Alasdair McKinnon: Why aren't we Facebook friends?

Manager has historically avoided FANG stocks

Alasdair McKinnon, manager of the £620m Scottish Investment trust, explains why he is ignoring the hype around FANG stocks, which have been under the spotlight recently following the fallout from the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Unlike many other global equity vehicles, The Scottish Investment trust's portfolio does not include any of the so-called FANGs (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google). It is not that we do not see their merits - we like our YouTube clips and Prime deliveries as much anyone - it is just that as contrarian investors, we are looking for the best balance of risk and reward we can find.  Today, shares in Facebook and Amazon cost more than six times as much as they did five years ago. You would need to pay 12 times more for Netflix shares and even Google costs 2.5 times more than it did in ...