Terry Smith defends 'tech' holdings and claims underperformance was 'inevitable'

Annual shareholder letter

Terry Smith, manager of the £22.9bn Fundmsith Equity fund, has defended his technology holdings, while noting that his fund’s recent underperfomance was “inevitable”, in his annual shareholder letter.

In the letter, published today (10 January), Smith said the fund had fallen by 13.8% in 2022, compared to a 7.8% drop in the MSCI World index in sterling with dividends reinvested. "Whilst a period of underperformance against the index is never welcome it is nonetheless inevitable," the fund manager said in the letter. "We have consistently warned that no investment strategy will outperform in every reporting period and every type of market condition." Smith went on to detail market developments since the 1990s, which he described as a long period of easy money. He then defended...