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Quote "I decided that I would put it to work in theS&P500, where you are practically guaranteed a long-term CAGR average of 10%." Be careful on this one. I am old enough to remember someone in the late 80's saying that the Nikkei has just hit 40k and look where that went. There is also an interesting article in the Economist about the S&P493 which is the 500 minus the magnificent 7 and it shows a rather pedestrian performance of the rest of the US economy. I was pushing my 500 allocation up until I read this and realised that it's basically a bet on only 7 companies, most of which weren't around (or not doing too well) 20 years ago.

Talking of luck I recall a comment from someone in Hargreaves Lansdown to the effect that some of their most successful investors were found to have dormant accounts where people had either forgotten about their portfolios for years or even died. The ultimate buy and forget strategy.

There was an article in the FT yesterday about how companies that have borrowed heavily during the period of low interest rates are starting to suffer as rates rise to more historically normal levels. In particular this is a problem for smaller companies which will probably become insolvent and also private companies. Got me thinking about SMT and some of my smaller company funds like Smithson. Any views?

I note a sense of "when things return to normal" in some of the comments. What 45 years of investment has taught me is that there is no "normal" just short periods of relative stability (eg low interest rates) before something else kicks off. For instance just as we were getting used to the Ukraine story and oil prices were starting to fall, along comes Israel/Hamas and who saw that coming?

Although technically share buybacks increase the share price I have yet to see a successful outcome in my portfolio. In my case I have held Diageo (DGE) for a few years and they always seem to be doing buybacks and yet the share price just drifts lower. I know that it might have been worse without the buybacks but would prefer a special dividend and then I can decided for myself where to allocate the funds.

Incidentally just watched the BG video on how they value unlisted companies, the fact that they have felt it necessary to put out this video tells me more than the rather waffly content.

My SMT is at about 3.5% of my portfolio currently it was at 15% at one time then the share price dropped. At age 75 i am starting to switch to value rather than growth stocks. I used to talk about SMT as a one trick pony on the back of the Tesla share price and then how Moderna was going to do great things. I should have taken my own advice earlier.

The buybacks over the past year don't seem to be achieving much, I would rather have the dividend and make my own decisions.

Whilst acting as an executor for my mother in law's Will last year I came across some paperwork for an ISA held by "Barclays Wealth" which was in the name of her husband who had died in 2011. As it wasn't obvious if she had taken the money out I tried to contact Barclays Wealth and discovered that they were no longer at the address on the paperwork and that the division had been sold out to some other outfit. Despite numerous calls and letters I got absolutely no response from anyone (even Barclays complaints dept) and I eventually gave up as it probably only had about £3k in it if anything. The message to me was don't trust a bank with your investments.

I have over £470k in Fundsmith T class held direct. The reason that it's there is that I built up an i class stake since inception but with HL and about 4 years ago suddenly realised that I was paying HL 0.45% or about £2K a year. I had to liquidate it to get it out as an ISA transfer and it was a complete screw up (HL payed me £100 as a good will payment for the trouble they had caused). I didn't have an ii account at the time but I suppose I could now move it to ii and turn the shares into i class for 0.1% lower OCF but that would take another leap of faith. Overall Fundsmith has been my most successful investment over my investing career of 45 years and lots of others are trying to replicate the Fundsmith model. As for SMT I still have a small stake of about £35k.

Just a general comment really and wondering why there is so much heated discussion on this SMT forum? I have shares in other companies and when I look at their chat rooms there is hardly anyone there in fact some of my most successful investments have had no comments for years.

I still have a small part of my portfolio in SMT (about £30k worth but it used to be a lot more ) but I keep resisting the urge to get rid of it. I have a set of notional watchlists on HL where I put £100 into various stocks and funds on 1st of Jan each year and look at the value of that investment today (ignoring any dividends etc). For SMT the figures are dire. My problem is that at age 75 I no longer have 20+ years time horizons. Good luck to all you youngsters.

since 01/01/23 £90.21 or -9.79%

since 01/01/22 £49.94 or -50.06%

since 01/01/21 £53.22 or -46.81%

since 01/01/20 £110.3 or +10.3%

Back in 2000 I was working in a big IT company and I started getting calls and emails about jobs with new start ups, most consisted of just an internet domain name and an idea and I would get minimal salary but a big block of shares in the coming IPO. Some of the callers knew nothing about me apart from having heard me speak at a few tech conferences at the time. Luckily I ignored all of them but it was a feeding frenzy and easy to get caught up in it. I do remember one line in a newspaper saying that how could a company consisting of no more than a website with no earnings be worth more than British Airways? So on these metrics I don't think we are in bubble territory.

Talking of discounts I have a holding in Brunner (BUT) which is a steady dividend hero. The interesting thing about this IT is that it has been a a discount of 10% or more for decades. The trust was set up by the Brunner family in the 1920's when they sold their chemical business and ICI was created. The family still have a large holding and apparently don't want the trust to engage in buybacks to reduce the discount.

According to PMDR. Looks like the whole Barnard family have just invested in SSON

Article in FT today. Summed up as jam tomorrow

Baillie Gifford’s Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust has urged shareholders to remain “disciplined and patient” as it defended its investment approach after a “painful” year in which its shares have dropped by a third.

The trust’s strategy is to identify high-growth companies, such as vaccine-maker Moderna, semiconductor-maker ASML and Elon Musk’s Tesla, which will transform society. These stocks have sold off over the past year as the US Federal Reserve and other central banks aggressively raised interest rates to fight inflation.

Tom Slater, who co-manages the £11.5bn trust with Lawrence Burns, said in its full-year results on Wednesday that the “accelerating pace of change throughout the economy . . . has not translated into our investment results lately, but we need to remain disciplined and patient”.

Slater, Burns and Fiona McBain, chair of the 114-year-old trust, were communicating to shareholders for the first time since a high-profile boardroom bust-up at Scottish Mortgage two months ago.

I see that James Anderson is doing a Woodford and starting out on his own.

"James Anderson returns to fund management at firm chaired by George Osborne

The former Baillie Gifford star will run a fund focused on growth opportunities in private and public markets, starting with a pot of about £500m"

Totally irrelevant from the SMT discussion I know but I saw a chart in the FT a few days ago showing the top 10 companies in the UK in 1953 at the last coronation and Shell was the biggest but followed closely by Woolworths !! Most of the rest are relatively unchanged or have merged etc (BP, BAT, ICI, Diageo etc) M&S were 9th and now not even in the FTSE100 . Says something about how tech companies don't seem to do well here and how our stockmarket is dominated by the same old sectors

I don't take much notice of Motley but I had a look at the SMT metrics today and the discount seems to be widening NAV is around 800 whilst SP is in the low 600s so over 20%. BG needs to make some sort of statement about a plan to turn this around. I don't see any Director's deals going through either. On the basis of the old adage that if you had the cash value of your holding would you invest today I would certainly not but I am loathe to sell my holding with this sort of discount.

Woodford was a star manager when he left Invesco having made some lucky calls and arguably went down hill fast when the governance constraints were removed. Luckily I bailed out at this point. I spent some time in an IT sales unit and noticed that for some reason some sales guys were "lucky" in pulling off deals more often than others. They tended to sail close to the wind and often got in trouble but they did win the business (or got fired).

Just a comment on the Star Manager effect which in SMT's case means Anderson leaving . I can think of several instances where this has had a bad effect (Bolton, Buxton, Nimmo and a few others including Woodford leaving Invesco) despite claims that the strategy will not change it does seem to have a negative affect on any fund and most never return to their previous performance. Personally I have a substantial holding in Fundsmith built up over the years and worry about Terry Smith approaching retirement and what I would replace it with .