Freedom Day may be coming later than some hoped, but if we can throw off all Covid restrictions on July 19, how can we ensure our investments celebrate along with us?
Susannah Streeter, at wealth manager Hargreaves Lansdown, says: There has been a slow but steady recovery among the worst hit sectors such as hospitality, travel and retail. But many of the share prices of affected companies remain subdued compared with pre-pandemic levels.
Date in the diary: Companies that rely on getting big numbers of people together all face an uncertain future on the stock market Some of the worst affected companies have gone cap in hand to shareholders with calls for more money, diluting investors shareholdings and pushing down share prices, while the prospects continue to be uncertain.
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Managers expect strong performance from Claverhouse’s British stocks
Credit: Jim Dyson /Getty Images
Reserves that could be used to support the trust’s dividend during the pandemic were behind our decision a year ago to add JP Morgan Claverhouse to our Income Portfolio at the expense of Invesco Income Growth. Its annual report, published last month, gave us an update on the state of those reserves.
The trust said that, following payment of the fourth quarterly dividend, its reserves would amount to £15.8m or 27.1p per share. This compared with £19.6m or 34.4p a share in 2019.
The total dividend for 2020 was 29.5p, up from 29p, as we have reported previously. So the current reserves would be enough to pay 92pc of the next annual dividend if it was left unchanged.
25.29
34.49
Fund
Share price total return for trusts, NAV total return for mutual funds 20 Feb ’20 to 16 Mar ’21. Source: FE Fundinfo
But over longer time periods, the merits of the trust structure are evident when it comes to performance, according to research from Interactive Investor. The platform provider found on average, investment trusts have outperformed funds in almost every major sector on an annualised basis over 10 and 20 years (see table below).
It found the average global investment trust has outperformed its fund equivalent by almost one percent (0.95%) a year over the last 10 years, and by 2.62% per year over the last 20 years.
The UK Equity Income sector has seen investment trusts outperform funds by an average of 1.79% per year over 10 years and 1.5% per year over 20 years.
Which UK equity income funds saw yields shrivel during the coronavirus pandemic? portfolio-adviser.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from portfolio-adviser.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.