The last few months have been a difficult time for investors, but anyone with money in the Troy Trojan fund will have felt a lot more comfortable than most. Over the course of January its multi-asset portfolio returned 1% compared to a 10.1% fall in the FTSE All-Share. It also did reasonably well in 2015…
January was a difficult month for the world’s stock markets, with weaker economic data in China, the US and the UK casting doubt on the strength of the global recovery. This prompted further intervention by the central banks, with the Bank of Japan adopting negative interest rates on the excess reserves deposited by financial institutions,…
Historically low interest rates have helped many different areas of the market, with one of the biggest beneficiaries being commercial property. Closed-ended funds that invest in property shares have risen by an average of 70.1% over the last five years, which makes it the fourth most profitable sector out of 46. 2015 was a lot…
As seen in the January edition of Master Investor Magazine. At this time of year the financial press is always littered with predictions about which areas of the market are going to produce the best returns. It can be interesting and instructive to look at the different views, but it’s important to remember that nobody…
Neil Woodford is one of the most highly regarded fund managers operating in this country, but despite all his skill and experience his Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) has generated a negative return over its first nine months of existence. WPCT was launched on April 21st 2015 and quickly rose above the issue price of…
It has been a difficult time for natural resources stocks and energy companies with the slump in commodity prices hitting their profits. The decline has been of such severity that it has had a significant impact on the economies that are dependent on these sectors of the market. One example is Canada, where the fall…
Lots of people are nervous about the prospects for the markets going into 2016 because of the threat of higher interest rates in the US and UK and the risk of a further slowdown in China. Investors who are uncomfortable with the outlook might want to consider a targeted absolute return fund. A good example…
One of the attractions of investing in closed-ended funds is that the shares can trade at a discount to their underlying Net Asset Value (NAV). This gives you the chance to pick up a real bargain, which is not something you can do with an open-ended fund. There are several fund-of-funds that aim to exploit…
A recent survey of financial advisors conducted by Schroders found that the three fund sectors that they are most likely to recommend for 2016 are: Mixed Investment 20%-60% Shares, UK Equity Income and UK All Companies. Other parts of the market like Strategic Bond funds that were popular last year are no longer on their…
As featured in this month’s magazine. The pension freedoms that came into force in April have resulted in a massive change to the way that people finance their retirement. Data from the Association of British Insurers shows that in the first six months under the new rules a total of £2.85bn was invested in income…
