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Good six months for Polar Capital Technology

Over the six months that ended on 31 October 2014, Polar Capital Technology beat the Dow Jones World Technology Index by 2.4% in a strong period for the sector – the Index was up 16.3% in sterling terms and the NAV up 18.7%. The share price rose by 19.2%.

The manager says the most significant positive contributor to performance over the period was the sharp rebound in high growth stocks such as LinkedIn, Splunk and Tableau that had been remarkably weak into the fund’s previous year-end. The Trust also benefited from underweight / zero positions in a number of legacy companies that underperformed during the period including Canon, Oracle, SAP and Samsung but most significantly IBM,

M&A activity also made a positive contribution. Concur Technologies was acquired at a healthy premium by SAP.  He says they continued to face style-related headwinds during the period with smaller stocks trailing their larger-cap peers by c. 3.6%, as measured by the Russell 2000 and Russell 1000 technology indices respectively.

In terms of negatives, relative underperformance came from an underweight position in Apple, the cash on their balance sheet and the S&P put protection they hold and underweight / zero positions in a number of PC-related names many of which benefited following the expiry of support for Windows XP.

PCT : Good six months for Polar Capital Technology

 

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