Introduction
Toda in this article we discusss F and C Investment Trust Share Price. The F&C Investment Trust (FCIT), founded in 1868, is an investment trust that has proved to be endurance of investment success. The world’s oldest collective investment scheme has always evolved with the world’s changing finance, providing investors with a diversified portfolio for long-term capital growth and income. “Learn the share price trend of FCIT from its historical performance till this point, recent development and future prospect.”
A Historical Perspective
In the last two decades, FCIT has grown and been resilient. Total return has surpassed 700 percent and shareholders’ returns have been clearly ahead of broader market indices. Due to this approach, which combines global equities and private equity investments, the fund enjoys this impressive performance.
One such example is that though FCIT desires to be a resilient growth investor, while major growth providers like technology stocks have been so, FCIT has retained a prudent weight relative to high valuations tech giants to reduce potential risk.
Recent Performance and Share Price Trends
However, FCIT was not able to capitalize on this year’s 7.5 percent gain of FCIT’s benchmark, the FTSE All-World Index, which overperformed its share price again as FCIT reported a 2.6 percent decline in the first half of 2023.
Part of this underperformance was related to a widening of discount between the share price and net asset value (NAV), which increased from 3% to 9.8%. But the underlying asset strength was shown by the fact that the NAV itself grew by 4.7% over that period despite market volatility.
Finally, the total return of FCIT NAV per share was 11.3 percent by the end of 2023 as compared to a total 932.1 pence NAV per share in 2022 which had risen to a level of 1,022.1 pence NAV per share in 2023. Its share price increased from 904.0 pence to 962.0 pence or 8.1% in total return for shareholders. After these gains, the shares continued as a discount to NAV and were marked as being 5.9% off at the end of the year.
By January 10, 2025, FCIT was 1,128.00 pence, having dropped 1.23% from the last closing price. Over the year, the 52 week range as seen a low and a high of 932.00 pence and 1,144.00 pence, a respective fluctuation of 19.28%.
Factors Influencing Share Price
Here is a selection of the factors that have influenced FCIT’s share price trends.
A number of large U.S. technology companies that made up the ‘Magnificent Seven’ contributed a large portion of global equity returns in 2023 during a period of high market concentration. FCIT’s conservative stance meant that these types of high valuation stock were given just a slight underweight.
Approximately 11.8% of FCIT’s portfolio is invested in private equity. These holdings suffered a 4.1% decrease in value in the first half of 2023, to some extent as a result of currency movements and market environment.
FCIT boasts a good record of rising dividends for 53 consecutive years. For the year 2023, the dividend totaled 14.7 pence per share, up 8.9% from the previous year, showing the trust’s commitment to continue to provide stead income to its shareholders.
Comparative Analysis
FCIT’s performance is compared to that of the peers and is found to be both strong and having room for improvement. Over a 5 year period, Alliance trust returned 32.5% and FCIT returned 33.9% slightly beating Alliance but over a 10 year period, Alliance trust managed to return 352.2% beating FCIT by a significant margin of 285.2%.
But while FCIT delivered a 49% increase compared to a 32% increase for Alliance Trust, based on share price total return, the Alliance Trust board is increasingly exasperated with its performance. This indicates the divergence of investor returns from the impact of NAV discount to share price and market sentiment.
Future Outlook
FCIT which has a diversified investment approach, is in good stead to move through future market uncertainties. It has a balanced sector and geographic exposure to reduce the likelihood of undue risk exposure to concentration risk when markets change. Moreover, the intention to commit to private equity investments provides the promise of additional return opportunities though with associated volatility.
Apart from the above stated factors, investors should keep an eye on global economic conditions and technological advancements as well as currency fluctuations as these will continue to affect FCIT’s performance. By actively managing the trust and allocating across a range of assets robustly, the trust can look to maintain delivery of growth and income for shareholders apace of changing market dynamics.
Conclusion
A long standing history of performance, resilience, adaptability and steady growth mean that F&C Investment Trust is a dependable long term investment. Short term fluctuations in its price per share can be impacted by sentiments in the market, economic conditions and the structure of a portfolio, but the nature of the trust’s investment strategy helps mitigate those risks and capitalize on global opportunities.
While FCIT has underperformed relative to benchmarks over the past 1 years or so, it has remained quite strong in terms of NAV growth, constant dividend growth and is clearly appealing to the income focussed investors. However, if an investor is ready to take a longer term bet then the persistent discount of share price vs NAV may provide some value.
