Ruffer Investment Company's defensive posture hurts performance as NAV slumps 1.7%

Share price total return down 7.2%

The Ruffer Investment Company (RICL) delivered “disappointing numbers” to investors in the year to June 2023 as the portfolio's cautious stance detracted negatively from performance.

The net asset value (NAV) total return for the year was -1.7%, while the share total return was -7.2% as the trust swung from a peak premium of 3.7% in September 2022 to a discount of 4.6% last month. "There is no hiding from the disappointing numbers delivered during this period," wrote the managers Duncan MacInnes and Jasmine Yeo. "We share in the pain of our shareholders in having lost money over the past year and acknowledge this represents a failure of our objectives." In the trust's period-end review published today (17 July), MacInnes and Yeo said they had "miscalibrated" the p...