US economy is of course good news for many companies. Higher interest rates may mean that some companies pay more on their debt but that it a longer-term impact and many “new economy” companies do not have any debt.

When markets are falling in general, there is no place to hide. My over-diversified portfolio, mainly in UK small cap stocks, fell about 1%. Not every share declined but the majority did. It affected particularly highly rated, go-go stocks such as Fevertree (FEVR) which was down 8% yesterday. I am glad I now only have a nominal holding in the company. But also affected were many investment trusts which I hold as their typical low liquidity compounded by a few private investors panicking drove down the prices. Some fell more than the underlying shares they hold.

Property companies have also been affected as interest rates have an impact on their business model, despite the fact many have locked in low rates on long-term debt. Safestore (SAFE) for example was down 3.9% yesterday (I hold it).

The share price declines spread like a contagion to many other stocks who should be positively affected by a booming US economy and not impacted by higher interest rates. The rise in interest rates is hardly a surprise though it has been well signaled in advance in both the US and UK. It was unrealistic to expect the historically exceptional low interest rates to continue forever.

My reaction when there is carnage in the stock market is to stand back and wait to see whether it develops into a trend or is simply a short-term blip. There can be buying opportunities if the reaction to economic news is too severe. But interest rates are nowhere near low enough yet to cause me to abandon the stock market and move into bonds. I feel there is more destruction to come in the latter. 

Unilever and Enfranchising Nominee Shareholders

Today we have some good news from Unilever. They have backed down on their proposal to merge their dual legal structure. The announcement said “We have had an extensive period of engagement with shareholders and have received widespread support for the principle behind simplification. However, we recognise that the proposal has not received support from a significant group of shareholders and therefore consider it appropriate to withdraw”.

There was opposition from both individual shareholders and institutions in the UK and there was a risk that they might fail on the Court hearing vote to gain enough support. It’s always good when shareholders make their voice heard, although it still leaves the issue that shareholders in nominee accounts were likely to be disenfranchised.

The good news in that regard is that I have received a letter today from the BEIS Department which says “BEIS is sponsoring a project by the Law Commission to examine the UK system of intermediated securities”. I will try and find out more, but don’t get too excited – it might not report before 2020!

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Tesla, Unilever, EasyJet IT Write-Offs and Cash Holdings

The big news today is that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have charged Tesla CEO Elon Musk with securities fraud. This charge relates to his comments on Twitter that he would likely be taking Tesla private. To quote from the SEC complaint: “Musk’s statements, disseminated via Twitter, falsely indicated that, should he so choose, it was virtually certain that he could take Tesla private at a purchase price that reflected a substantial premium over Tesla stock’s then current share price, that funding for this multi-billion dollar transaction had been secured, and that the only contingency was a shareholder vote. In truth and in fact, Musk had not even discussed, much less confirmed, key deal terms, including price, with any potential funding source”. Mr Musk vigorously rejected the charges, as did the company.

The full SEC complaint is here: https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2018/comp-pr2018-219.pdf

Comment: it is of course the oldest trick in the book if you are unhappy with the share price of your company to announce a potential bid from yourself or a third party. Making such an announcement via Twitter, if that was the motivation which has yet to be proven, would certainly be something new though. Making any announcements via Twitter is exceedingly risky and Tesla’s advisors must be tearing their hair out over this sequence of events. Who else if anyone reviewed the tweets before they were sent? Probably nobody I suspect. And anyone who uses Twitter will know it’s very easy to let typos, grammar errors and Spoonerisms creep in. Such important announcements should only be issued by the proper regulatory news channels. Elon Musk should have known better.

But if Elon Musk was forced to step down from Tesla, which might be the outcome, would it matter? I suspect not. The merit of Tesla as a company is in the technology in the cars which is still ahead of most potential electric car competitors. I have driven a Tesla Model S and it is a very good car indeed. But unfortunately my wife thinks I don’t need to buy expensive, flash cars to impress people any more so I’ll have to wait for the cheaper Model 3 to become available in the UK.

Unilever and Shareholder Voting

Unilever is planning to consolidate the two arms of the business in Holland, and drop the dual listing. UK shareholders would end up holding shares listed only in Holland, and as a result the dividends would be subject to Dutch withholding tax which is currently at the rate of 15%. Such taxes always cause problems although sometimes they can be refunded by submitting claims to do so. There is also the possibility that the withholding tax will be dropped. Another difficulty is that as Unilever is in the FTSE100, any funds running a FTSE-100 tracker would have to sell the shares. The Investors Chronicle ran a longish article on this subject and suggested it was a “no-brainer” for UK shareholders to vote against it.

But it seems that might be easier said than done. According to a report on Citywire, any shareholders in nominee accounts (i.e. in ISAs, SIPPs or other broker accounts – which means most UK shareholders now) will have to “rematerialize” their shares if they want to vote them, i.e. convert them to a paper share certificate. The company is not accepting votes submitted by nominee operators. Dematerialising shares is typically a costly and time-consuming process and is actually impossible to do if the shares are in an ISA or SIPP which have to be held in nominee form. This is truly outrageous news and any shareholders holding Unilever shares who wishes to oppose the move by the company should complain to the FCA, your Member of Parliament, the Company Chairman Marijn Dekkers, and anyone else you can think of.

[Postscript: the issue here seems to be the votes for the Court Hearing where the number of individual voters is taken into account. But for the shares held by a nominee operator, which may represent many thousands of underlying beneficial owners, only one vote would be counted even if it was submitted as there is only one holding on the register. ]

It has been reported that a number of institutions might oppose the unification of the company but it would certainly help to get retail shareholders voting.

Incidentally I attended a meeting today with Link Asset Services (one of the largest registrars) where the problem of retail shareholders not voting was discussed. I’ll write a separate blog post on that later.

EasyJet

If you recall, I mentioned previously the large expenditure on a “big-bang” IT project at Abcam which is clearly over-budget and over-time. That might have contributed to the 35% share price drop immediately after their recent preliminary results announcement. Now EasyJet have made a similar announcement today in their trading update. To quote: “…easyJet has now made the decision to change its approach to technology development through better utilisation and development of existing systems on a modular basis, rather than working towards a full replacement of our core commercial platform.  As a result of this change in approach, we are recognising a non-headline charge of around £65 million relating to IT investments and associated commitments we will no longer require. EasyJet will continue to invest in its digital and eCommerce layers that will enable it to continue to offer a leading innovative, revenue enhancing and customer friendly platform.”

That £65 million is no small sum and just shows you how IT is so critical to how businesses are managed in the modern world. Similar problems arose at TSB where they attempted to replace their old Lloyds systems with completely new software which was allegedly not adequately tested. But any IT professional will tell you that you cannot test and anticipate all the problems in a diverse customer environment ahead of going live with new technology. The NHS was another prime example of a “big-bang” approach to IT system development that ended up costing the Government, and us as taxpayers, at least £10 billion (that’s not a typo – it was ten billion and more). Evolution rather than revolution is the way to develop IT systems as EasyJet and Abcam seem to be learning, the hard way.

Cash Holdings

I suggested in a previous blog post that a newly available easy-access deposit account might be a suitable place to move cash from your stockbroking account to get a decent rate of interest rather than none. The problem of course is that most retail investors have most of their money in ISAs and SIPPs and taking cash out is problematic.

For ISAs, you may not realise that you can actually take cash out of a “flexible” ISA (which most ISAs are such as Stock & Share ISAs or Cash ISAs) and put it back in later. This was a recent change to the ISA regulations. However you can only do that within the same tax year without affecting your ISA allowance.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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The Market, Dunedin and Standard Life Smaller Companies Merger, and Aston Martin IPO

Is it not depressing when you go away for a week’s holiday and your portfolio falls every day in that time? I do monitor any exceptional movements while on vacation but try to avoid trading. It just seemed to be a general downward trend and reviewing the movement over that week my portfolio is down 1.73% while the FTSE All-Share is down 1.72%. So that is what I had already surmised.

Those stocks that seemed to have become overblown did fall and there were some like Scottish Mortgage Trust (SMT) were hit by specific news – in their case the events at Tesla. But the fall in my portfolio last week was less than it went up the previous week. I feel not quite so depressed now I have done the analysis.

Anyway, I am back from holiday now and on my desk is a proposed merger of Dunedin Smaller Companies Investment Trust (DNDL) and Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Investment Trust (SLS). I need to take a decision on this as I hold the latter.

DNDL is smaller than SLS and following the merger of DNDL’s manager, Aberdeen Asset Management, with Standard Life the merged manager now has two trusts with a similar focus. SLS has a superior performance record – 100.7% net asset value total return versus 68.9% for DNDL over the last 5 years. The merged trusts would be managed by Harry Nimmo who has managed SLS for some years.

The directors argue that the merger makes sense because it will result in reduced on-going costs and improved liquidity in the shares, although they don’t quantify either claim. There is no immediate change proposed to the fund management charges on SLS. DNDL will be paying the costs of both parties if the merger goes through.

It no doubt makes sense for the manager to merge these trusts. Not much point in having two trusts in the same stable with a similar focus and they will save on management costs. It also makes some sense for DNDL holders but does it for SLS shareholders?

Enlarging a trust or fund can degrade future returns particularly in small cap funds. This is because buying larger quantities of smaller company shares is more difficult and exiting is also difficult. In other words, the manager may find they cannot be as nimble as before. Alternatively the number of companies in the fund has to grow and we surely know that this is a recipe to reduce returns as there are only so many “good ideas” out there. The more companies in a portfolio, the more likely it is to approximate to a tracker fund.

Therefore, I think I will vote against this merger for that reason.

But what alternatives were there for DNDL shareholders? The company could have changed the manager to avoid the conflict of interest. Or simply wound up if it was too small to be viable. Perhaps a wider international focus when SLS is UK focused would be another alternative.

Luxury car maker Aston Martin is to float on the market. I agree with Neil Collins comments in the FT this weekend – “never buy a share in an initial public offering”. He suggested those who are selling know more about the stock than you do. Car companies, particularly of niche brands, are notoriously tricky investments. Aston Martin has been bust as many as seven times according to one press report. As Mr Collins also said “The private equity vendors are dreaming of a £5 billion valuation for a highly geared business with a decidedly unroadworthy past”.

Car companies exhibit all the worst features of technology businesses. Product reliability issues (which was a bugbear for Aston Martin for many years), very high cost of new model production, Government regulatory interference requiring major changes for safety and emissions, competitors leapfrogging the technology with better products, and sensitivity to economic trends. In a recession few people buy luxury vehicles or they simply postpone purchases – so it’s feast or famine for the manufacturers.

There can be some initial enthusiasm for companies after an IPO that can drive the price higher but the hoopla soon fades. Footasylum (FOOT) was a recent example but McCarthy & Stone (MCS) was another one where investors found that the market proved more challenging than expected.

Resist the temptation to buy IPOs!

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Return Versus Risk and Tips from Terry Smith

There was an interesting article by Fundsmith founder Terry Smith in the Financial Times on Saturday under the heading “Think globally and add a dash of small caps”. His articles are usually full of wisdom.

In this case he first tackled the issue that the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) tells you that your returns relate to how much investment risk you are willing to take on. This might be seen as common sense – why would anyone take more risks if they did not get a better return? But based on an academic study of actual stock market returns, low risk seems to give better returns. This is a persistent anomaly.

But my reservation on this truth is that risk was measured by the volatility of the share price, which is a conventional way to calculate the risk of an individual share. But it simply does not tell you the major risks that a company faces. It only tells you about the level of variability in the share price over the short term, or the amount of speculation there is in the stock. For example, it will not tell you that the company operates in a market that is rapidly changing or the company’s products are subject to technological obsolescence. There are many risks that are simply not reflected in conventional risk metrics which only a study of the market in which the company operators and its business model will reveal the truth about.

Terry also discussed the other conventional wisdom that asset allocation is responsible for most of the returns one obtains – he quoted a figure of 91.5% from another academic study. He said this has led “a large portion of the investment industry to focus almost exclusively on asset allocation”. That’s as opposed to the choice of individual assets.

Mr Smith also criticized the parochial approach of many investors who only invest in their home markets (e.g. UK listed shares for UK investors even though many such companies have very international businesses). He went on to suggest a portfolio of global large-cap stocks plus some small/mid-cap stocks can “achieve the seemingly impossible feat of generating additional return whilst reducing risk”. This is because such a portfolio that might comprise 35% of small cap stocks is more likely to be near the “efficient frontier” for which investment professionals aim.

He concluded by saying that “we should all manage equity portfolios on a global basis and add an element of small-cap exposure”. That might be a puff to some extent for his Fundsmith fund, which I hold – perhaps suggesting Fundsmith could provide one element in this strategy. But it is certainly an approach I have found to be a wise one.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Trump Impeachment and No Deal Brexit Planning

Donald Trump has suggested that if he was impeached the stock market would crash and everyone would become poorer. And make no mistake, if the US market crashes then so will other worldwide stock markets including the UK as there is a high correlation between international stock markets.

Is that likely if he was impeached? No it is not. Stock markets can be remarkably immune to political crises. Just look at the negligible impact of the turmoil in the UK as politicians debate Brexit and there is the major threat of a very left-wing Government. What moves stock markets is economic crises, not political ones. Changing the US head of state would have little impact on the US economy.

In any case, the chance of impeachment looks relatively low. Paying hush money to past contacts is not a crime unless campaign funds were misused which currently appears unproven.

In the short term there is perhaps more threat to the UK stock market from a “no deal” Brexit. Having had a quick read of the papers published yesterday by the Government on planning for such, I am not panicking (see https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/how-to-prepare-if-the-uk-leaves-the-eu-with-no-deal#money-and-tax ). The regulatory issues can be accommodated without too much difficulty. What concerns me more is that if customs facilities are not improved well in advance, we might have long queues of vehicles on the motorways here in Kent.

Meanwhile Chancellor Philip Hammond has been stirring the Brexit debate pot with a letter to the Treasury Select Committee which includes this statement: “This January provisional analysis estimated that in a no deal/WTO scenario GDP would be 7.7% lower (range 5.0%-10.3%) relative to a status quo baseline. This represents the potential expected static state around 15 years out from the exit point.”

Anyone who thinks they can forecast the economy so far as 15 years ahead is plain bonkers in my opinion. Economists don’t manage to accurately forecast the UK economy one year ahead let alone 15. Such long-range forecasts are always based on numerous assumptions, most of which are undermined by unforeseen events which have not been taken into account. The Chancellor also forecast that Government borrowing might increase by £80 billion a year because of the reduced GDP by 2033 unless spending or taxation was changed. All this looks like scaremongering to me of the worst kind.

I may favour doing a deal with the EU along the lines of Mrs May’s proposals to assist with trade, but having a no-deal Brexit does not scare me.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Hedging Against Brexit

As we edge towards an abrupt Brexit as agreement with the EU has turned into a game of chicken, it’s worth considering some options. Or as my M.P. Bob Neill said about divorce on Twitter “the current system of divorce creates unnecessary antagonism in an already difficult situation” (he was talking about personal divorce in the UK as head of the Justice Committee but our EU divorce is looking very similar – acrimony is the word for it).

Perhaps the Prime Minister will find a way through to a sensible settlement now she is reported to have personally taken charge of the matter. But as investors we should not rely on such a chance.

One solution is simply to move your share investments into companies that are listed overseas and do most of their business elsewhere than the UK. Don’t wish to buy overseas companies directly? Simply buy one of those “global” investment trusts or trusts focused on particular sectors – Europe, the USA, China, India, et al. Or ensure you invest in UK companies with large exposure to overseas markets other than the EU – there are lots of those.

One aspect that caught my attention this week was the suggestion that the UK should stockpile food and medicines to ensure there were no shortages. But taking food alone, fresh food does not generally keep for very long unless you have a refrigerated warehouse. Even then there are limits. As one supermarket chief was reported as saying in the FT today that it was “ridiculous” and showed “complete naivety”. The reason is simply that supermarkets and their suppliers operate “just in time” systems where deliveries often depend on overnight shipping of goods from Europe. Likewise car manufacturers and other engineering companies rely on complex supply chains that depend on the same “just in time” processes and very quick delivery times. There is a solution to this problem which is to store more items. Non-perishable goods can be stored for a very long time to provide a buffer to the flows of goods. One hedge tactic might therefore be to invest in warehousing companies – Segro and Tritax BigBox REITs come to mind (I own them), although Lex in the FT suggested today that “optimism is already baked in” to the share price of Segro after their interim results announcement. The share prices of those companies have been driven by the internet shopping boom where goods are held in warehouses rather than shops, and rapid delivery is essential. More warehouse demand caused by Brexit might add another wave of warehouse building and increase rents.

When it gets nearer the date next March for Brexit, perhaps we should be doing some personal hoarding of French cheese, Dutch salami and German sausages to guard against short-term supply chain disruptions, but I doubt I will be panicking. UK producers can gear up and many other suppliers in the rest of the world will suddenly find they are much more price competitive. Tariffs on imports of food from outside the EU can currently be very high (e.g. an average of 35% on dairy products which is why you don’t see much New Zealand or Canadian cheese in the shops lately – see https://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/bns/BN213.pdf for details).

That does not mean of course that food will be much cheaper as the UK Government might impose some tariffs to protect our own farmers, but you can see that it is quite possible that the supply chains will rapidly adapt once we are outside the EU regime. But long haul supply lines will require more warehousing and more dock facilities.

Or our Government could take the Marie Antoinette approach to food shortages – “let them eat cake” she said, or “let them buy British products” instead perhaps. Was that not a past Government campaign which could be revived? Such “Buy British” campaigns ran in the 1960s and 1980s to inform my younger readers. I am of course joking because so far as I recall they had little public impact. They did not have any influence on the preference to buy German or Japanese cars, although many of the latter are now made in the UK. But in a new post-Brexit world we should expect some surprises and the need to change our habits.

One joker suggested we might need to eat more non-perishable food, i.e. tinned peaches rather than fresh. But that just shows that there are ways around every problem. If the current heat wave persists we will of course be able to grow our own peaches. But betting on the weather is as perverse as betting on the outcome of Brexit. All I know is that we are likely to survive it. Hedging your bets is the best approach.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Book Review: Debtonator by Andrew McNally

Now here’s a book well worth reading on your summer holidays. It’s called Debtonator by Andrew McNally. Indeed if you are taking a long-haul flight to your holiday destination, you might be able to read it in one sitting. Like all good books it is short at only 98 pages excluding notes and index, and the format is small as well. But there is an enormous amount of information embodied in there.

It covers the problems caused by excessive debt in the modern world. The author explains how the balance of company finance has moved from equity to debt which has had many negative effects. He links the rise in income inequality, a major social concern in leading economies, to the excessive use of debt and the discouragement of investment in equities by Governments and pension regulators. The housing market is another example of the distortion created by too much debt at very low cost, engineered by Government and central banks.

The author suggests we need to move to an equity financed, rather than a debt financed economy and proposes how that could be achieved. Reform of the tax system is one aspect of achieving that.

He is also scathing about the current costs of equity investment for retail investors due to high “intermediation” with too many people taking a cut of the real investment returns before they arrive in the hands of the beneficial owners. That’s despite his apparent long career in the investment industry.

The book is a very good summary of what is wrong with the modern financial system. But it also gives the reader some tips on how to become one of the wealthy few rather than the impecunious many. You need to take a direct stake in the real economy where companies are generating real returns, and minimize the costs imposed by advisors, brokers, platform operators and all the other gougers who erode the returns.

In summary one of the best books I have read lately on the defects in the modern financial world. A little gem of erudite analysis.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Just Eat – Capital Markets Day

I recall other ShareSoc Members complaining about how some companies publicly announce “Capital Market Day” events on the morning that the event takes place. This ensures that private investors are excluded as only institutional investors are given advance notice. A very good example was that for Just Eat (JE.) yesterday. Given in an RNS at 7.00 am in the morning, with the event commencing at 9.00 am.

Usually such announcements say something like “no new information will be provided”, or in this case it said “no update on trading will be provided”. But in fact there was obviously very significant new information provided because the share price fell 7.1% on the day, mainly in the afternoon.

There was a webcast provided and I tried to listen to a recording of it in the evening but it kept breaking up so I did not hear anything of interest. The Financial Times reported this morning that “management comments about costs and profitability jolted investors”, and that “investment levels in the coming years would remain elevated and margins were likely to flatline at its marketplace business”. Consensus forecasts were likely to fall it suggested. There was no announcement this morning from the company clarifying what was said or why the share price fell.

This debacle follows a similar sharp fall in the share price following an unexpected statutory loss due to exceptional write-offs in the annual results in March. It is also clear the market for food delivery is changing rapidly with new entrants in addition, meaning the sector is getting more competitive and more investment seems to be required.

I did previously hold a significant number of shares in the company but sold the remainder today. Just too many unexpected events at this company. I hate unpredictable companies and lack of clarity in management statements (or no statements). When confidence in a company and its management evaporates, it’s always time to sell in my view.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Scottish Mortgage Investor Meeting

Yesterday I went to the meeting for investors held by Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (SMT) in London. This was a useful event as they normally hold their AGMs in Scotland. Needless to say this company’s name is now grossly misleading as it does not invest in mortgages nor in Scotland but is a “global” investment trust. It has a great track record in the last few years and has a focus on growth companies. Their top 10 investments are Amazon, Alibaba, Illumina, Tencent, Tesla, Baidu, Kering, Inditex, Netflix and Ferrari which gives you a good idea of their focus. Here are some of the words of wisdom from manager James Anderson:

He finds the stock market ever more puzzling. Investors think daily headlines help you to invest but there is no correlation. Comment: I think he is saying ignore the political gyrations and such matters as Brexit. He suggested that people way cleverer than us get the world wrong and referred to the work of Hans Rosling and that of Hendrik Bessembinder who reported that 0.4% of all US stocks created half the wealth. Comment: Anderson implied that the key was to pick a few of those really successful growth companies because they will have the biggest impact on overall returns.

SMT therefore tries to identify businesses that are focused on growth markets with great potential – at least 40% per annum. Typically they are also run on a completely pragmatic basis.

Anderson thinks that deflation is highly likely in the next few years as companies they are investing in are reinventing the world. For example healthcare may become a lot cheaper as diagnostics improves and reduces the burden of expensive late stage interventions in cancer and heart disease.

Catherine Flood talked about the companies they are invested in and about the biotechnology sector where genome mapping is creating major opportunities. They have a rising number of private companies in their portfolio.

In response to questions, Anderson said they sold Apple two years ago because growth prospects seemed limited and had reduced their holding in Facebook for other reasons. He also questioned whether the kind of investment strategy following by Warren Buffett will continue to work in future as markets get disrupted by new companies using innovative technology. We may be facing a different world in future where “value” is less important.

As regards their large number of holdings in Chinese companies, Anderson was not worried about the political risks in China and expected China to become the dominant world economy in the near future. They are leading in technology in some areas (e.g. NIO in electric cars).

Overall this was an educational presentation as we got some understanding of the investment strategy of the company which clearly has worked well when economies have been buoyant and markets have been heading consistently upwards. The share price is at a premium to assets of 3.6% at present so might be vulnerable to a correction if there is any hiccup in the global economy. There was no mention of cash flows, return on capital or other “fundamental” measures of value in companies which tells you something does it not. But if you wish to invest in global growth companies, this is certainly one investment trust to consider.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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