Scottish Mortgage NAV slumps 17% as investors flee growth

Underperforms benchmark

The performance of Scottish Mortgage has continued to slump in a painful year for growth investing, but the managers told shareholders they will remain “disciplined and patient” and avoid resorting to “following the crowd”.

In the trust's final results for the year to 31 March 2023 published today (17 May), SMT reported a decline in NAV of 17.8% and a share price fall of 33.5%, while the FTSE All-World index was down 0.9%.  This also compared to the Global AIC sector's decline of 8.2% in NAV and 13.6% in share price terms respectively over the period. Over the year, the trust's discount widened from 0.5% to 19.6%, which the board acknowledged "can be discomfiting" for shareholders. To address this, the company bought back 36.5 million shares at a total cost of £283.3m.  Baillie Gifford European Grow...