Investment Trust Insider on Jupiter US Smaller Companies
James Carthew: Jupiter US wants more JUS from Siddles
Half-year results for Jupiter US Smaller Companies (JUS) show the investment trust lagged its benchmark, the Russell 2000 index (adjusted to sterling), by 3.2% in the six months to 31 December 2017, extending a prolonged period of underperformance.
Its fund manager, Robert Siddles, jumped ship to Jupiter Fund Management from F&C Investments in January 2014, bringing the trust with him, and the timing of his move pretty much marked a change in the fortune of the trust. It lagged its benchmark by 39 percentage points over the period from 28 April 2014 to 9 November 2017. However, this is just coincidence.
In the second half of last year the trust’s board responded to the underperformance by conducting a review. This concluded that ‘a number of areas in the portfolio … had negatively impacted investment performance. These included the selling of successful positions too soon, the tendency to retain poorly performing stocks for too long and trading the portfolio too quickly’.
The board has asked Siddles to address these points and manage JUS with a more concentrated portfolio. The number of holdings fell from…
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