Five companies delivered half of the performance of the US-UK portfolio - is it time to dump the laggards...or even the winners?
US indices had a great 2021, which meant that even the very best active managers found it hard to beat the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100. Encouragingly, the Atlantic portfolio came closest to doing so of the benchmarks we use, delivering a total return - ex costs- of 24.6% in the year, more than 2 percentage points better than Fundsmith Equity.
Costco is rightly admired as a business and an investment. Its future prospects look good but this looks to be priced into the shares.
Costco is widely admired for its business model. For me, it is one of the finest examples of stakeholder capitalism in a stock exchange listed company.
The culture of the company is based on trying to do the right things for its key stakeholders of customers, suppliers, employees and shareholders. For example, it will pay good rates of pay with good benefits packages for its employees and increase them even if this puts a drag on profits.
