Morningstar has downgraded Fundsmith Equity from 'Gold' to 'Silver' after a “number of missteps” on four recent stock sales "hurt performance".
Manager Terry Smith has run a 'buy-and-hold' mantra in running the flagship fund, which Daniel Haydon, analyst at Morningstar, said had "long been an edge", but added "some questions have become apparent more recently". Fundsmith Equity makes Bestinvest's 'Spot the Dog' list for the first time Pointing to the recent sales of Adobe, Amazon, Estee Lauder and PayPal, Haydon said Smith himself had "admitted to the wrong timing" on each of them. Last year, Smith sold Adobe after the now-aborted merger with Figma was announced, while Amazon was removed due to capital efficiency concerns ...
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