It’s great that you brought up this topic. I’m interested in studying the topic of profitable investment strategies.
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Since I’m a novice, I should study this topic thoroughly before making my first investment in cryptocurrency or something else. I have real estate trading experience. But it didn’t last long. I bought three rooms in an office building. Now I have a stable income because three companies rent these rooms. Over the past two years, I’ve raised the rent three times because the real estate market has increased. Now I’m interested in the opinion of more experienced traders. What do you think about the predictions of the real estate market’s collapse from https://timthomas.co/signs-of-a-housing-market-crash/?
Random question, is SMT under the Ballie Gilford Banner of being one of their many funds or is it some kind of special outliner but is still associated with Ballie Gilford?
The only one I have (and I guess it is classed as a Wealth Management Fund) is AllienceBernstein…
It’s one of many trusts managed by BG. Most of the group’s trusts have a similar growth strategy with a relatively high proportion in private equity.
There are differences: some are limited by geography, eg BGS, and others take a slightly different tact like MNKS, a toned-down version of SMT. SAIN’s the notable exception.
The trusts often have an OEIC equivalent too: for example, SMT’s would be BG Long Term Global Growth (minus the private holdings which would be too dangerous to hold in an open fund).
That said, SMT is an outlier in the sense that it dwarfs most of BG’s other funds.
Its managers wield a lot of influence over the wider group too. After leaving BG, the former manager of PHI spoke about feeling pressured to hold some of BG’s favourites.
Comments like those, and some from James Anderson, have made me limit my exposure to BG and it’s investing style in recent years.
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I have been looking at increasing my exposure to Emerging Markets, does anyone know where could I find Investments Trusts exposed to EM with a large discount to NAV?
I seem to remember you shared a website for ITs in the past but I haven´t been able to find it.
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Reply from Dougal:
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I like an active approach for emerging markets due to greater market inefficiencies which should, in theory at least, help managers beat the index.
I hold VFEM and JP Morgan Emerging Markets (JMG) at a 50:50 ratio for my emerging markets exposure although I’m increasingly tempted to sell the former. I’d expect JMG to continue to outperform in the long term but be more volatile than the index in the short.
I’ve also opened a small position in BRFI recently. As its name suggests, the trust focuses on so-called frontier markets such as Saudi, Vietnam, UAE, Thailand and Indonesia.
Part of me questions the extent to which China, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea etc can really be said to be emerging/developing markets nowadays.
Both trade at an 11/12% discount to NAV. Although that’s wider than usual, which is 9%ish, don’t get drawn into the trap of thinking that’s going to flip to a premium anytime soon.
Just my two pennies’ worth!
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Two websites about ITs:
https://www.theaic.co.uk/aic/find-compare-investment-companies?sec=&sortid=SPTR1Y&desc=true
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Shame about the paywall, but could you take from the graph that ITs are potentially at another low where their value could bounce back closer to NAV?
The average discount let’s say seems to be -8% and it’s currently double that give or take? Down well known trusts are near a 30-50% discounted and sitting on a lot of cash 
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In a nutshell, yes. The article puts the average discount at about 13% currently, meaning there’s a £30bn+ difference between trust NAVs and share prices.
RCP, the Rothchild’s trust, is an interesting example. It traditionally focuses on capital preservation but it’s taken a hammering lately due to its private equity exposure, which has shot up in recent years, and concerns about whether its unquoted valuations are true/fair.
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It might be posible to wait until a 20% discount on Investment Trusts in general and use it as a buying trigger. It may not work though or it may not get to that level of discount.
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Which investment trusts are at a big discount with a big percentage of cash?
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Pershing Square Holdings by far the best value, any that are better quality with bigger discount? (30%+ discount to NAV).
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Has anyone seen the income statement on 212for CHRY. Fairly certain a trust worth about 1bn did not have a loss of 600m. I reckon its showing capital as income as the market price reached highs of around 272p.
It’ll be the changes in fair value of investments (capital) and revenue added together. The loss was enormous. About half of it was because Klarna had to be drastically revalued. The NAV dropped a lot accordingly. I just looked at the accounts (again) on investegate.co.uk. [edit] It’s in accounting standards (IFRS 9) that changes in fair value of equities held normally have to be recognised in the Profit and Loss account. So the statement for CHRY on t212 will be right. [end edit]
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That is the problem with iliquid assets (meaning not publicly traded and without high trading volume, e.g. Private Equity in case of Klarna, or Direct Real Estate or Direct Infrastructure, etc) and that some IT don’t value their portfolio on a regular daily basis, some only update monthly or even quarterly.
And those spaced valuation potentially originate big surprises (bigger time intervals could mean bigger surprises), for the good and the bad.
Those are the reasons, I don’t invest Private Equity/Venture Capital focused IT, despite their higher potential returns.
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Normally my Sunday listen.
From the bloke who writes the investment trust handbook.
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That’s a good listen. I’ve been working my way through the back catalogue.
This weekly QuotedData show is decent as well.
Between the two, they seem to have investment trust news pretty much covered.
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The AIC has published its latest list of ‘dividend heroes’ – trusts that have increased dividends for at least 20 years in a row.
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