James Carthew: The top global fund beating even Scottish Mortgage
This global equity income fund is thrashing its peers thanks to expert stock selection, whilst still delivering its shareholders with a healthy dividend.
The war in Iran is shaping up to be a major shock to the global economy, and I must admit that my portfolio is not best positioned for this. It has around 15% in Asia and emerging markets, which are often big importers of Gulf oil and gas.
Holdings in BlackRock Frontiers (BRFI), Fidelity China Special Situations (FCSS), and Ashoka India Equity (AIE) have been hit, although part of that reflects discount widening.
This has been somewhat offset by gains in Bluefield Solar Income (BSIF) – perhaps on the confirmation of bidding interest for the company in the recent interim results, but maybe also related to the spike in gas prices and what that may do to short-term power prices – and Global Opportunities (GOT), which was a fairly recent new addition to the portfolio designed to make it more resilient in falling markets.
Asset allocation is difficult, especially given the curveballs that regularly emanate from the White House. Global funds tend to cope with that in two ways. They either hug their benchmark’s asset allocation, reasoning that reduces risk (more accurately, the risk of getting fired for underperformance), or they let stock selection drive their asset allocation.
One trust that follows the latter approach and has done very well recently on the back of it is Murray International (MYI).
MYI tops the performance table for its global equity income peer group over one and three years, and… read more here