Skip to main content

Fund manager admits mistake.

Fund manager admits mistake.

 Tom Slater, manager of the firm’s £13.8bn Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, told an investor forum in London, it had been «a mistake» to assume that changes in consumer habits during the pandemic would last, «and we were slow to recognise the significance of the shattering in Sino-US relations». More than $8bn of losses on Tesla and $6bn on Shopify made these two of Baillie Gifford’s worst-performing holdings. Tesla is the Scottish Mortgage trust’s second-largest investment, accounting for 6.8 per cent of the fund. It also has a smaller stake in Shopify.

Until 2019, it was the largest shareholder after Tesla chief Elon Musk, with about 8 per cent. It has since reduced its holding to less than 1 per cent, but Thomas said it remained the 12th largest shareholder. «Tesla’s actually been a giant success story. It’s just been a difficult period.» Tesla shares fell 65 per cent last year but have risen 1,908 per cent since Baillie Gifford first invested in 2013.

Shares in Shopify, which provides software to help small businesses sell online, fell 74.8 per cent in 2022 but increased almost fivefold between the start of the pandemic and November 2021. Baillie Gifford has been adding to its stake in the company.

www.sba.tax

Comments

  1. If you'd have studied the market closely you would have known that Tesla shares will go down (maybe not as much as they did). As for Shopify, it wasn't so clear as with Tesla but still not hard to connect the dots.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These 2 were great investments for a good while, but not lately.

      Delete
    2. I think now it's a good time to buy shares with Tesla and Shopify. They will be back up eventually.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Cloud Bookkeeping

US FED rate rise.

  The US Federal Reserve officials have indicated that they plan to resume increasing interest rates to control inflation in the world's biggest economy. During the June meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee reached a consensus to keep interest rates stable for the time being to evaluate whether further tightening of policy would be necessary. However, the majority of the committee anticipates that additional rate increases will be required in the future. The minutes of the meeting have recently been made public. According to the minutes, most participants believed maintaining the federal funds rate at 5 to 5.25 per cent was appropriate or acceptable, despite some individuals wanting to raise the acceleration due to slow progress in cooling inflation. Although Fed forecasts predicted a mild recession starting later in the year, policymakers faced challenges in interpreting data that showed a tight job market and only slight improvements in inflation. Additionally, officials gr...

EU business slide.

  S&P Global’s flash eurozone composite purchasing managers’ index, a key gauge of business conditions for the manufacturing and services sector, fell 1 point to 47.1, figures showed yesterday. That is its lowest level since November 2020 and the fourth consecutive month below the crucial 50 mark separating growth from contraction. One of the few bright spots in the survey was that companies in all sectors reported a slight easing of cost pressures, price growth and supply chain constraints. However, prices charged for goods and services still rose at the sixth fastest rate since such data started in 2002. Jobs growth increased marginally from October but remained low compared with the past 18 months. Following a few months of falling price pressure in manufacturing and services, the October print shows an overall stabilisation said Jens Eisenschmidt, chief European economist at Morgan Stanley. However, German businesses, at the hub of Europe’s energy crisis, reported that manu...

Tariffs on UK electric cars.

  The European Commission has confirmed that it will continue with its plan to impose tariffs on electric cars exported between the UK and EU starting next year. This is due to the "rules of origin" requirement that mandates EVs traded across the English Channel to have 60% of their battery and 45% of their parts sourced from the EU or UK or face a 10% tariff. A senior Commission official, Richard Szostak, recently informed parliamentarians from the UK and EU that the bloc's battery investment has significantly declined, making the tariffs necessary to encourage domestic production. In 2022, the EU's share of global investment in battery production shrank from 41% to only 2% after the US offered substantial subsidies through its Inflation Reduction Act. Starting in 2024, car manufacturers in the UK will need to have 22% of their sales come from zero-emission vehicles, which means they may need to import EVs from the continent to meet this requirement. If EU carmakers ...