Funds

For a few reasons, the ex-China universe of emerging market funds has probably enjoyed a lot more attention recently. Regulatory crackdowns have spooked investors for one, while the situation in the country’s real estate market has also hit share prices. Another reason is that emerging market index trackers were obviously heavily exposed to the country to begin with. While that may be fine for Greater…

What makes a great long-term stock? In terms of a single lump sum investment, my answer to that would be three things coming together at the same time: high quality profits, strong future growth and a cheap starting valuation. Think something like Microsoft stock a decade ago, trading on a PE of 11. Visa on a PE of 15 at the same time is another…

By and large, UK stocks continue to strike me as a pretty good long-term deal right now. I know folks have probably been reading something similar for a while now, but the headline numbers do look reasonable. I mean, looking at some ETF data suggests that London-listed firms trade on a PE of around 12 right now. Meanwhile, across the pond the S&P 500 currently…

I’m sure that Terry Smith and the Fundsmith Equity Fund are well known amongst readers. Ironically I haven’t covered that fund here yet, but it’s not hard to see why it is so popular because Smith takes a very simple approach to investing: buy firms that post stable, high quality earnings and hold them. Perhaps less popular is Fundsmith’s emerging and frontier markets (“EM”) offering…

So far, precisely one open-ended fund has featured on the site to day: Schroder Asian Income. An odd choice you may think, but the case for Asian, Chinese and even broader emerging market stocks just strikes me as quite strong right now. Granted, you can probably make a case for the S&P 500 based on low interest rates – yes, even at a price-earnings ratio…