Two small-cap funds with big potential

Two investment trusts concentrating on US small-cap shares offer excellent long-term value.

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America’s S&P 500 index is widely held to be in a bubble, or at least very expensive. But when it comes to medium-sized and small companies, it’s a different story. The forward price/earnings (p/e) ratio of the S&P 400 MidCap index is just 16.9 and that of the S&P 600 SmallCap index a mere 15.8, both in line with their 20-year averages. Given the historic record of small-cap outperformance over large caps, this makes US small and mid-cap stocks compelling value.

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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.