The Lemon Fool

Below is a table of AIC-listed Investment Trusts which yield 3.5% or higher as at February 1st 2021.

The table is shown broken down by AIC sector, and then ranked in descending order of yield for each sector, and also shows relevant Discount or Premium information, along with the 5-year dividend growth-rate for each Investment Trust.

Please note that if anyone wishes to replicate this type of data-set themselves at any time, there are some instructions at the bottom of this post on how to do that...



I've dip-checked the above data, but please do note that it should be used only as a starting-point for further investigation, and it should certainly be the case that you should carry out your own due-diligence on any data that you may use for any subsequent investment decisions that you might wish to make...

A good source to cross-check some of the above data, if anything does look interesting or even suspicious, is the TrustNet website, which also gives yield and discount information for these types of investments - https://www.trustnet.com/

Here are some instructions to be able to generate up-to-date yield-data in the future, using the above excellent AIC website -

1. Open the AIC website (https://tinyurl.com/yawfc9zy)

2. Select the 'AIC Sector Selection' button, and then the 'AIC VCT Sectors' button, and then click the 'Deselect all AIC VCT Sectors' button to remove the VCT data from this list.

3. Also in the 'AIC Sector Selection' area, make sure the tick-boxes for 'Include AIC sector weighted averages', 'AIC weighted averages sorted to top', and also 'Include industry averages' are un-ticked.

4. In the 'AIC Equity Sectors' sections, and also the 'AIC Alternative Sectors', check to make sure that all of the sub-sector boxes are ticked to bring in the data for all of those sub-areas.

5. Select the 'Data points' button, and then in that section, open the 'Additional Data Points' area, and in there, select both the 'TIDM' and the 'Div cover (yrs)' tick-boxes.

6. Select the 'Filters' button, and then set the 'Dividend Yield' option to '3.5%+'

7. Underneath this settings-area, you should now have an up-to-date data-table similar to the above, broken down by AIC Sectors.

8. If you want to import that data into a spreadsheet, to perhaps then rank by sector and yield, then you should enable the option to view the data in 'Print Mode' by selecting the 'Save / Print' option, which can be found above the AIC settings area used above, and then selecting the 'Enable Print Mode' button - the AIC data will then be represented on-screen in a way that can be bulk-selected and copied into a spreadsheet.

• Please do note that if you don't select the 'Enable Print Mode' option, and you try to copy the data into a spreadsheet, then it's likely to only copy some of the data...

If anyone is interested in looking at any of the underlying investments behind any of the above income IT's, then the following post will help with some instructions on how to do that -

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=15549&p=191407#p191455

Link to January 2021 data - https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=27094

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Such a useful table. Many thanks.

One thought: does space allow to add a column with OCF charge? Some of the investment trusts listed here have egregiously large fees, and it's definitely a factor in my choice.

Shelford

Shelford wrote:
Such a useful table. Many thanks.

One thought: does space allow to add a column with OCF charge?

Some of the investment trusts listed here have egregiously large fees, and it's definitely a factor in my choice.

Thanks Shelford, and I will certainly give the OCF column a try next month, but having just taken a quick look at the OCF data available, I see there are actually two options -

• Ongoing charge (%)

• Ongoing charge inc Perf fee (%)

So in a bid to try and avoid overcomplicating this monthly data if at all possible, can I assume that the first OCF figure will suffice, or would the preference be for the second figure, including the performance fees?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Thanks iaag for the table, very informative. The second option for me, with performance fee. If the trust doesn't have one, presumably the fee will be markedly lower, I would hope!

Cheers to you too,

dp

I've spotted a new entrant "Gabelli Value Plus+" in the "North America" section, with a 6.9% yield and 109% pa 5-year yield growth, which looks enticing!

dundas666 wrote:I've spotted a new entrant "Gabelli Value Plus+" in the "North America" section, with a 6.9% yield and 109% pa 5-year yield growth, which looks enticing!

I've checked the dividend and it looks like the yield is actually 0.69%

dundas666 wrote:

dundas666 wrote:
I've spotted a new entrant "Gabelli Value Plus+" in the "North America" section, with a 6.9% yield and 109% pa 5-year yield growth, which looks enticing!

I've checked the dividend and it looks like the yield is actually 0.69%

Yep - looks like it was an AIC data-blip, which they've now rectified, although there's still a difference between their currently-stated 0.1% yield and the one you've highlighted -



Source - https://www.theaic.co.uk/aic/find-compare-investment-companies/interactive-statistics?set=import

It always pays to be cautious regarding these types of abnormalities, so well spotted...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

It's a shame because I was looking for a North America income or growth+income IT for some diversification next month.

I'm leaning towards BlackRock North American Income (BRNA) because of its decent 4.9% yield but more significantly its 13.2% pa yield growth over the last 5 years, which might not be sustainable but they're obviously doing something right wrt growing the yield.

In answer to your question, I think you should include 'performance fees' in the OCF charge, as these are sometimes very high.

Shelford

scottnsilky wrote:
The second option for me, with performance fee. If the trust doesn't have one, presumably the fee will be markedly lower, I would hope!

Shelford wrote:
In answer to your question, I think you should include 'performance fees' in the OCF charge, as these are sometimes very high.

No problem - I've just had a quick play with the width of the table if the OCF (with performance fee) data is included, and it all still works fine, so I'll make sure to include that column of data in future.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

As we're fast approaching a new ISA season, where a few of us may be looking for IT-related income investments to invest fresh capital into, I thought I'd update this months table with the suggested OCF data (including performance fees) in case it might help anyone with that process -



Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Hi Many thanks for this very informative post keep it up.

I found it very useful. I could sense your finger hovering over trusts that I do not have so I bought three of them. Look forward to the next one

Regards

Bob

dundas666 wrote:It's a shame because I was looking for a North America income or growth+income IT for some diversification next month.

I'm leaning towards BlackRock North American Income (BRNA) because of its decent 4.9% yield but more significantly its 13.2% pa yield growth over the last 5 years, which might not be sustainable but they're obviously doing something right wrt growing the yield.

Just spotted your post, and notice that the dividend cover is rather low at 0.53 years: does that worry you?

Arborbridge wrote:

dundas666 wrote:It's a shame because I was looking for a North America income or growth+income IT for some diversification next month.

I'm leaning towards BlackRock North American Income (BRNA) because of its decent 4.9% yield but more significantly its 13.2% pa yield growth over the last 5 years, which might not be sustainable but they're obviously doing something right wrt growing the yield.

Just spotted your post, and notice that the dividend cover is rather low at 0.53 years: does that worry you?

It does a little, but looking into them in more detail the dividend has been held at 8p for 3 years and the earnings per share has been 11p, 14p and -16p in 2020. So I suppose it depends how well earnings recovers for them.

I believe BRNA changed their dividend policy to pay from capital as well as revenue in order to deliver an “enhanced” yield. The uncovered dividend is a feature rather than a bug.

Cheers,

Juan

JuanDB wrote:I believe BRNA changed their dividend policy to pay from capital as well as revenue in order to deliver an “enhanced” yield. The uncovered dividend is a feature rather than a bug.

Cheers,

Juan

I recently added BRNA to my holdings, to pick up on the dividend yield, and anticipating that US growth may take a setback.

BRNA targets companies that "pay and grow their dividends". I note they hold 25% in financials, and include 3 US banks in their top ten holdings.

Sector analysis:
Financials 25.4
Health Care 17.0
Information Technology 11.9
Consumer Staples 7.8
Energy 7.4
Industrials 6.8
Communication Services 6.0
Consumer Discretionary 5.0
Utilities 4.1
Materials 2.2
Net Current Assets 6.4

JuanDB wrote:I believe BRNA changed their dividend policy to pay from capital as well as revenue in order to deliver an “enhanced” yield. The uncovered dividend is a feature rather than a bug.

Cheers,

Juan

I wonder if it's sustainable dividend with that feature? To a HYPer it rather goes against the grain to sell down assets to pay an income: what Dod might call expensively bought - or paying you by giving back your own capital. But if they can make it work, then it works.....

Arb.

I've made two purchases into BRNA, February 2018 and June 19. The XIRR has been 2.9%, so not very impressive considering ~80% N.America.

monabri wrote:I've made two purchases into BRNA, February 2018 and June 19. The XIRR has been 2.9%, so not very impressive considering ~80% N.America.

OOoh! I'm tempted to ask how they did so badly. Hasn't the american market done rather well? Dow Jones up 24% since Feb 2018.

Arb.

Before I went mainly global I held NAIT & MCT in preference to BRNA.
Mainly for this reason. Each to their own.
The Company employs an active options overwriting strategy utilising predominantly covered call options.