Personal Assets Trust update: keep faith in gold

Personal Assets Trust (LSE: PNL), one of the components of the MoneyWeek investment trust portfolio, saw a rise in its premium relative to net asset value (NAV, the value of the underlying portfolio).

As of 30 April, the trust recorded a premium of 2.2%, higher than March, when the premium was 1.8%.

The trust’s share price marginally fell from £504 to £503, and the NAV fell from £495.3 to £492.38.

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The trust underperformed its benchmark index, the FTSE All-Share index, returning 70.6% over a ten-year period, compared to 100.8% for the All-Share. But it did outperform the benchmark index on a five-year and three-year period, returning 32.4% and 27.9%, respectively compared to 26.6% and 14.1% for the FTSE All-Share Index.

The top ten holdings were unchanged in terms of company names, but some rankings differed

Gold bullion bars remained the trust’s biggest holding, representing 9.4% of the trust.

Tech giant Microsoft overtook Alphabet to become the second biggest holding, representing 5%.

Alphabet slipped from second place to third place, representing 4.7% of the trust.

Payments processor Visa remained the fourth largest holding, representing 4.1% of the trust.

Consumer giant Unilever moved up from seventh to fifth place, representing 3.2% of the trust.

Food and drink company Nestle remained the sixth largest holding in the trust, representing 3.1% of the trust.

Payments processor American Express, which was previously the fifth largest holding in March, slipped to seventh spot. The company represented 3% of the trust.

Multinational beverage drinks company Diageo was the fund’s eighth largest holding, representing 2.8% of the trust.

Franco Nevada, which was the trust’s eighth largest holding last month, took ninth spot, representing 2.7% of the trust.

Medical equipment provider Medtronic remained the tenth largest holding, representing 2.5% of the trust.