Nickc;202867 wrote:Curious that for a 'defensive fund' Fundsmith had the biggest drawdown of all my equity holdings last week!
I think the valuation of the FS investable universe has potential to make it less of a defensive fund than it used to be, a drum I've banged for a little while and part of my reason for selling it.
It has been defensive in past sell offs since it's existence, falling far less than the market and/or bouncing back far quicker. But when the market is having a hissy fit about interest rates specifically it's the higher PE ratio stocks that fall further than the market and "quality growth" is expensive.
The difficulty with active funds is we have to question ourselves - is what we are seeing here and now the start of a long term trend, or is it just a blip?
It's quite conceivable that in 5 years time the top performers over the past 5 years are Schroder Global Recovery and Ninety One Global Special Situations whilst the funds everyone points fingers at to say "who the hell would buy that" are the likes of forum favourites (SMT, Fundsmith, TRP Global Focus etc).
The flip side is that this is what happened in Q1 2021, and come the end of 21 normal service was resumed, growth and quality funds were up 20% and value funds were back to being a figure of fun.
Just treated myself to a read of TS's annual letter and he doesn't half have a way with words. Great read....