Last month I attended the Quality Growth Conference in London, the smaller sibling of the London Value Investor Conference held earlier in the year. The first speaker of the day was Scott Nisbett from Baillie Gifford, who was there to talk about the firm’s approach to growth investing, and, more importantly, how hard it is to pull off.
According to Baillie Gifford’s research, just 1.5% of all the stocks in the US generated all of the market’s positive performance between 1990 and 2018. Most of these (apart from Warren Buffett’s investment vehicle, Berkshire Hathaway) were the market’s mega-cap growth stocks.
Baillie Gifford is best known for its explosive growth plays, but investors often overlook the mistakes and pain along the way. Most of the holdings that generated virtually all of the firm’s returns over the past few decades have been in the portfolio for 15 years on average, and most have suffered declines of 50% or more on at least one occasion.
Going against the grain
“I don’t care how you go about this and who you are,
