Do you remember Jimmy Edwards in Whack-O! Oh dear, it ran on BBC TV 1956 – 1960 and again 1971/72. I remember its second outing.
My brother was a fan and it became a family catch phrase when he opined “subtle stuff, isn’t it Uncle Henty”. (He was a teenager at the time.) It was far from subtle and made fun of corporal punishment in a boys’ school. Don’t expect to see any repeats. Anyway, as so often, I digress as this post should be called Seven of the Best + One, but it’s not so catchy.
It is not easy to assess the performance of shares but investment trusts are a bit more predictable than shares in individual companies. I am excluding three Vietnam and one Japanese investment I hold as they are too specialist with, as you know, country risk and a few others. So here are seven of the investment trusts I hold and their performance over one and five years (rounded, 1 yr then 5 yrs, data from Hargreaves Lansdown).
Caledonia Investments +32%, +25%
Monks -25%, +62%
North Atlantic Smaller Companies -3%, +50%
RIT Capital Partners +12%, +25%
Personal Assets +10%, +21%
Scottish Mortgage -23%, +153%
Worldwide Healthcare -16%, +27%
Caledonia, RIT and Personal Assets are risk averse so they look good when the market falls but it also limits their upside in good times. Personal Assets, for example, holds 9% gold bullion and about 50% US and UK government bonds. Unfortunately I do not have like-for-like data for the McInroy & Wood Balanced Fund but it too is filed under Cautious.
I know I said + 1 but I’ve changed my mind and here are four individual shares.
Babcock +30%, -63%
Marks & Spencer +3% -53%
M P Evans. +51%, +19%
Rolls Royce -18%, -64%
That’s why it’s a mugs’ game stock picking and the modest fee charged by a professional fund manager is good value. Otherwise you’ll probably take a beating.