Smithson Investment Share Discussion Threads

[essentialinvestor] 06/10/2023 13:41

Is SSON Turing in to another FEET..

[cruelladeville] 25/8/2023 15:13

I'm not holding my breath though. I'm not sure the outlook for mid cap stocks is especially good given economic outlook across the world. If growth is hard to come by over the next decade, lack of decent dividend at SSON is a drag for sure.

[essentialinvestor] 25/8/2023 15:01

Adam, have you watched the recent AGM presentation?.

Unconvincing imv - all be it a highly subjective view.

The question is not whether the share price will rebound, clearly at some stage it will,
more a case of can they outperform, particularly given no Divi payments.

[adamb1978] 25/8/2023 14:57

Awful over the long-term I agree, but using the last year or so (or today!) as the basis, I think its a reasonable bet for decent growth for here

[cruelladeville] 25/8/2023 14:10

Yes there's been regular share buy backs recently. Smithson share price remains awful.

[chinahere] 23/8/2023 11:52

If the Simcorp deal goes ahead then that is going to give them around £80 million cash. I'd guess some of that will be spent on buybacks.

[cruelladeville] 20/8/2023 15:36

Yes, I think you're pretty much on the ball there. Obviously Smith gave up on FEET. I have been wondering how long it'll be before Smithson goes the same way. With well over £20 billion invested just in Fundsmith, I imagine SSON to be hardly worth the bother for them.

[adamb1978] 20/8/2023 13:39

I think the explanation for underperformance here is more simple: starting valations.

Terry Smith's mantra is "identify good companies, don't overpay, do nothing"

I think he or the fund over-estimated the resilience of midcap multiples in difficult market conditions and raising rate environment, and therefore they failed the 'don't overpay' part.

I believe this will come back, but it needs to happen the hard way, via increased earnings, which will take a year or two. The companies which it owns are good businesses, but there just needed to be a reset in valuations

[cruelladeville] 20/8/2023 13:17

It was unfortunate really that I thought swapping half my Fundsmith into Smithson would give me useful diversification. Alas, all it's done is increase volatility and reduce returns. 20:20 hindsight of course. I have no idea what the future holds but I think it likely in a low growth or recessionary environment, the mid cap stocks in Smithson are going to struggle. For the foreseeable future. Of course, there's the possibility I'm completely wrong.

[papy02] 20/8/2023 10:54

CdV,
as a recent late to the party Fundsmith investor, I worry that alternative explanations could be:
- Terry Smith and his sidekick’s focus on Fundsmith. I.e. they are just good stock pickers and performance is dependent on them staying around.
- They have ridden a wave of popularity for quality growth large caps, and will falter once that subsides.

I have no idea which it is, and hope it is as you suggest, that the Fundsmith method works for large caps, even though apparently not for mid-caps or emerging markets.

[danieldruff2] 19/8/2023 19:15

The two failures produce little or no dividends as well. I gave up on this one earlier in the year.

[cruelladeville] 19/8/2023 12:17

Sadly, I sold half my Fundsmith that I had bought at launch to buy SSON IPO. Though the first couple of years at SSON were shoot the lights out stuff, I'd actually have been better off not bothering and just held on to Fundsmith.It seems to me that the Smith method works extremely well on large cap stocks. But has failed on mid cap and emerging market stocks. (FEET has been wound up, I think there's a case for winding up Smithson too).I reckon that's one success and two failures for Smith.

[bdog51] 19/8/2023 11:26

I'm invested in several investment trusts including Smithson. Most of them have followed the same pattern and have dropped significantly since around start of 2022. Seems to be the markets in general affecting them all (well most), I think. I would like to think they will recover, it's just a matter of time.

[cruelladeville] 19/8/2023 11:00

Held SSON since IPO and seemingly made a huge mistake not selling out at 2000p. I am very close to giving up on Smithson. I have a sell order in at AJB to sell as soon as it gets back to 1400p. Anyone else?

[richardly] 08/8/2023 20:32

Just for info.; there's very little on this anywhere now? hxxps://masterinvestor.co.uk/funds-and-investment-trusts/buy-rating-for-smithson/

[cruelladeville] 03/5/2023 17:35

It's just apeared! https://vimeo.com/823350370

[essentialinvestor] 03/5/2023 13:49

Dan, what's your take on that?.

[cruelladeville] 03/5/2023 13:46

When can we expect a video of the 2023 AGM held last week in April? Anybody know?

[danieldruff2] 23/2/2023 14:03

From an interview last year

The strategy is identical to that of Fundsmith Equity in so far as we invest in a small portfolio of high-quality companies and we try not to overpay for them. We then do as little as possible, which means our turnover and costs are minimised. It also means the companies we own are given a chance to compound in value over time. In practice this means we aim to hold them for five to 10 years, but ideally we would hold them forever if nothing caused us to sell.

From the 2022 letter to shareholders

The... discretionary portfolio turnover, excluding any buybacks and the investment of proceeds from new shares issued, was 48.5%

[riskvsreward] 02/2/2023 22:26

They don’t have a discount control as in their peak days, it is almost always in premium. What they did was to issue new shares when in premium to meet new demands. Not a big fan of that as it only rakes in more fees for the managers, no benefit or even detrimental to existing shareholders who may want to take some profit.

[cruelladeville] 02/2/2023 21:39

SSON had a very effective discount/premium control policy for a long while. I wonder what happened to it? Hopefully the discount will evaporate.

[riskvsreward] 02/2/2023 18:56

This has moved from trading at a premium to trading at a discount. The nav performance is not that bad compared to the market it invests in.

[cruelladeville] 02/2/2023 18:47

100% agreed. Been a long time coming.

[captain stock] 02/2/2023 16:41

Nice breakout today, long may it continue.

[cruelladeville] 02/2/2023 11:16

About time there was a bit of life in this stock! A long way to go yet though, 2022 was truly dreadful for SSON shareholders.