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Scottish Mortgage heading for where

Closed-end funds and OEICs
Dod101
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Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308008

Postby Dod101 » May 12th, 2020, 2:23 pm

Current share price £7.15. Wow!

Dod

MaraMan
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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308012

Postby MaraMan » May 12th, 2020, 2:37 pm

Yes I agree Dod. It has been one of the reasons why my SIPP has been relatively unscathed during this difficult period. I do wonder whether some prudent top slicing is required, as its my biggest holding now, or just to let it run. I picked it three years ago for the long the term and it's exceeded all my hopes and expectations.

MM

scrumpyjack
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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308029

Postby scrumpyjack » May 12th, 2020, 3:26 pm

MaraMan wrote:Yes I agree Dod. It has been one of the reasons why my SIPP has been relatively unscathed during this difficult period. I do wonder whether some prudent top slicing is required, as its my biggest holding now, or just to let it run. I picked it three years ago for the long the term and it's exceeded all my hopes and expectations.

MM


I have often thought about that over the years but fortunately always decided to let it run. So glad I did, and I do so now.

Dod101
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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308044

Postby Dod101 » May 12th, 2020, 4:13 pm

I took about 15% out of my holding in January after a 24% rise in 2019 at £5.85. It has now risen about another 20%. I recycled the proceeds equally into Diageo and Chesnara thereby hopefully increasing my dividend income a bit.

Dod
Last edited by Dod101 on May 12th, 2020, 4:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ADrunkenMarcus
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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308046

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » May 12th, 2020, 4:14 pm

Dod101 wrote:I took about 15% out of my holding in January after a 24% rise in 2019 at £5.85. It has now risen about another 20%.


Ride it up IMHO

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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308047

Postby Bouleversee » May 12th, 2020, 4:16 pm

"Always keep a hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse" springs to mind. Of 17 shares in my ii ISA, SMT is the only one showing a profit (up 62.09%), the others all showing large losses, giving a total loss of 44.57% on the current holdings in that portfolio and nothing much to show as regards dividends either. Sadly, I only ventured into ITs in May 2017 and SMT was my first purchase. I was restricted to £5k at the time unfortunately but have made 3 small top-ups since then, still not a huge investment but it's the only one of the 17 I feel inclined to add to when I have sufficient funds available and when the price has come back a bit.

That ISA contains an eclectic mix of shares, including a few miners, all showing a loss. As Dod has said, Miners are very volatile and If the price of any gets back to around what I paid, I shall sell and buy more SMT or other ITs if I can find any with as good a performance. Haven't had time to study that market yet and SMT will do till it gets top heavy.

Dod101
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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308050

Postby Dod101 » May 12th, 2020, 4:24 pm

[quote="Bouleversee As Dod has said, Miners are very volatile and If the price of any gets back to around what I paid, I shall sell and buy more SMT or other ITs if I can find any with as good a performance. Haven't had time to study that market yet and SMT will do till it gets top heavy.[/quote]

I have held it for many years and I am sure that I will have long since taken out my original investment, It does not matter to me because it has always been sheltered from tax. It is still about twice my median holding and is my second biggest despite that sale in January. James Anderson is a rare investment manager but sadly will not be there for ever as he is now about 60 and that is quite old for a Baillie Gifford partner. Tom Slater, his No 2 may well be as good because they have worked together for a long time.

If you go to the BG site, anyone interested should be able to access his latest essay on the effects of Covid 19. Thought provoking as always and well worth a read. I do not think I am allowed to provide the link but it is easy to find.

Dod

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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308063

Postby scotia » May 12th, 2020, 5:07 pm

I remember the dot com boom, and getting my fingers burnt in the spectacular crash that followed for high flying tech funds - with income funds proving to be the winners. This latest plunge seems to have worked in the opposite fashion. There's a lot of luck involved in investing! I'm holding onto, and modestly increasing, my Scottish Mortgage investments, but they are still at a reasonable size - although I am tempted to grow them further.

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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308064

Postby Bouleversee » May 12th, 2020, 5:10 pm

Ah, yes. I remember it well!

bluedonkey
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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308079

Postby bluedonkey » May 12th, 2020, 6:15 pm

Scottish Mortgage is certainly impressive. I don't hold at present. On reviewing them, I see that c.20% of the NAV is usually in unlisted investments. This makes me slightly queasy.

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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308080

Postby Lootman » May 12th, 2020, 6:17 pm

bluedonkey wrote:Scottish Mortgage is certainly impressive. I don't hold at present. On reviewing them, I see that c.20% of the NAV is usually in unlisted investments. This makes me slightly queasy.

Does it make you more queasy than the 8.5% in Tesla or the various Chinese internet shares?

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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308081

Postby bluedonkey » May 12th, 2020, 6:19 pm

Lootman wrote:
bluedonkey wrote:Scottish Mortgage is certainly impressive. I don't hold at present. On reviewing them, I see that c.20% of the NAV is usually in unlisted investments. This makes me slightly queasy.

Does it make you more queasy than the 8.5% in Tesla or the various Chinese internet shares?

It's the fact that unlisted shares are valued by the management rather than an open market.

Dod101
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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308135

Postby Dod101 » May 12th, 2020, 10:04 pm

bluedonkey wrote:
Lootman wrote:
bluedonkey wrote:Scottish Mortgage is certainly impressive. I don't hold at present. On reviewing them, I see that c.20% of the NAV is usually in unlisted investments. This makes me slightly queasy.

Does it make you more queasy than the 8.5% in Tesla or the various Chinese internet shares?

It's the fact that unlisted shares are valued by the management rather than an open market.


If you knew anything about the Scottish Mortgage management or Baillie Gifford and its corporate governance, you would not be queasy. They recently revalued (downwards!) the valuation attributed to the unlisted shares and it still sails on. Culture my friend is all.

Dod

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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308185

Postby yorkshirelad1 » May 13th, 2020, 10:19 am

Dod101 wrote:Current share price £7.15. Wow!

Dod


Indeed.

I noted to a friend on 19 April: There was an article in yesterday's (Saturday) FT "Where to look for the market rebound". You should be able to find the whole article at (it should be the first item in the search results):
https://www.google.com/search?q=Where+to+look+for+the+market+rebound+site:ft.com
(FT has a paywall but if you link to the article from the Google search, you should be able to find the article)

The relevant bit is:

"One of my main holdings is Scottish Mortgage, the popular UK investment trust with a penchant for growth (and tech) stocks which, astonishingly, is up 1.25 per cent over the past three months. By contrast, my relatively recent move into more mid-cap UK equities reveals continuing wealth destruction. The FTSE 250 is till down 24 per cent over the past three months while many value oriented funds such as Aurora (where I am a non-exec director) are down over 30 per cent."


In days of old, there used to be a notion of investments for "widows and orphans" (safe) or "bottom draw investments" (that you would buy and leave alone). Such a notion is pretty much long gone. Back then, SMT might have been one such vehicle (a steady, sfe pair of hands). Today, it's pretty much turned itself into a tech fund, and anyone that hasn't realised that needs to get up to date. On the other hand, that's why SMT has done not so badly in the current pandemic. The fact that it's a tech fund (or looks like one) might also be its downfall. Caveat emptor!

scrumpyjack
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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308191

Postby scrumpyjack » May 13th, 2020, 10:33 am

Scottish Mortgage does not see itself as 'a Tech Fund'. They seek to invest in the businesses of the future, businesses which will achieve success by disrupting and replacing existing businesses. This may happen to mean that they invest in businesses where tech advances play a large part, but it is putting the cart before the horse to call them a tech fund.

Their judgement so far has been pretty much spot on for a long long time.

https://www.bailliegifford.com/en/uk/in ... the-trust/

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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308200

Postby Urbandreamer » May 13th, 2020, 11:01 am

yorkshirelad1 wrote:In days of old, there used to be a notion of investments for "widows and orphans" (safe) or "bottom draw investments" (that you would buy and leave alone). Such a notion is pretty much long gone. Back then, SMT might have been one such vehicle (a steady, sfe pair of hands).


Was it? Not according to their website or even Wiki. I understand that originally it was formed to provide mortgages to rubber plantations. The new motor car and pnumatic tyres provided significant demand and there was a shortage of such lending.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_ ... ment_Trust

I'm a fan of STM and have held them for five years, but it is high risk.

The top 10 holdings are an interesting read. BIG bets on Tesla, Amazon and Alibaba.

Possibly SMT is too big a component of my portfolio. However it seems that however much I buy of other things, SMT simply grows to maintain its position.

Dod101
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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308203

Postby Dod101 » May 13th, 2020, 11:17 am

As I said earlier in this thread my concern is that James Anderson the manager will retire at some point. He is quite unusual in his breadth of vision and knowledge of the companies they won. It is well worth reading his articles which can be found on the BG website.

They are investors in companies they see as disruptors, not high tech per se. Pretty much the opposite of Warren Buffett actually, and guess which has done better in recent years? Not surprisingly they are down a bit this morning.

Dod

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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#308299

Postby scotia » May 13th, 2020, 3:12 pm

Lootman wrote:
bluedonkey wrote:Scottish Mortgage is certainly impressive. I don't hold at present. On reviewing them, I see that c.20% of the NAV is usually in unlisted investments. This makes me slightly queasy.

Does it make you more queasy than the 8.5% in Tesla or the various Chinese internet shares?

All three points make me cautious, but probably not queasy. I mix it with other high growth global funds (Fundsmith & Lindsell Train Global) with different approaches - and also with a world tracker. But I'm aware that even such an approach is possibly heavily reliant on the USA markets.
At the end of the day - there's a lot of luck in successful investing, and Covid-19 may prove to be a major disruptor.

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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#309003

Postby UncleEbenezer » May 16th, 2020, 1:03 am

Pleased to see today's results. It's been my biggest and most successful single holding since softbank relieved me of ARM. Sadly not sufficient to make up for losses elsewhere in March, but can't complain at this beacon in the gloom. I guess holdings like Amazon benefit from covid 8-)

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Re: Scottish Mortgage heading for where

#309090

Postby Brochroy » May 16th, 2020, 11:46 am

Interesting podcast Interview on Citywire with Scottish Mortgage (SMT) co-fund manager Tom Slater. Well worth a listen if you’re into SMT.

https://citywire.co.uk/funds-insider/ne ... -news-list


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