Ocado helps Edinburgh trust beat benchmark

Strong gains made on investments including a Scottish cancer drug company helped the Edinburgh Worldwide investment trust outstrip its benchmark in the first six months of its financial year.

Edinburgh-based Nucana, which floated on the US Nasdaq market last year, was one of the companies highlighted by fund manager Baillie Gifford for the trust achieving a 4.4 per cent increase in net asset value per share in the six months to 30 April compared to a 0.5 per cent rise in its benchmark index.

Other investments which delivered healthy returns including online shopping firm Ocado which was recently promoted to the FTSE 100.

The trust’s managers said they believed prospects remain positive given “stock markets appear to be behaving rationally with a focus on fundamentals and a reasonable ability to tolerate the inevitable ‘noise’ be it interest rates, Trump or geo-political concerns”.