Member Info for Walp

tambo210, i agree with you entirely.. trust is not my strong point and i do read between the lines. i'm also very cynical of "research" which is usually bent towards a particular bias.

i work in healthcare, and i should know.

i'm not however an expert in mrna science, but i do think it an interesting and viable science that is likely to reveal unthought of applications.

i think if you are investing in smt you have to give the management team credit that they will be averse to professional suicide.

they will have looked at all of their punts fairly finitely, and where they are ignorant i would assume it really stupid to not employ consultants for limited fees to advise who are not.

of course if the management team have just made a spur of the moment uninformed purchase with moderna and it falls on its ****, then they fall on their **** as well as us.

Fela96... Attaboy. Loving the positivity and optimism!

I'm actually with you on your assessment there :)

I say 7 years as an assumption just down to the fact that this type of research tends to trip over breakthroughs and new avenues along its course. Holding individual shares in AZN I can vouch that impact of new discoveries doesn't half leg up the sp.

Tambo210, I'm sympathetic to aspects of your assessment on the virus vaccine side of things, as that never makes all that much money down to the ridiculous developmental expenses. Look to AZN for proof of that as the discovery of the first COVID one actually lost them money.

The thing though with mRNA science is that it purportedly goes well beyond that and those involved in it are convinced that there are multiple applications elsewhere within it, such as cancer therapies.

I also think 7 years is an assumption.

SMT must be aware of some discomfiture around the investment and the fact they are still in as big kind of lends me towards greater confidence than pessimism even despite the cost.

In short, who knows?

Hopefully SMT management and Moderna are far more optimistic than we can understand?

You've just used the same argument you wouldn't accept off everyone else on here with the technology leap argument, Fela96, which is whether SMT has "failed" or got itself int a "hole" depends exactly from where you are considering it.

You consider SMT to have failed from your perspective, I see it as having succeeded from mine. Every entity has its ups and downs and your perspective is unfairly weighted towards negativity.

Last word all yours again F69 because it's tiring and your mind is seemingly closed.

I think the Japanese accumulators was slightly earlier, but you get my point :)

I hopped into SMT quite a bit later as I saw the renewed potential.

Isn't that what investing is about?

Ps.. If memory serves me correct in the early 90s I was invested in Japanese accumulator trusts and made money there because that's where the development and money went that springboarded the later world tech development.

Comparing SMT and their approach as they stood 30 years ago in a very different world to today is hardly fair, is it?

And yes... The dot com abberation was exactly that... Massive enthusiasm at the dawn of something great that was far too big for its own boots for many, many years.

That came into its own in reality many years later and contributed to the general technology ascent we have seen in the last 25 years.

Pretty much all of SMTs investments are poised to dip in to the skyward trajectory of tech that exists now but was in its infancy and pretty much celibate during the flat years of SMTs history.

SMT is an excellent investment in a world (right now) in which the technology curve is becoming more and more accentuated.

The wheels are turning at a times squared pace since those exact 90s you talk about and SMT shifted their approach to niche exactly into that lot.

It's an ancient investment trust, to be sure .. but you cannot apply a trajectory based upon an old world upon a proven positive trajectory performance provided by SMT that has understood and fits in well with that lot (as Dontshootme accurately details) over the last 25 years.

I'm actually thinking you weren't about in the 1970s or 1980s? If so, total forgiveness for missing out on the fact that those of us who were were then still basically enjoying only a slightly improved technological world from the 1940s.

So on the basis that you consider SMT and it's investment approach to still be completely unchanged in approach from the 1990s, that you must also consider the technology curve to be as flat as it was before and after the fit com bubble, and that you fail to recognise the decades in which technology shifts were slow down to the non existence of microcompressors and other exponential leaps of technology that created the likes of FB, Microsoft, Amazon etc etc blah blah blah...

How in God's entire name can you class what happened 30 years ago on this earth along the same lines of one that sees year on year exponential development down to discoveries largely finited in the late 80s and 90s??

I don't wish to be sarcastic, Fela96, but please have your opposite opinion as to why SMT has ultra performed in the last 25 years rather than since its inception throughout much of which we had little more amazing than tweaks in internal combustion engine theory (to name a generalised example).

It's a rotten argument...

Fela69, I'm afraid your perspective does not compute with my assessment of SMT. It is what it is, has some fab companies which it historically acquired just at the right time and has done very well for me thank you very much.

Admittedly it has underperformed in recent times but how much of this (beyond the given global economics) is actually down to proven mismanagement or poor company selection and purchasing?

Who has the authority or credentials on here to say anything that SMT have done recently is a mistake or ill advised?

Despite everyone having their own opinions I personally believe smt to still have a sound management style and structure and do not believe the disfavour they are clearly considered in at the moment to be justified (again, over and above the given economic malaise bought about by inflation).

In short the sp and current opinion are fixed in this present time, but in 2 years time it could well be a wildly different situation with the media lauding SMT management as being as good as ever and all the forecasting brokers having returned it to firmly "strong buy" status.

In short one man's "disappointment" is potentially another man's future opportunity.

Fela, please don't be sad. I'm far more of the opinion that SMT will (from their current standing) outperform just about anything before too long.

I look at it that way having had half a lifetime of the shocks and fears inherent in investing.

I used to think it was complicated, but it doesn't have to be really.

Sure SMT have lost biggest of all (probably rightly down to the fears discussed peculiar to smt), but similar trusts have lost quite big in the exact same pattern too.

The truth is in the pattern of loss which can only be underlined across all of these investments as high inflation.

It's like looking out if the window and seeing day yet doubting the evidence of your own eyes and wondering if it's night down to analytics and statistics.. Ok .. that's a crap and extreme analogy but I'm sure you get my jist.

The argument that the 20% discount sp isn't real down to the unproven nature if a similar % of unlisted inclusions in SMT is a reasonable one, until you might also consider that they were companies chosen by a team of experts who assume at least one or two to take off big . This is indeed a wild card that makes any a riskier yet potentially profitable purchase, or is it??

Given your opinion that the market probably completely discounts the worth of these unlisteds based upon their unproven worth you might consider them a tombola bonus (to some degree at least)..

Stay invested and sleep well...

Low inflation economics, not interest.

I'm interested Fela96, what's your background?

You do strike me in all that you write here (very strongly) as a youngster trying to utilise investment theory pretty much in isolation to all else.

Can I just ask that if at the time you purchased your SMT you had done the homework and assessed it as a good investment?

If so, just stick with that.

The theory isn't going to help because we are passing through one mother of a flux at the mo and no one (that's no one) can foresee anything beyond the fact that these type of investments always do better in low interest economics.

That's all you need to know, so either grit your teeth and hold (recommended by me rather a lot) or sell and sleep better.

Well call me revolutionary, but I like closed ended investment trusts exactly because they are run by a team of investment experts whose own reputations and livelihood relies on them being profitable.

You also get the safety of dozens of individual investments all rolled up in one.

Theory is all very well, Fela96, but it has to add up convincingly for it to stand as an argument and even then is liable to fall on its ass..

Believe you me, you are over complicating things. Perhaps you should forward your protestations that SMT are failing for the reasons of x, y and z to the SMT management team? As those investment experts are liable to be out of a job if they don't succeed, I'm sure they'll snap to it.

I recently sold a small holding of Worldwide Health Care that had underperformed prior to high inflation and bought a few more SMT in their place.

Should have done so sooner.

I'm reasonably sure they'll do better in the longer term in SMT than where they were .

It has just also occurred to me... If the market is always right, why was SMT valued at 1550pps in Nov 21?

The simple answer is that the market wasn't right, rather SMT was simply the market leader investment trust safe haven bet in a difficult marketplace and everyone got on the bus.

I wish I'd got off the bus with them later but don't play that game and have collectively done ok...

The lesson is that it's all fluid, nothing is fixed and that indices and calculator's will never replace a crystal ball or anticipate human sentiment or emotion.

Before having to also apologise out of insensitivity for those who have invested and lost, can I also point out that I have "lost" around £140k staying invested in SMT since the absurdly frothy heights of Nov 21.

I stayed put throughout the froth knowing that the gains I made would likely be lost in future adjustments.

I'm currently (today) slightly above where I was before the initial loss of the COVID realisation panic of Feb 20.

Easy come, easy go.

Sure, SMT is less popular than comparisons but is really not that complex or different.

Sure the 20% nav discount has been consistently analysed on here as between making SMT anything between a giveaway and deeply suspicion laden.

Can I be revolutionary here and just say that it is what it is and that the collective SMT concerns are and will be worth a great deal more once things get better.

Just because the market say x=y now doesn't mean it's fixed, because of course markets aren't fixed or they wouldn't exist.

At heart a product promised tomorrow by a collection of great companies is deemed worth eff all when world inflation runs hot. This is the problem.

We know this.

Sentiment isn't there for SMT right now, and given the media slant upon it is utterly surprising (I know... Blah, blah, yawn... Etc)...?

I'll ditch my input again for a while as it seems deep analytics and pessimism rule the current mood.

Moderna have their foundation in mRNA science. They will make money with this as it's a biggie with multiple future opportunities and they know what they are doing.

Perhaps SMT know this also?

SMT is an investment that will be screwed in sentiment down to the fact that future ideas aren't deemed as profitable when the jackpots come in at some non definable future point, but every human endeavour wishes the wheel to turn.

It's all about sentiment and although I completely agree the market is "always right", investment wouldn't exist if it was fixed.

SMT isn't a bloody lemon, but is full of profitable companies

Who cares what people think of it now, and maybe what they think of it now is a nod to future profitability?

We aren't investing in it for an immediate return, or are we?

Past performance cannot be utilised as an indicator to future performance.

Perhaps a chill pill and stowing the calculators may be a worthy tactic right now?

General inflationary fears at a renewed peak have knocked off the recovery, Dontshootme, your investment will be worth more than it is right now but you may have to wait.

I'm not going to repeat the media smt downcry argument any more, because clearly it's only me who believes in it (recommendations given then withdrawn accounted for).

You live a long life and invest for many years and things can seem simpler somehow.

The only absolute we can take away from this is the effect of inflation on sentiment and current value.

It's not a general rule (but far from coincidental) that I often see negativity during LSE opening turning into opposite positivity during NYSE opening for SMT. On that basis I do think there is a (baffling) association between mentality linked to our more knackered outlook than that in trading in it from other less afflicted countries.

I've tried to ascertain the numbers investing in SMT and where they reside (which might account to a slant towards pessimism for those who inevitably and wrongly associate SMT with the UK), but this info isn't obvious.

Whatever, you would expect investment from all corners would come out balanced in the wash.

Whatever, Id say SMT is definitely over inflicted with negative sentiment at the moment and repeat my rather simplistic view that this has largely been created and driven by media sentiment.

In psychology there is proven humanistic theory called "primacy versus recency". This dictates that initial impressions of something or something new to the conceiver are accepted in face value, and only multiple successive more positive re introductions to that something will erode the primary assessment.

I think we can all agree and connect with this, and given the poop SMT has found itself badmouthed into (whereas other investment trusts have received zero issues, suffered no changes or criticism), then I feel less surprised at the current unpopularity.

As for algorithms and theories?

My impression is whilst all that stuff can potentially be useful for concreting ideas of worth and future worth, I have found my gut offers 75% surety over my many years of investment.

It remains all of our greatest asset, and on that basis I can see only strong reason for holding.

As for fears as concerns moderna, although not performing and largely static at the moment (indeed over the last few years post predictable losses re inflation), I'm not particularly worried in the same way as I'm not particularly excited.