Ann: Net Tangible Asset Backing, page-4

As well as some good stock picks, there have also been several calamities recently concerning stocks in LSF's published portfolio. LSF is no longer outperforming the market, even though it is protected by a portfolio of shorts, and the pre-tax NTA indicates that some substantial losses have been booked.

The last full portfolio that was published was for June 2021, 13 months ago, too long ago to still be useful. Since then, there have been a few clues about portfolio changes mentioned in LSF's regular reports, but monitoring LSF's portfolio has become a waste of time in relation to trying to predict the NTA.

The only real clue that mere investors have is that directors are aggressively buying more LSF shares.

Assuming that the directors have a good understanding of what markets are doing, then LSF could turn upwards dramatically at any time. But do they have a good handle on markets? Or have they lost the plot? I haven't a clue. What I think is that markets will be bullish for at least the next six months, and when markets are bullish then LSF seems to be a much better place to invest than index funds and most other stocks. And if markets turn out not to be bullish just yet then hopefully LSF's shorts will provide adequate protection on the downside.

Although LSF's performance has been lacklustre recently, its performance has been better than my own stock-picking performance - so this is another reason why investing in LSF is a no-brainer for me.

(Btw, this doesn't necessarily mean that I don't have any brains - just that LSF is better at stock-picking than me.)