Rogoff returns cash holding to stock market

Polar Capital's Ben Rogoff has put the 3% cash position in his Technology trust back into the stock market as valuations become compelling after the recent correction.

He topped up Apple to 8% - 2% below the maximum allowable weighting - and added to Cisco Systems and Google, among others.

"These may be mundane names in a portfolio, but they just seem too cheap," he says.

If markets fall further, Rogoff will look to sell defensives, and finally buy stocks that are the "last ones other investors want to sell," such as Amazon, Juniper Networks and Salesforce.com.

He concedes some might question holding so much in Apple, which has grown tenfold to a market cap of $248bn (£168bn) in 10 years.

Since Rogoff first bought Apple shares in mid-2003 they have risen 1100%. Since 2000, the group's forward P/E ratio fell from 30 times to 15 times. US technology companies are trading on 13 times forward earnings, compared to 62 times in December 1999, he says.

"We think the company should be able to continue to gain share in its key markets, and it is attractively valued," he adds.

Rogoff describes companies like Microsoft - his biggest underweight - and mobile giant Nokia in the context of Apple's market dominance.

"The iPad and iPhone now may be seen as complements to the PC, but longer term they are substitutes. Microsoft will gradually lose share of the operating system market. We now have nothing in Nokia. Companies like these seem impaired by a new cycle and risk becoming a value trap.

"If Nokia came out with something better than the iPhone, you feel nothing would change. Apple has more cash on its balance sheet than Nokia's market capitalisation."

Rogoff says at reasonable valuations he will hold IBM, Microsoft and Hewlett Packard, which will not benefit so much as the next generation technology emerges, but have not yet suffered too much.