20 Global Investment trusts compared

[TUK020]

Link courtesy of Monevator

IT investor:
https://www.itinvestor.co.uk/2020/06/20 ... -compared/

[ADrunkenMarcus]

Great stuff!

[Dod101]

Maybe I am being dim but I wonder how he arrived at the right hand column (the important one) Furthermore for three columns he is showing the results over a decade each and yet for 2020 it can at best be only for 5 very rocky months.

However taking the broad results it shows a fairly clear picture and I am pleased to say that I hold the top two and Caledonia a little further down the pecking order. Very interesting and it will encourage me take a look at some others in the top dozen or so.

I think the current (now semi) lockdown may leave me with some spare cash, which would be useful and I may look to add another IT rather than an individual share but we'll see.

Thanks for producing that.

Dod

[richfool]

One needs to be a bit circumspect about figures in tables and in this case particularly the YTD figures.

I happened to have been looking at Monks and other growth trusts recently, to see how well they had coped with the recent falls. I noted that Monks capital return was better than the IT Investor article suggests.

For example, for Monks, the IT Investor article gives a YTD figure of 2.0% (to 22nd May 2020), yet other sources give figures:

HL figures:
Last 1 month: 11.26%
Last 3 months: 21.19%
Last 6 months: 10.41%

Citywire figs to 07/06/20:
Last 1 month: 12.3%
Last 3 mths: 10.0%

Similarly with Mid Wynd, shown as 2.6% YTD in the IT Investor article:

HL stats:
Last 1 mth: 7.27%
Last 3 mth: 14.39%
Last 6 mths: 6.16%

Citywire Figs (to 7th June)
Last 1 mth: 8.1%
Last 3 mtsh: 7.7%

Accepted the date that IT Investor used could have coincided with a big dip (or a high at the beginning of the period), but I don't recollect their being any big dips around 22nd May.

Noted there is more merit in looking at returns over long periods for which the article was quite useful.

My sources:

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-sear ... rdinary-5p
https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-sear ... rd-gbp0.05
https://citywire.co.uk/funds_insider/in ... ePeriod=12

[Tigger]

In the interest of good disclosure, I should say that this is my blog.

I'm glad people liked the article and hopefully I can answer the questions raised above without breaking any LF rules on promotion.

For the total period in the last column, that's the annualised return from 1 Jan 1992 to 22 May 2020. The 2020 column is a bit of an oddity as Dod101 highlighted so I have tweaked the text below the table to make that a little clearer. I also added YTD in the column header.

With the Monks and Mid Wynd figures that richfool mentioned, I just rechecked the data and I'm pretty sure the figures in my table are correct for 2020.

Monks was 959p on 31 Dec 2019 and 969p on 22 May 2020.

Mid Wynd was 602p on 31 Dec 2019 and 614p on 22 May 2020 and paid a 3p dividend during this period as well.

Markets did indeed rally a bit in December 2019 and have done pretty well since 22 May as well, so there is a fairly significant difference between the latest 6-month figures quoted on various websites and the shorter period I looked at.

[Dod101]

In the interest of good disclosure, I should say that this is my blog.

Good for you Tigger. We used to know a guy we nick-named Tigger because he literally could not sit still. Don't think it was you as he had no interest in finance as far as I know.

Anyway these articles and tables are never likely to be entirely accurate but that does not matter because we or at least I tend to use them as possible bases for further investigation, and so long as the general thrust is more or less accurate that is what matters.

Dod

[TUK020]

In the interest of good disclosure, I should say that this is my blog.

I'm glad people liked the article and hopefully I can answer the questions raised above without breaking any LF rules on promotion.

Good stuff Tigger, thank you.

If I can follow up with a similar question to the one I posed to Luni recently:
If you were looking to create a basket of 7-8 trusts for investment over a ten year horizon, which of these would you go for?

tuk020

[richfool]

In the interest of good disclosure, I should say that this is my blog.

I'm glad people liked the article and hopefully I can answer the questions raised above without breaking any LF rules on promotion.

For the total period in the last column, that's the annualised return from 1 Jan 1992 to 22 May 2020. The 2020 column is a bit of an oddity as Dod101 highlighted so I have tweaked the text below the table to make that a little clearer. I also added YTD in the column header.

With the Monks and Mid Wynd figures that richfool mentioned, I just rechecked the data and I'm pretty sure the figures in my table are correct for 2020.

Monks was 959p on 31 Dec 2019 and 969p on 22 May 2020.

Mid Wynd was 602p on 31 Dec 2019 and 614p on 22 May 2020 and paid a 3p dividend during this period as well.

Markets did indeed rally a bit in December 2019 and have done pretty well since 22 May as well, so there is a fairly significant difference between the latest 6-month figures quoted on various websites and the shorter period I looked at.

Thanks Tigger (and TUK 20) for the article and the clarification above. (No criticism of your figures intended). It gives another set of figures for me to immerse myself in. I realise some tables give capital performance and some total return and indeed they do change over very short periods. In fact I had to update/change the figures I posted, as I had refreshed the HL fact sheets whilst writing my post.

I too hold JGGI, Mid Wynd and MYI from the list. To me it is interesting and disappointing how poorly MYI (Murray International trust) has performed over the last few years, from a capital appreciation perspective (i.e. dividend apart).

I have been looking to add SMT or Monks to my or my wife's ISA's. Growth trusts generally seem to have weathered the recent storm better than the income and income & growth trusts, which I take to be due to their exposure to technology and media stocks during the Covid 19 lockdown.

[Tigger]

No offence taken on the 2020 figures, richfool. I always like to check such data myself when I can.

And that's quite the question tuk20!

I'd caveat any answer by saying that there's a number of trusts on that list that I don't know too much about having never looked at them in any detail.

And I think it makes sense to split them into two groups: one more aggressive and the other more cautious.

If you're still building up a portfolio, you'd probably want to favour the aggressors. But if you're largely living off your portfolio, the latter group may appeal more. I'm somewhere in the middle myself and still thinking of how best to approach this sector. A couple of my positions are legacy holdings, which I probably wouldn't buy as much of if I was starting today.

On the aggressive side: Scottish Mortgage, Mid Wynd, Monks, Bankers, JPMorgan G&I, Scottish American, and BMO.

Cautious: RIT, Caledonia, F&C, Personal Assets, Capital Gearing, Murray, and AVI Global.

But I think there are a few younger trusts like Martin Currie Global, Lindsell Train IT, Manchester & London, Smithson, and Edinburgh Worldwide that I would consider alongside these (mostly on the aggressive side). And I would also consider open-funded funds like Fundsmith, Lindsell Train Global and maybe Blue Whale.

[Dod101]

On the aggressive side: Scottish Mortgage, Mid Wynd, Monks, Bankers, JPMorgan G&I, Scottish American, and BMO.

Cautious: RIT, Caledonia, F&C, Personal Assets, Capital Gearing, Murray, and AVI Global.

Assuming that aggression can be said to be more risky than cautious the additional risk taken by the much vaunted (for good reason) Scottish Mortgage may or not be worth it but it is interesting that one of the more cautious ITs to the extent that it is sometimes called a wealth preserver, RIT, has come a fairly close second to Scottish Mortgage and whether or not Tigger has calculated the returns as a total return or just capital growth should not make a lot of difference because neither SMT nor RIT generate many dividends and both rely on capital distributions. RIT is I think less volatile than SMT but that apart, maybe it is not so cautious after all (hiding its aggression well) or maybe it simply does not make much difference.
There are many ways to skin a cat, but of course we knew that.

Anyway I am glad that I hold both.

Dod

[richfool]

On the aggressive side: Scottish Mortgage, Mid Wynd, Monks, Bankers, JPMorgan G&I, Scottish American, and BMO.

Cautious: RIT, Caledonia, F&C, Personal Assets, Capital Gearing, Murray, and AVI Global.

Assuming that aggression can be said to be more risky than cautious the additional risk taken by the much vaunted (for good reason) Scottish Mortgage may or not be worth it but it is interesting that one of the more cautious ITs to the extent that it is sometimes called a wealth preserver, RIT, has come a fairly close second to Scottish Mortgage and whether or not Tigger has calculated the returns as a total return or just capital growth should not make a lot of difference because neither SMT nor RIT generate many dividends and both rely on capital distributions. RIT is I think less volatile than SMT but that apart, maybe it is not so cautious after all (hiding its aggression well) or maybe it simply does not make much difference.
There are many ways to skin a cat, but of course we knew that.

Anyway I am glad that I hold both.

Dod

From a report I read a few weeks back, Mid Wynd, in the light of the Covid situation, were moving to a more defensive position than hitherto, and that seems to be borne out by looking at their current holdings. Thus I have tended to view them as less aggressive than the others in that group (above).