The Scottish IT 'preserves capital' awaiting some 'tremendous opportunities' ahead
Manager favours gold, tobacco and utilities
The Scottish investment trust is in "capital preservation" mode as it anticipates "tremendous opportunities" once signs the coronavirus is through the worst appear, according to manager Alasdair McKinnon.
With stockmarkets having sold off aggressively in March, many participants were looking to add to already beaten-up stocks through the month and into April.
However, in late March, McKinnon told Investment Week that while there will "absolutely" be an opportunity in cyclical stocks down the line, that time "is not now".
"It seems that we have got to get through the worst first," he claimed.
McKinnon said a trip to Japan scheduled for February to attend a conference that was ultimately cancelled spurred re-evaluation of the trust's portfolio.
"We asked ourselves 'which companies would we have confidence in the earnings forecast for if this virus spread to the Western world?' And, well, the honest answer was 'none'," he said.
As a result, the manager "immediately cut everything obviously exposed to the first line of spending cuts", including some long-held retailers, banks and oil service firms.
The proceeds were used to top up holdings in gold miners, tobacco stocks and utilities, "with the aim to preserve capital".
"We want to try and preserve capital as best we can," McKinnon continued.
"We want to be in a position to have as much money as we can on the other side, because that is when there will be tremendous opportunities."
But the manager insisted "it is too early to say 'this is the time to buy'", noting that, alongside "better news on the virus", he wanted to see "a bit less complacency about stockmarkets being this place you can just put your money, walk away, forget about it and always make money - it is not quite that simple".
"We are as defensively positioned as I think we can be and content to stay in that defensive mindset, in the knowledge that things will turn quickly and there will be tremendous opportunities when we come through [the other side].
"But for the minute, it is almost wrong to be looking at certain stocks as equities; you should be looking at them on more of a credit basis, asking 'can these assets survive?'
"We are looking for resilient revenues that people will keep paying for. If nothing else, this crisis has shown us how important our telecoms infrastructure is, for example, and one of the last things we will stop paying is our telephone bill."
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