When I added 294 ( ) shares to my portfolio at £6.76 each in June last year, I thought I was making a dire mistake. In fact, I almost sold them straight away.
I feared I’d been dazzled by a heroic past performance . The Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust flew during the early stages of the US tech stock boom, then lost half its value when the sector crashed in 2022. I can’t resist a bargain, but then I began to wonder.
Just because a stock or trust has fallen 50%, doesn’t mean it can’t fall another 50%. Also, the guiding light behind the trust, James Anderson, had retired. New lead manager Tom Slater talked a good game, but fund managers often do.
Also, I was worried by the high number of private, unquoted shares in the portfolio. There was plenty of scope for disaster here. My Scottish play But I noticed that whenever investor sentiment jumped, Scottish Mortgage jumped a little higher.
So I held on and when it started climbing, I bought 270 more shares three months later at the higher price of £7.34. Today, I’m much more content with my decision.
So far, my shares are up 27.2%. Over one year, the Scottish Mortgage share price is up an impressive 39.
74%. But that’s not my only reward. I’m also been getting a small but steady stream of dividends.
Nobody in their right mind thinks of Scottish Mortgage as a dividend stock. A quick check online will show the yield is just 0.47%.
Yesterday, it paid me the first dividend of the year. It was worth £14.88.
That’s n.
