Weekly Gainers

JPMorgan Emerging Europe, Middle East & Africa (JEMA) tops Winterflood’s highest monthly movers, despite its gains shrinking to a lowly +46.1%. Notable risers include Baillie Gifford US Growth (USA) at +26.2%, while Seraphim Space (SSIT) rounds out the top five with +23.4%. The US election’s impact on growth and small-cap stocks remains a dominant theme.

By Frank Buhagiar•02 Dec

The Top Five

A case of as you were with the top-three funds on Winterflood’s list of highest monthly movers in the investment company space. JPMorgan Emerging Europe, Middle East & Africa’s (JEMA) still top despite seeing yet another big drop in its monthly share price gain, this time to ‘just’ +46.1%. That’s down on last week’s +69.7% which itself was a big climbdown from the +123.7% monthly share price gain seen in the days following Donald Trump’s US election win – the thinking is Trump’s victory may increase JEMA’s chances of recovering value from its legacy Russian holdings. Or does it? For having reached a high of 244p on 15 November, the share price has since dropped back to 164p-ish. Still way above the 105p level seen in October but a few more reverses like the above and it won’t be long before the shares are back to square one.

NB Distressed Debt Investment Fund (NBDX) stays in second spot thanks to a monthly share price gain of +32.1%, exactly what it was seven days earlier. Shares have been in demand ever since the company announced a US$5.5m capital distribution on 8 November. Might not seem much, but it is when you consider total assets stand at less than US$40m. It’s all relative.

Baillie Gifford US Growth (USA) saw its monthly gain increase to +26.2% from +19.9% previously. The shares are now up to 270p. That compares to 220p on the day of the US election – Trump’s victory seen as good for all those growth stocks USA holds and in particular for those run by prominent Trump backer and recently appointed Efficiency Tsar Elon Musk – the fund holds both Space X and Tesla although not as much as it used to. As at end of July, USA had 3.8% of its assets invested in Space X and 3.2% in Tesla. Fast forward to 30 September and the Space X position is down to 2.2% of total assets and Tesla to 3.3%.

JPMorgan US Smaller Cos (JUSC) returns to the list after a two-week absence. Share price is up +23.9% and, like USA above, all of the gains can be traced back to the date of the US election. JUSC’s small-cap focus clearly paying dividends as smaller companies arguably stand to benefit more than most from Trump’s promises of tax cuts, lower regulations and tariffs on overseas companies. This can be seen in the performance of the Russell 2000 over the past month. The US small-cap index is up +9.88% on the month, easily Trumping the S&P 500’s +3.2% and the Nasdaq’s +2.8%.

Seraphim Space (SSIT) completes the top five thanks to a +23.4% share price gain. That’s despite the release of a quarterly update showing a -2.3% NAV per share decline to 93.7p during Q3, primarily due to foreign exchange movements which had a -3.8p impact. Q3, of course, fell before the US election and a post-Trump victory bounce in the dollar. According to broker Liberum “Taking account of post-period USD strengthening, the impact on portfolio valuation from using the GBP/USD rate on 22 November would have been +4.13p.” Expect a stronger Q4 NAV figure then, assuming everything else stays the same.

Scottish Mortgage

Scottish Mortgage’s (SMT) share price finished the week ended Friday 29 November 2024 up +8.9% on the month, meaning it held on to almost all the +9.0% gain seen seven days earlier. NAV moved in the opposite direction, up +6.5% compared to +5.8% previously. The wider global sector meanwhile saw its monthly gain fall a tad to +3.9% from +4.4%. All three still outperformed the Nasdaq which is up +3.4% over the month.