LONDON (Alliance News) - Polar Capital Technology Trust PLC on Tuesday said its total return performance in the first half of its financial year was ahead of its benchmark index.
Net asset value rose by 0.8% in the six months ended October 31 versus a 1.0% decline for the sterling adjusted benchmark, the trust said.
The benchmark is the Dow Jones World Technology Index, measured on a total return basis, with the removal of relevant withholding taxes.
"The most significant contributor to performance was Amazon.com, our largest positive active position that advanced 46% during the period with other internet holdings (including Alphabet, previously Google, and Facebook) playing a supporting role," Ben Rogoff, investment manager, said in a statement.
"Computer gaming companies such as Activision, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft all delivered strong absolute and relative performance aided by next-generation console adoption and an increasing mix of margin-rich digital content," the investment manager said.
"The trust also continued to benefit from the underperformance of a number of incumbent companies that faced deteriorating PC/hardware trends including Canon, Hewlett Packard, and Lenovo with weakness extending into key component suppliers Micron, Seagate and Western Digital (where we held either underweight or zero positions)," Rogoff added.
"In terms of negatives, relative underperformance was generated by our underweight position in Microsoft, which enjoyed a material re-rating during the period (growing traction in its cloud businesses) in contrast to a number of our favoured high growth stocks such as Netsuite and Splunk where valuations continued to compress despite strong fundamentals," Rogoff said.
"Relative performance was also negatively impacted by disappointing performance from several of our smaller cyber-security holdings such as FireEye and VASCO Data Security which delivered results/guidance that fell short of expectations," he added.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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Polar Capital Technology Trust (PCT)