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UNIT TRUST EXPERIENCE
I see that one of the unit trusts, the Orthodox, has announced that the public has invested more heavily in its sub-units in the first five weeks of war than in the preceding five weeks of peace. It is further disclosed that not a single unit has been realised since the formation of the trust, and that today's price of 13s. 6d. xd compares with the initial offer price of 14s. This is a remarkably good record, which underlines both the stability of the unit trust investor and the stability of this particular type of investment. In this in- stance the underlying portfolio is made up as to 20 per cent. in gilt-edged ; 15 per cent. in debentures and preference shares ; to per cent. in bank and insurance shares ; 45 per cent. in industrial ordinary shares ; and tO per cent. in gold shares. For most investors these seem to me to be the ingredients of a pretty dependable holding, not merely for income, but from the standpoint of stability of capital. I should not worry overmuch on either score if a capital fund were laid out in this way. For the small investor, of course, the unit trust device is the only one which makes such an allocation practicable.
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