Eve Maddock-Jones, Reporter, Trustnet, 10 January 2022:
There were several bargains to be had among IT Asia Pacific and IT Global Emerging Market trusts, with many moving to a much wider discount that its five-year average.
The Asia Pacific and Emerging Market sectors struggled in 2021, ranking in the bottom half of all regional sectors for the year. The exception was IT Asia Pacific Smaller Companies which ranked in the top half of the table.
The sectors were hit by a rally in Indian equities, which had an incredibly strong year, and a drag from China’s underperformance, a big influence on the sectors’ returns as China is the dominant market in the region.
Following an overall lacklustre year of returns, investors may expect to pick up some trusts at a bigger discount from these sectors.
Data provided by QuotedData showed that there were seven trusts collectively that met this criteria, with five coming from the IT Global Emerging Markets sector.
Looking at this sector first, there were four trusts which had much wider discounts: Jupiter Emerging & Frontier Income Trust, JPMorgan Global Emerging Markets Income, BlackRock Frontiers and ScotGems.
ScotGems had the biggest differentiation from its five-year average, widening its discount by 8.8 percentage points.
Since its inception in 2017 the trust’s performance has struggled, ranking as the worst performer over three years (losing 24.6%).
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