Funds holding large Amazon stock .

shap101

Can anyone recommend a tech fund which contains a large  holding of amazon stock ?

Currently hold Scottish mortgage which has around 8% of amazon shares but is quite diversified in other fields . 

Don’t really want to buy direct due to the costs incurred from the UK. Would be looking to buy within my ISA .

thanks

bowlhead99

If 8% is not enough you would struggle to find a fund with significantly more than that. Although SMT has a decent amount of tech, it's invested in a variety of other fields, wherever it sees a long term growth opportunity - is there a reason you don't want those other fields and opportunities. It seems like if you agree that it's good that they put a lot of faith in Amazon because you have the same mindset as they do, maybe you could agree that their other calls might be right too, even though you don't initially have as much interest in those other sectors?

Funds that focus on giving you a spread of tech holdings - a sector which has lots of companies as potential targets - are usually lighter than 8% in Amazon. Polar Capital Technology Trust for example at its last full portfolio listing (Jan) had about 2.5% in Amazon - though it only had more than that in Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Samsung and Alibaba. 2.5% is more than Amazon's share of the MSCI ACWI or FTSE All-World index. Maybe Polar's relative exposure to Amazon is more by now, given Amazon's share price rise combined with falls at Samsung etc, depending on what they've done to the portfolio since.

If really Amazon is what you want and the average holding of Amazon by tech-focused funds or investment trusts or indexes is not enough, then buying direct is not exactly high cost. I'm with AJ Bell who are not the cheapest in the business, but buying overseas stocks on the main exchanges doesn't have a higher charge than buying UK stocks. The pain point is just paying the 1% FX commission if you're only doing a small transaction for a few thousand pounds and don't qualify for a better fx rate. Other brokers would offer a better deal if you shopped around. But at the end of the day, an extra 1% to buy and 1% off at the end when you sell is not a huge difference over the long term in which you expect to make 100%+ per decade of being invested. 

shap101

Thanks for such an indepth answer it gives me alot of food for thought . 

I currently have my s&S isa with Iweb which I think has an exchange rate charge of 1.5% ( plus £5 per trade  ) and would be looking to invest 5k so may not be too expesive as you say.

On a side note a couple of weeks ago I was doing some research and came across Polar Capital Tech but it came up as "
Following changes to FCA regulations, new investment in this share class is unavailable" on Iweb .

bowlhead99

Polar have a ~£3.5bn open ended fund "Polar Capital Global Technology", and they also have a London Stock Exchange-listed investment trust - Polar Capital Technology Trust plc (https://www.polarcapitaltechnologytrust.co.uk/).

I was referring to the latter in the portfolio analysis but you may have a preference for one or the other ; seems unlikely that a broker woudn't be able to deal in the trust for you, though funds platforms don't always offer all funds and all listed shares/trusts. IWeb are cheap for basic trades and holding funds but there will be addons if you need something most of their customers don't use, such as buying companies on foreign stockmarkets in currencies other than sterling.  Most brokers aim to get some commission on FX transactions rather than charge more for the basic service which would put the price up for everyone who doesn't use it, subsidising those who do. 

george4064

I would echo bowlhead99, and suggest that you just consider investing directly in Amazon.com Inc stock.

Similar to you, I wanted to own a bit extra of Amazon other than my exposure via an S&P 500 ETF so I decided to buy directly in my ISA held with AJ Bell. My thinking was that I plan to hold onto them for many years to come so an extra few % in transaction costs/FX costs isn't going to make a whole lot of difference.