Investment trusts are often the structure of choice during booming markets. The ability to gear, plus the investment freedom of a closed-ended structure allow skilled managers to capitalise on rising share prices. However, the same has not necessarily been true on the way down, as leverage exaggerates losses and discounts widen. This has often been a time to buy, with market volatility providing a chance to buy into good trusts at knockdown rates. Cherry Reynard asks, has the market rout since the start of the year produced any opportunities for value-hunters? There are 28 trusts that have seen their discounts widen by more than 5%* since the start of the year. This appears a mild reaction to the market sell-off. The FTSE 100 was down 7.5% over the same period. Peter Walls, manager of the Unicorn Mastertrust (a fund of investment trusts), said this first bout of volatility, triggered by expectations of higher interest rates in the US, passed much of the sector by unnoticed: “There was some intra-day volatility in some of the more highly geared, specialist funds. Some of the trusts that had enjoyed strong demand from self-directed investors also proved volatile – Fidelity China, Scottish Mortgage and F&C Global Smaller Companies. However, those hoping to pick up cheap opportunities were disappointed.” There were a number of reasons why investment trusts didn’t exhibit panic selling. Notably, companies proved active in buying back shares. Scottish Mortgage, for example, bought back 3,000,000 ordinary shares at a price of 449.34p at the start of March. Walls added: “The boards are aware that discount volatility is not great for shareholders and did their best to manage discounts through this time.” However, while the rout itself did not throw up any conspicuous bargains, it did exaggerate some existing trends among some familiar investment trusts. The first is the weakness of the infrastructure trusts. There were seven infrastructure trusts among those trusts that saw the greatest discount widening over the period. In some cases, the moves were extreme - GCP Infrastructure saw a 9.4% move, while HICL saw an 8.0% move. 3i Infrastructure and John Laing Infrastructure moved from a long-standing premium to a small discount. Infrastructure trusts have long been seen as a ‘bond proxy’ investment and as such, might be expected to suffer on the prospect of rising rates. However, as Walls points out, there were also other factors at work. Concerns over the collapse of Carillion and an increasingly aggressive stance from the Labour Party on PFI have weighed heavily on investors. This has unquestionably led to better value, with discounts at multi-year highs. The question for investors is whether the rising interest rate environment is reflected in current prices, or whether any further inflation shocks could send prices lower still. Simon Moore, senior investment manager at Seven Investment Management (7IM) believes a more fertile ground may be the UK Equity income sector, where sentiment has been dented by Brexit concerns. He says: “There are three investment trusts which stick out where their price has fallen significantly over the last three months. All of these have Neil Woodford/ Mark Barnett connections (make of that what you will): Edinburgh Investment Trust, Perpetual Income & Growth and Woodford Patient Capital. “These have a few UK small caps that have been in trouble, arguably nothing to do with the market sell-off, but each manager have been vocal supporters of UK listed companies despite obvious global pessimism on UK equities post-Brexit referendum. If they are right - and their judgement calls have often been right in the past - then these funds could be rerated.” Moore points out that both managers have styles that will go in and out of favour. Certainly, all three trusts have moved down a long way. Patient Capital has seen its share price total return dip 10.7% and its discount widen 5.4%. Edinburgh Investment Trust hasn’t seen a significant change in its discount, which is hovering around 9%, but its shares are down 8.6%. It is a similar situation with Perpetual Income & Growth, where the shares are down 7.7%, but the discount remains at around 9.5%. Moore says: “It is worth remembering that Patient Capital is a very different fund to either Edinburgh Investment Trust or Perpetual Income and Growth and is not for the faint hearted. Given the nature of some of the companies it invests in, there may well be more ups and downs to come. But the clue is in the name - investors who can afford to be patient may well be rewarded over the long-term." Walls sounds a note of caution, saying that some of the classic equity income type stocks favoured by these two managers are still seeing a difficult time. Some of the outsourcing groups, for example, remain out of favour with investors. Much will depend on whether investors come to believe in the ‘value’ trade, where this type of stock will revert to more normal valuations. The other sector to see some change in ratings among the recent volatility has been the technology and media sector. Of course, this comes after a lengthy expansion in the technology sector, with companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Netflix leading markets higher for much of 2017. Walls says: “A couple of the technology trusts, such as Polar Technology Trust and the Allianz Technology Trust have moved to a small discount. I wouldn’t say they look like bargains.” Walls suggests that some sectors where there should have been bargains – such as UK smaller companies – have not seen any real movement in aggregate and are certainly ‘not exciting for value-minded investors’. That said, some are certainly cheaper than they were: Chelverton Growth trust has taken a hit, for example. The other weak trust has been the River & Mercantile UK Micro Cap, though this dropped following the departure of manager Philip Rodrigs over a ‘conduct issue’. Overall, most trusts have held up well since the start of the year. This reflects well on the sector, which appears to have grown better at managing market downturns. There are opportunities, but these have arisen from issues idiosyncratic to each sector rather than market volatility as a whole