There are more than 300 investment trusts in the AIC universe, but for most of 2026, focusing on a narrow trade would have worked out well for investors.
For the first half of 2026, sectors with the greatest exposure to AI have achieved the strongest returns, although this has tailed off slightly during recent weeks. According to data from FE fundinfo, the IT Technology and Technology Innovation, IT Asia Pacific and IT Global Emerging Markets sectors have gained respective averages of 23.1%, 27% and 20.2%fro the start of the year to time of writing (5 August).
However, for Ryan Lightfoot-Aminoff and Joe Licsauer, analysts at Kepler Trust Intelligence, this has left some compelling areas underappreciated.
For example, Licsauer pointed to Temple Bar investment trust.
Despite the UK’s reputation as a value, low-growth market, the trust has more than doubled investors’ money over the past five years, he noted. According to FE fundinfo data, it is up 146.3% over the past five years, while the FTSE All Share is up 71.3%.
Another area, he said, was China, which “absolutely stormed it” in 2024 and 2025, surging around 22% each year.
“Trusts in this space trade at about an 8% discount,” Licsauer noted. “[There is] obviously benefit of hindsight, but I think people would have jumped at the chance to invest in that market in 2023 at that price.”
The domestic strength behind the rally in 2024 and 2025 is still in place, with long-term plans to address issues supply issues, he noted.
Lightfoot-Aminoff added that investors could also be missing out on real assets trusts, with the AI buildout demanding a much greater amount of physical assets.
“Something like BlackRock World Mining is a very nuanced take on this.
“You’ve got these core fundamentals of a growing world needing more parts, and you’ve also got all these industries thinking, ‘we’re going to need huge amounts as well’,” he said.
See also: Computershare: Banks and miners lead the charge as UK dividends reach record high.
Licsauer added: “I think too many people see the commodity play as just gold or silver.
“Those have done very well, but something like a BlackRock World Mining [trust] can adjust very quickly.” He argued that many investors had “overlooked or underestimated” the trust’s exposure to “unjustifiably cheap miners”.
India was another case where trusts have been misunderstood, according to the Kepler team. Certainly, the market has struggled in recent years, as rich valuations along with limited AI exposure became headwinds, he said.
However, Lightfoot-Aminoff argued this had caused investors to dismiss trusts in the space too early.
“Everyone said its story had collapsed because earnings growth fell to about 8%,” he said. “If we had that growth in the UK we’d be having a bank holiday.”
See also: Why Indian equities are still worth the price
Valuations are still comparatively high but are now much closer to average, with the MSCI India on a CAPE ratio of 33x compared to the more than 41x it reached in 2024.
On top of this, because of its relatively low intra-trade with other Asian markets, it is very domestically driven, reinforcing the case for a standalone allocation, Lightfoot-Aminoff said.
He named Ashoka India as an interesting option within the space. While the trust is down 10% over the past 12 months, Lightfoot-Aminoff argued that this reflects the SMID cap headwind in the Indian market in recent years rather than any commentary on manager skill.
“The point to make here is that they’ve struggled, but stock selection has been supreme,” he said. On average, the trust has delivered an annualised return of about 13%, versus the market on just 7%. If the sentiment turns, the trust could stand to benefit, he said.
Finally, there were a range of trusts that the team argued investors had given up on and dismissed because they were more eclectic and difficult to understand.
Lightfoot-Aminoff highlighted one example last week: Hansa Investment Trust, which he said investors have thrown into the “too difficult bucket” and decided not to touch it.
See also: The top-performing investment trusts you can get for a bargain
Another example that investors have put into the “too hard to understand bucket” is the Global Opportunities Trust.
“They are trying to find those stocks that will go up in a recession, and if they can’t find them, they’ll just hold cash.”
At the time of writing, the trust is on a 20% discount, holding 40% in cash, making the discount even wider, he explained. When the market turns, the team is in the position to take advantage of it, according to Lightfoot-Aminoff.
“I don’t think a lot of investors have really worked out that bit of the story yet, that a trust like this is your hedge against something going wrong,” Lightfoot-Aminoff said.
“That discount is fundamentally wrong – If they wrap up tomorrow, you’ll get out at a 30% gain,” he continued. “The maths just doesn’t work.”
“You can understand why some trusts are discounted or struggling, because they’ve got a lot of hair on them. But there’s plenty that I think people are just fundamentally misunderstanding,” Lightfoot-Aminoff concluded.
