Investment trusts are based upon fixed amounts of capital divided into shares. This makes them closed ended, unlike the open-ended structure of unit trusts. They can be one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to invest in the stock market. Once the capital has been divided into shares, you can purchase the shares. When an investment trust sells shares, it is not taxed on any capital gains it has made. By contrast, private investors are subject to capital gains tax when they sell shares in their own portfolio.<\/p>\n
Another major difference between investment trusts and unit trusts is that investment trusts can borrow money for their investments, known as gearing up, whereas unit trusts cannot. Gearing up can work either to the advantage or disadvantage of investment trusts, depending on whether the stock market is rising or falling.<\/p>\n
Investment trusts can also invest in unquoted or unlisted companies, which may not be trading on the stock exchange either because they don’t wish to or because they don’t meet the given criteria. This facility, combined with the ability to borrow money for investments, can however make investment trusts more volatile.<\/p>\n
The net asset value (NAV) is the total market value of all the trust’s investments and assets minus any liabilities. The NAV per share is the net asset value of the trust divided by the number of shares in issue. The share price of an investment trust depends on the supply and demand for its shares in the stock market. This can result in the price being at a ‘discount’ or a ‘premium’ to the NAV per share.<\/p>\n
A trust’s share price is said to be at a discount when the market price of the trust’s shares is less than the NAV per share. This means that investors are able to buy shares in the investment trust at less than the underlying stock market value of the trust’s assets.<\/p>\n
A trust’s shares are said to be at a premium when the market price is more than the NAV per share. This means that investors are buying shares in the trust at a higher price than the underlying stock market value of the trust’s assets. The movement in discounts and premiums is a useful way to indicate the market’s perception of the potential performance of a particular trust or the market where it invests. Discounts and premiums are also one of the key differences between investment trusts and unit trusts or OEICs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Investment trusts are based upon fixed amounts of capital divided into shares. This makes them closed ended, unlike the open-ended structure of unit trusts. They can be one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to invest in the stock market. Once the capital has been divided into shares, you can purchase the shares. When… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suretyfp.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}