BlackRock Latin American

Latin America looks set to recover first, according to the managers of BRLA…

BlackRock Latin American Inv. Trust - BRLA’s board addressing the fund’s performance

BlackRock Latin American Investment Trust (BRLA) has a new manager. Effective from 9 September 2022, former co-manager Sam Vecht was promoted to lead manager, while Christoph Brinkmann was appointed BRLA’s deputy manager, replacing former co-manager Ed Kuczma. Vecht says that the world is fractured, with rising inflation and interest rates, corporates struggling to grow and extreme political tension. He comments that these issues are not new for Latin America, while, following the recent Brazili

BlackRock Latin American

BlackRock Latin America (BRLA) offers exposure to the commodity-rich Latin American equity markets, which are flourishing in the current inflationary environment. As we discuss under Performance, BRLA was the top-performing investment trust in any sector during Q1 2022, thanks to the strength of commodity markets and the strength of its currencies boosting corporate profits. Yet despite high commodity prices seeming to become entrenched, the region still trades on a significant discount to its f

Time to change the record

Given none of us can see the future, diversification is a key tool in our armoury when it comes to building an investment portfolio. It would be bold, if not reckless, to own a series of investments that all require the same conditions to succeed. Traditionally there are two major sources of diversification for the average equity investor: bonds and overseas equities. The issues with the stock/bond correlation are well covered (and we touched on ourselves in recent strategy articles here and h

Finding value in a haystack

Non-income value strategies are becoming increasingly scarce, but the holdouts represent attractive near-term opportunities

It’s the end of the world as we know it

We examine five potential themes for investors seeking long-term returns in a troubled and uncertain world

BlackRock Latin American Inv. Trust - Strong start to the year for Latin America

BlackRock Latin American Investment Trust’s (BRLA) two experienced managers, Ed Kuczma and Sam Vecht, remain positive on the outlook for Latin American equities, with Kuczma commenting that the region is ‘under-owned, undervalued and unloved’. He says that the year-to-date stock market rally in Latin America is a good example of how quickly investor sentiment can change, especially given the global environment of rising interest rates. Kuczma points to the move from growth to value stocks, comme

Regime change

Ahead of our spring conference, we ask whether investors need to junk their portfolios and start again

Bargain hunt

We survey the discount opportunities in the market and update on the performance of our Discounted Opportunities Portfolio

BlackRock Latin American Inv. Trust - Improving fundamentals, undemanding valuations

BlackRock Latin American Investment Trust (BRLA) has two experienced managers, Sam Vecht and Ed Kuczma. They comment that Latin America is attractively valued both versus its history and compared with other regions. Within emerging markets, due to regulatory pressures there has been some rotation away from Asian technology companies whose shares have been favoured by investors over the last five to 10 years and have crowded out Latin American equities in emerging market indices. Vecht and Kuczma

Beyond the Middle Kingdom

China was flying high at the start of the year, having performed strongly during the initial impact of the pandemic and then again during the reflationary rally. Looking back over five years investors had made 189% in the MSCI China Index on a total return basis compared to just 112% in the MSCI ACWI. China’s performance was the key factor behind the strong performance of the broader emerging Asia markets.

BlackRock Latin American - Overview

BlackRock Latin America (BRLA) offers exposure to the dynamic Latin American equity markets. Managers Ed Kuczma and Sam Vecht aim to maximise total returns, but the trust pays a dividend of 1.25% of NAV each quarter (5% on an annualised basis) from capital where necessary. This means BRLA offers a high yield without being constrained to buy high-yielding companies, which might have worse growth prospects. Ed and Sam use a combination of bottom-up research on companies and top-down macroeconomic

Winter is coming

Markets have been fairly quiet over the summer, with the MSCI ACWI grinding 2% higher since the start of July. This followed a tumultuous first half of the year, with violent rotations between growth and value, large and small cap, and conflicting information and concerns over new variants which could prolong the pandemic. We think many issues stand at something of a junction. As investors return to their desks and (we suspect) critical developments become apparent, new trends could start to bec

Vive la revolution

‘Quality’ investing styles have enjoyed structural tailwinds for around 40 years. Over this period, cyclical variances have happened, but the trend towards bigger companies, increased concentration, greater ease of movement of capital across borders, and economies of scale has ultimately always prevailed. Quality has consistently won out. As we discuss below, the improvement to the relative return profile of quality factor investments has been greater than any other, whilst value as a style has

BlackRock Latin American Inv. Trust - Managers optimistic about the region’s prospects

BlackRock Latin American Investment Trust (BRLA) has become a more concentrated fund since the appointment of Sam Vecht and Ed Kuczma in late December 2018. Although Latin America has more recently been negatively affected by COVID-19, the managers are positive on the region’s prospects. They suggest that it is ‘under-owned, under-researched and undervalued’ and will benefit from an improvement in the domestic and global economy. In recent months Vecht and Kuczma have identified several new inve

Stable 4Q22

LIBERUM: Trident Royalties* - Record quarterly receipts

LIBERUM: Trident Royalties* - General Motors invests in Thacker Pass

Top Picks for 2023 - 2022 review and outlook for 2023

On 10 January last year, we set out our ten top stock picks for 2022, in what turned out to be a very poor twelve months for global equities, due to war, accelerating inflation, political instability and recession fears. Between 7 January 2022 and 31 December 2022, the AIM All-Share Index declined 30.0%, whilst the average performance of our ten top picks was -24.7%, a modest relative outperformance. In this note we discuss the performance of our 2022 top picks, equities trends in 2022, and our

QuotedData’s Real Estate Monthly Roundup – January 2023

Performance - 2022 ended with another difficult month for property companies as the sector continues to get to grips with the impact of higher interest rates. There were several funds that performed well during December, however, with secondary shopping centre landlord Capital & Regional top of the pile. For a second month on the trot Home REIT saw its share price tank after it came under attack from a short seller in November. Valuation moves - It was a mixed bag for valuations, with six-month

FY22 TU – Strong Upgrades on Better Performance

Argentex has issued a trading update for the 9M22 period this morning, with revenue and earnings performance ahead of expectations. FY22 revenues are up 54% yoy to £50.4m (+7.5% vs. SCM estimates) and operating margins are ahead of management expectations. This was driven by growth in the number of corporate clients as well as good progress across its growth strategy, with robust trading across all products and geographies. Another strong update from Argentex, as the Group continues to deliver o

Strong H1 update and contract wins

Made Tech has announced a very strong update: H1 sales +76% y/y and alongside this, also several wins/expansions worth £27m. As a result, Made Tech has now delivered 48%/FY23e sales and as well, has a very strong backlog: £48m (+53% y/y) so is very well positioned to drive continued growth, both this year and next. Margins meanwhile leave room for improvement, as having generated £0.5m EBITDA in H1, this leaves work to do, but with contractors now materially lower (at c.10% vs. c.20% in the PY)

Cenkos; Marlowe Plc -- Building the software offering

Marlowe hosted a well-attended CMD last week in which it provided a deep dive into its burgeoning software business, which from a standing start in 2018, has grown to represent c25% of group Adj EBITDA today, driven by a combination of targeted acquisitions and strong organic growth (mid-high teens in FY22A). Multiple macro drivers underpin growth in the global GRC market, which is expanding at a c8% CAGR. With the share price having nearly halved over the past 12-months, Marlowe now trades mate

FLASH: FY22 pre-close indicates profit beat

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 17 Jan 23

17 January 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment object

Q4 Activities Update

Trident Royalties Plc (AIM: TRR) has, this morning, provided an update on its activities undertaken during the quarter ended 31 December 2022. In terms of royalty receipts it has been the best quarter since inception. QoQ revenues increased 46% to US$3.5m (9x YoY). Each royalty either met or exceeded our forecasts with Koolyanobbing 52% ahead. The gold offtake portfolio was slightly above our forecast.

Thacker Pass Update

The lithium industry, perhaps the hottest sub-sector of mining right now, was set even more abuzz by the announcement yesterday that Lithium Americas Corp has secured a $650m financing package from General Motors for the development and construction of the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada. There has been some talk for a while on when an automaker was going to make a serious investment in a battery metal mine. This is the largest ever and it is suitable that it is in Thacker Pass which is the largest

Morning Note – 31 January 2023

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 23 Jan 23

23 January 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment object

Hybridan Small Cap Feast - 19 Jan 23

19 January 2023 @HybridanLLP Status of this Note and Disclaimer This document has been issued to you by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment object