International risks assets were back in vogue overnight after a solid day on Wall Street and another good handover from Asia in the wake of the FDA’s full approval of the Pfizer jab.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 228 points, or 1.6% to close at 14,943, leaving the Dow Jones (up 0.6%) and the S&P 500 (up 0.9%) trailing in its wake. That gave an extra boost to popular growth investment trust Scottish Mortgage (SMT), not least because of the read-across from the Pfizer news.
VACCINE BOOST
The FDA’s full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine boosted shares in both companies, with the latter rallying over 9% in Frankfurt, while Pfizer was up almost 3% in New York, sparking a 7.5% rally in Moderna, Scottish Mortgage’s second biggest stake worth 8.5% of the £19.2 billion portfolio.
Source: Baillie Gifford
Growth and large cap tech provided solid back up, with Amazon and Tesla up 2% and 3% respectively, and even its Chinese digital economy plays - Tencent, Alibaba, Meituan, all top 10 holdings - rallying strongly, jumping 9%, 2% and 13.5%, in that order.
CHINA CLAMPDOWN
Shares in Scottish Mortgage had a wobble late last month as the government in China cracked down on the country’s big tech companies; four of SMT’s top 10 largest positions are Chinese companies (electric cars developer Nio the fourth), and until recently Tencent its largest holding.
Scottish Mortgage has identified healthcare, transport, space exploration and biological manufacturing among its areas of high interest.
Scottish Mortgage shares were 1.5% up £13.73 at midday, comfortably outstripping the FTSE 100, which had nudged 0.1% lower.
