Don’t be fooled by the illusion of safety in income

The UK income sector has suffered badly. Max King looks at what the might future look like, and what investors can learn from the experience.

FTSE 100 © Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Dividends paid by the FTSE 100 are forecast to be 32% lower than last year
(Image credit: FTSE 100 © Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Despite Covid-19 – or maybe because of it – investment trusts have had an excellent 2020, with strong out-performance of benchmark indices across many funds and on average.

However, there have been exceptions.

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Max King
Investment Writer

Max has an Economics degree from the University of Cambridge and is a chartered accountant. He worked at Investec Asset Management for 12 years, managing multi-asset funds investing in internally and externally managed funds, including investment trusts. This included a fund of investment trusts which grew to £120m+. Max has managed ten investment trusts (winning many awards) and sat on the boards of three trusts – two directorships are still active.

After 39 years in financial services, including 30 as a professional fund manager, Max took semi-retirement in 2017. Max has been a MoneyWeek columnist since 2016 writing about investment funds and more generally on markets online, plus occasional opinion pieces. He also writes for the Investment Trust Handbook each year and has contributed to The Daily Telegraph and other publications. See here for details of current investments held by Max.