by Jennifer Hill from interactive investor, 15 February 2023:
We ask a range of experts for potential fund substitutes for funds and trusts consistently high in demand, including Scottish Mortgage, Fundsmith Equity, City of London, and Vanguard LifeStrategy.
Investing can be a fickle business as money follows the latest trend but analysis of the most-bought funds and investment trusts of 2022 shows users of our platform to be a reasonably loyal bunch.
Assets flowed into passive and income-producing strategies as most active managers proved no match for volatile stock markets and investors reached for yield amid rocketing inflation.
Growth-focused funds have lost some appeal, but Scottish Mortgage bucked the trend. It was the most popular investment trust in 2022, having occupied the number one spot every month since June 2019. Investors may have sensed a bargain in its shares, which dropped around 40% last year.
Attempting to time the market and jump from one theme du jour to another is never a sensible investment strategy, but it can pay to cast your net wider and hold a mix of strategies – active and passive, growth and value…
We asked a range of fund selectors and analysts for the alternatives they recommend for some of the most-popular funds and investment trusts among ii customers.
Alternatives to Scottish Mortgage
Monks
In Winterflood Securities’ 2023 recommendations, it switched from Scottish Mortgage to its Baillie Gifford stablemate Monks for the well-managed exposure to global growth stocks it offers but with more diversification and less volatility…
AVI Global
AVI Global Trust takes this a leap further as it has an explicit objective of investing in undervalued assets. “A stronger yen should help its Japanese investments, there’s a bit more yield from the AVI trust and its managers say the underlying portfolio is valued at a 9.5% discount to its intrinsic value,” says James Carthew, head of investment companies at QuotedData.
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