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Asian stock picker Schroder Oriental Income Fund reported a positive first-half performance as markets continued to bounce back on Covid-19 recovery hopes.
The company's net asset value total return per share for the six months through March rose 21%, comparing to a 17% rise in its reference benchmark.
Schroder Oriental Income declared two interim dividends for the half totalling 3.8p, unchanged year-on-year.
The company said stock prices had been driven higher by a cocktail of liquidity, fiscal stimulus, hopes of a successful vaccine rollout and the prospect of a recovery in earnings.
'Aggregate valuations are now well above long term averages and increasingly starting to price in a strong recovery in earnings,' it said.
'However, the wide divergence of valuations and prospect for the broadening of the earnings recovery means that, although, there are some areas of the market that look 'frothy', such as in selective EV, biotech and tech names, other areas of the market have lagged and are still trading on relatively attractive valuations despite the recent rotation in the market which has seen some of the valuation disparities start to narrow.'