Prices and Markets

Moves by Pacific Horizon’s (PHI) manager Ewan Markson-Brown to re-position the portfolio by lowering its allocation to technology stocks, and excellent returns to-date from stock picks made in 2018, are paying off. PHI is the best-performing Asia Pacific fund in net asset value (NAV) terms over the year-to-date. Following a poor 2018, which saw sentiment turn against both China and technology (areas where PHI has significant exposures), the portfolio is now more diversified with a greater focus on a newer...

Over the last couple of years, Seneca Investment Managers (Seneca IM), the manager of Seneca Global Income & Growth Trust (SIGT), has been reducing the trust’s equity weighting, in advance of a global recession that it now expects in 2021. Consistent with this view, the manager has increased SIGT’s weighting to gold and reduced net gearing (3.3% as at the end of September). Whilst it may make further equity reductions, we are now much closer to the point where these...

US interest rate cuts and a slowing global economy have overshadowed the financials sector and banks in particular so far this year. With banks trading close to multi-year lows, Polar Capital Global Financial (PCFT)’s managers have been adding to positions in their favoured stocks... Read more The managers believe that banks boast far more robust balance sheets and much healthier lending exposures than they did a decade ago, when they were emerging from the global financial crisis. PCFT’s managers feel...

Premier Global Infrastructure Trust’s (PGIT’s) ordinary shares have provided an NAV total return of 34.4% during the last 12 months, boosted by the trust’s split capital structure (see page 13). The returns have been achieved despite PGIT having a significant allocation to Asia, and particularly China, which has faced a headwind from its trade dispute with the US. While the share prices of Asian growth equities struggled, underlying performance was nonetheless strong. PGIT’s managers believe that there is the prospect...

There have been few structural shifts in the property sector as profound as the one currently taking place in retail. Consumer spending patterns have drastically changed over the past five years, with online sales now accounting for 19.7% of all retail spend in the UK (August 2019, source: ONS), compared to 11.5% in August 2014. When you look at fashion retailing specifically, online sales accounted for 26.8% of consumer spend on clothing in 2018... Read more It is little wonder, then,...

There was palpable shift in sentiment over the third quarter with the cautionary undertone perhaps best reflected by gold’s resurgence. Ongoing trade jockeying between the US and China did not help the mood and neither did the Argentine debt default in August. At the real economy level, manufacturing output has been trending lower across some of the major global economies.... Read more In this issue Performance data – There was palpable shift in sentiment over the third quarter with the cautionary...

What does a no-deal Brexit mean for investors?

Aberdeen Standard European Logistics Income (ASLI) has assembled a property portfolio that is primed to cash in on the fundamental shift in consumer spending to online retail. The European logistics market is set to follow in the footsteps of the UK market, which has witnessed a surge in demand from occupiers wrestling for more efficient supply chains as online sales grow.... Read more Supply of logistics property is already at historic lows across Europe and, coupled with strong demand, significant...

Herald Investment Trust (HRI) generated strong absolute returns in the first half of 2019, with marked outperformance by both its UK and US portfolios of their local market indices. Both a general market recovery and a recovery in global technology stocks have helped, but HRI’s UK and US portfolios have both benefitted from a wave of takeover activity, allowing HRI to lock in significant premiums. Herald Investment Trust – “Profits are only profits when they are realised” This illustrates how...