Editor Stuart Fieldhouse talks to Ryan Lightfoot-Aminoff, Investment Trust Analyst at Kepler Partners about some of the key trends in the investment trusts sector at the moment.
Ryan works for independent investment trust research specialists Kepler, and we took the chance to shoot some questions at him about discounts, portfolio diversification and the perennial question of how the US election is going to hit those trusts with North American equities exposures.
Also up for discussion is the current trend for merging investment trusts and how that affects shareholders. We also chat about the advent of active ETFs and whether that poses an existential threat to investment trusts, or whether the two fund wrappers can play nicely together in investor portfolios.
How do Investment Trusts stack up vs ETFs? Why do managers often buy an existing trust rather than set up a new one? And more questions answered.
Chapters:
00:35 Intro to Kepler
01:22 What is an investment trust’s discount?
02:08 The US market and election results
05:11 Concentration risk in the Magnificent Seven stocks
08:03 Managing portfolio risk with investment trusts
11:11 Different reasons why investment trusts have discounts
16:10 Mergers in the trust sector
20:15 Why might it be easier to buy an existing trust rather than launch a new one?
22:09 Advantages of Investment Trusts vs ETFs
