SMT is a really well-run investment trust with quite a unique investment style. I acknowledge that it is not for everyone.
James Anderson is part/head of Baillie Gifford’s Long Term Growth group and they invest for the long term. When I say long term, I’m talking about 10-20 years down the road. For example, he believes that China will be the largest economy in the world in the next decade (I think this is quite consensual) and as a result has a ton of these Chinese technology companies (Tencent, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Baidu, Meituan-Dianping and Pinduoduo). He has also backed Amazon since 2003.
What’s interesting is that he can invest about 25% of the fund in illiquid private companies and over the years has been increasing those bets. The reason for this is because he believes that most of the shareholder value accrues will the company is private (again, pretty consensual thinking but not many people can execute in liquid instruments, except in an investment trust). The trust owns Airbnb, Ant Financial, TransferWise, Grail, etc. He has been quite successful as well, picking up Spotify, NIO, Delivery Hero, Dropbox and HelloFresh before their IPO.
I’d say this is a great long term growth instrument but can be highly volatile due to the concentrated positions in certain names. Also, highly correlated to a strong USD due to the underlyings.
Disclaimer: Not investment advice!