“Is this a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?” (Mervyn Griffith-Jones, prosecuting Penguin under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959).
I have seldom looked forward to a book so much. Further details when I have read it. Meanwhile, on another note, I spent an hour before lunch yesterday with five people from my favourite unit trust manager, McInroy & Wood. Actually they are my only unit trust manager because, as a rule, I prefer investment trusts. It was conducted via Zoom and I hope they continue this format going forward. Tim Wood led the meeting and three investment directors talked about some of the M&W investment themes for twenty minutes. Then there was forty minutes of Q&A. There was no specific question about emerging markets, but their Emerging Markets fund, in common with others, has been losing money, not much, over the last three years. But Vietnam was mentioned twice so, as a Kremlinologist, I infer that they will be dipping a spoon into the spicy noodle soup of that fast-growing economy.
I asked what form their 5% holding in gold takes. They have bought an Exchange Traded Fund, backed by physical gold held in a bank vault somewhere. When I wrote Coal to Newcastle in 2015 gold was cheap and bruised punters were bailing out. That’s when M&W started buying gold. Long-term is the theme that underpins their investment philosophy. If M&W were a steeplechaser it would be a “stayer”. In the year May 2019/May 2020 their flagship balanced fund is up 5.3%.
My supplementary question unfortunately was not put to the panel. It was an unusually warm day in London and I told a small lie saying that I would have a glass of chilled dry Riesling at the end of the webinar. “What would the M&W experts be drinking?“ In fact I had a sip or two during the presentation.