Gadge wrote:You need to take Dod's comments with a pinch of salt.
PNL is a great trust at what it does.
What it does is protect your capital.
It holds a mix of investment grade fixed interest in index linked and normal gilts plus cash and some Gold.
In addition it holds a small amount of really strong company shares eg Nestle, Coca Cola, Microsoft type of companies. Normally around 40 per cent of the total assets is invested in shares but at the moment even less so growth will be constrained in favour of defence.
Thus PNL should NOT be directly compared with ITs that aim to grow your capital e.g. RIT.
For some reason Dod, who is normally a very astute investor, cannot seen to get his head around this and is therefore always negative on PNL.
If I could only own only one share for the rest of my life then PNL would be a very strong contender.
A more growth oriented investor could do worse than stick half his money in PNL and half in Scottish Mortgage and rebalance annually, in my view.
This would give a very simple to manage portfolio which I think would probably do quite well in any market condition.
Gadge
I missed these comments Gadge. Don't know about astute if you saw my valuation this morning over my portfolios!
I know PNL, and those who run it, reasonably well and have attended their AGMs in the past. You are right that I cannot get my head around it. As a matter of fact, Caledonia has been a pretty good wealth preserver with some growth thrown in. I gave up on PNL because supposing I held say 3% of my entire holdings in PNL and it preserved the value of that portion. So what? It is hardly going to change my life and I think the cost of the preservation of value side is too great against the opportunity for growth foregone. I have sat in the AGM and looked around at the very wealthy Edinburgh types there as well as of course people like me. It is not for me.
Still, I like your idea of 50% in Scottish Mortgage (another of my holdings) and 50% in PNL. That would actually make some sense.
My one share would be a generalist investment trust, quite possibly Alliance which, until the recent downturn has been chugging along very nicely.
Dod