Finally I made a decision and then a discovery: a closed-end fund which has very successfully invested in all those big names (currently AMZN 10% then Tencent ILMN Inditex BIDU BABA FB TSLA etc. etc.). I am sure all the usual suspects are in there.
This comes as a relief. I never solved the conundrum of wanting to own these names while not really understanding their attributes or price properly.
So now, I delegate. Ah, the peace of mind! Now, all I have to decide is how much money I want in all these things collectively, establish my investment in one place and leave the decisions to others.
That leaves me mercifully free to do what I enjoy and flatter myself (as investors do) that I have an edge: analysing companies where all the numbers can be neatly lined up like beans in a row and compared with the price. I guess that makes me a bean-counter.
It wouldn’t be a rule without an exception. I own SHOP!
Finally I made a decision and then a discovery: a closed-end fund which has very successfully invested in all those big names (currently AMZN 10% then Tencent ILMN Inditex BIDU BABA FB TSLA etc. etc.). I am sure all the usual suspects are in there.
By an interesting coincidence, I bought two ETFs this December for very much the same reasons. Until now I had been avoiding ETFs and funds.
Finally I made a decision and then a discovery: a closed-end fund which has very successfully invested in all those big names (currently AMZN 10% then Tencent ILMN Inditex BIDU BABA FB TSLA etc. etc.). I am sure all the usual suspects are in there.
How did you define “success”? What were its returns in 2008 and 2000?
Gents, I am wondering what screening tool you used. Most of the ETF’s I found were heavily invested in the FANG stocks and I was looking for something involved in some of the smaller less well known but possibly more exciting companies.
By an interesting coincidence, I bought two ETFs this December for very much the same reasons. Until now I had been avoiding ETFs and funds.
I, too, bought shares of funds in December…3 Vanguard index funds. They are, so far, giving me some peace of mind for at least a portion of my holdings, while allowing me to actively manage the remainder.
I do not know if one can buy shares in SMT from here using either Ameritrade or Fidelity. Perhaps there are ETFs or Mutual funds which have similar portfolio to SMT. VGT from Vanguard seems to be one. Does anyone know how the performance of this ETF compares with that of SMT. I tried Yahoo and Ameritrade but they do not recognize this ticker symbol.
The trading symbol for Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust in London is SMT.L
To trade it in the US, you can call your broker and ask to trade it in London. Or you can buy it in the Over-the-Counter market using symbol STMZF (note that the placing of the T and the M are reversed. That’s not a misprint.)
Streina, Could you say a little about why you like this particular stock.
I like UK:SMT because I wanted a closed-end fund (ie active, not passive) preferably at a discount or with a negligible premium to NAV, with a low TER and no performance fee and with a successful history of investing in all the things I did not want to invest in directly myself because I did not understand them (because they did not conform to my simple way of evaluating quality growth companies).
I feel I can now forget all about AMZN, FB, TSLA and the rest which would not come through my screens and DD but which - some of them - are such rampantly successful features of the landscape they have proved to be desirable.
I must have been the world’s worst investor in AMZN!
