Polar Capital: How to avoid value traps in the technology sector

Not focusing on valuation key to 'winning in the stockmarket'

Investment themes and ideas should take precedence over valuation, according to Polar Capital's Ben Rogoff, who warned that a "value first" approach could result in buying less-than-attractive stocks.

In particular, he highlighted the importance of not investing in tech companies in the "final stage of the lifecycle", which may appear cheap on a price-to-earnings (P/E) basis and have delivered strong growth over the years, but have gradually become stagnant. The manager, who runs Polar Capital's £2.7bn Global Technology fund, its closed-ended counterpart the £2bn Polar Capital Technology Trust and the $401m Automation and Artificial Intelligence fund, which was launched in October 2017, likened his process to an everyday retail experience when addressing roughly 420 delegates at AJ Be...