Summer sale, bargains to be had

Investment trusts on widening discounts

While the rain has people thinking about the return of pumpkin spice lattes and dappled autumn leaves, the investment trust world is still very much in summer sale mode.

In a culmination of my deep dive into the state of investment trust premiums and discounts in H1, we found that 91% of closed-ended portfolios ended the period on a discount. As an ardent sales lover, even to me this seemed steep. Overall, just 20 out of 231 investment trusts ended H1 on a premium, with very few of the big hitting names ending the first half of the year on the up. Indeed, the overall discount for the space was so pronounced that we have not seen it this bad since the Global Financial Crisis, according to Nick Britton of the Association of Investment Companies. L...