Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust - SMT - Share Chat

If you’re investing for the very long haul (retirement) then you will likely go through several market phases. This is why passive investing is great.

When choosing Active managers I read through several Vanguard articles which stated that it’s the investment “philosophy and process” that can generate long term outperformance. They picked Baillie Gifford back in 2003 to manage 50% of their active fund because they’re truly index agnostic, have a clear investment process and have not swayed away from it. They also picked a value manager in Wellington for the same reasons. I think this is where Active can add some value to a portfolio rather than the majority of active funds that bring in “star” managers or have the same holdings as their benchmark index.

Like Cameron has said, a hell of a lot of investors are jumping in late to the party without really knowing what they’re buying into. These investors are likely to sell out after seeing big drawdowns and cement their losses

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I would argue that

and

is more than a small overlap. Often, including in SMT, it is individual managers that have driven a philosophy. One has to only read SMT articles over many years to see how much Baillie Gifford has pushed Anderson as a star manager. Indeed, when Anderson’s retirement was announced, and in umpteen marketing articles since, Baillie Gifford has been at pains to declare that Slater is of the same philosophical view point that Anderson has driven. Baillie Gifford marketing is trying to play a tough marketing balancing act … talk about teams and philosophy and so and so forth and at the same time promote star managers without calling them star managers.

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Yep, I should point out actually that Ewan Markson-Brown was brought in (not as a star) to manage the Asia Pacific strategy. Although delivering similar 5Y performance he wasn’t sung about in the same tune as Anderson probably because he was an external hire. He left the firm this year stating pressure from other partners to hold the favourite stocks (Alibaba & Tencent). He does also admit he’s left BG a better investor but it sounds like BG could be evolving into an asset gatherer. This pressure shows they are trying not to show any contradicting behaviour across their mandates as this could lead to confusion and difficulty in “selling” their products

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I am not sure what you mean by this. BG does sell off stocks that no longer fill their thesis and/or have an outsized impact on the portfolio. For instance there has been a steady sell off of Tesla over months. And keeping Alibaba is only because of a particular conviction on where future growth lies. Are you implying it is simply buying Alibaba (etc)? I cannot recollect seeing such information anywhere.

What I mean by asset gathering is the focus on investor inflows (more income) over pure returns. The more you grow the harder it is to be nimble. If your flagship fund is telling you all is well with Alibaba and Tencent but your Asia-pacific Specialist fund has just sold them then this contradiction will make things difficult internally.

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got it.

https://www.bailliegifford.com/en/uk/individual-investors/private-investor-forum/investor-webinars/scottish-mortgage-webinar-why-access-to-visionary-founders-and-academics-matters

SCOTTISH MORTGAGE WEBINAR - THURSDAY 27 JANUARY AT 1PM

Scottish Mortgage aims to identify, invest in and support companies that can offer the potential of genuinely transformative returns. Join Deputy Manager Lawrence Burns as he explains how access to visionary founders, private companies and leading academics, paired with a patient, long-term investment approach, stands Scottish Mortgage in good stead to find those small number of extraordinary companies that have the potential to produce exceptional returns.

There will be a live Q&A on the day. If you would like to join the discussion, please submit your questions in advance of the event to trustenquiries@bailliegifford.com

A recording of the event will be sent out once available to all those who have registered.

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Anyone that’s going, please ask them to stop the dive in SP :blush:

Embrace the dive. The price has been under NAV recently and if you believe their investments are strong it might be a good time to get some shares cheap

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:nauseated_face::nauseated_face::face_vomiting::face_vomiting:

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Definitely not a share to look at on a daily basis.

Come back in five years.

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SMT investors forum from last month

What are peoples thoughts on SMT recently?

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A few unstructured thoughts from me

They’ve recently added to their Moderna position in February. Lots of criticism in parralel to Tesla 5 years ago. Im happy they know what theyre doing with this opportunity.
Lawrence burns initially impressed however the long term mantra is starting to sound like a broken record without some originality. I appreciate their strategy is built around Moores Law but it feels like thats all i have been hearing for the past 3 years. I wish some of their responses werent so choreogrpahed. Thats why I loved listening to Anderson.
Looking at the portfolio I am happy to continue adding to my position for the very long term. Macro will most definitely hurt share prices for the next few years but great opportunities to add if you have the long time horizon.

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I wonder if that’s a case of not being a good public speaker, or just now having anything to say. Hopefully the former.

There’s downsides is suppose to being what you could describe as their shining star trust in that people can censor themselves for various reasons.

Moderna seems like a riskier bet, however I say that not knowing a huge amount of detail on mrna tech. But it feels like the money dumped into the covid mnra vaccine could be the breakthrough they needed for the various other vaccines there now working on. if they work, they’ll do well. its a sizeable investment…

ASML also sizeable but feels like a more obvious one. assuming they’re invested in the right semi conductor company. the demand is only going to increase exponentially I think.

Still a good price as well relative to their NAV as far as I can tell

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Yes, probably the former. He did build the investment thesis for ASML and it’s clear from the way he communicates that he is a deep thinker.

Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust is the world’s most popular trust fund due to the size of its asset class and its incredible track record of generating high returns. Nonetheless, the Scottish Mortgage share price has seen a 25% drop since the start of the year. This is in part due to the decline of valuations in growth stocks.

Disclaimer: I do not stand to profit in any way from sharing this article or the views I get. I am merely sharing this as an opinion to offer my insight to the stock whilst hoping to contribute to the discussion. These posts have been also been cleared by the mods.

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25% I dream of 25% I think I brought at ATH, it’s in my pension so I’m not bothered (I am bothered but I tell people I’m not!) - I hope their stakes in Stripe, ByteDance and Space X will give them a boost.

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I’d be bullish about Stripe and SpaceX, but those positions don’t hold as big of an influence as I’d like them to (Part of the reason why I’m also not invested in SMT). ByteDance could very well go down if the CCP wakes up one day and decides that it doesn’t like people dancing on TikTok, which is too big of a risk for me :sweat_smile: I don’t quite see what Moderna has in store though, but for your sake, I hope Baillie Gifford see something we don’t!

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