Scottish Mortgageâs Discount Widens Despite Buyback Blitz as SpaceX Dominates Portfolio
Published on 07/28/2026 at 14:11 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust has been aggressively repurchasing its own shares for months, yet the gap between its market price and net asset value keeps growing â a disconnect that suggests the marketâs concerns run deeper than capital structure mechanics.
The latest intervention came on Monday, when the trust bought back another 500,000 ordinary shares at 1,333.10 pence each, pushing total holdings in treasury to 411,558,993. The move is part of a buyback programme backed by at least ÂŁ1 billion from the board. But despite this steady stream of repurchases, the discount to net asset value remains stubbornly wide at roughly 10.9 percent.
Investors are effectively pricing the trustâs growth portfolio well below what its own internal calculations suggest it is worth. The shares, which jumped 3.45 percent to âŹ15.76 on Monday, are still nursing a 6.69 percent decline over the past 30 days and sit about 20 percent below their 52-week high of âŹ19.50 set in May. The relative strength index of 39.8 points to oversold territory, a level that historically attracts buyers.
A Single-Stock Concentration That Tests Patience
One likely driver of investor scepticism is the extraordinary weighting of a single holding. SpaceX now accounts for 25.7 percent of the portfolio â a concentration that exposes the trust to violent swings every time the space companyâs shares move. Since its IPO in June 2026 at $135, the stock has been volatile: it climbed as high as $176.52 before retreating to around $115. With a quarter of the portfolio tied to one highly volatile name, any correction in SpaceX feeds directly into the net asset value.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Scottish Mortgage Investment?
The timing is awkward. Scottish Mortgage has just executed a historic exit from Tesla after 13 years, slashing the position to less than 1 percent of the portfolio. Investment specialist ChloĂ© Darling-Stewart and lead manager Tom Slater argued that the risk-reward profile no longer stacked up against newer growth opportunities. But the shift away from a mature holding into an even more concentrated bet on SpaceX has left some shareholders questioning the portfolioâs resilience.
Pivoting to the âAgentic Eraâ and Energy Infrastructure
The Tesla pullback is part of a broader repositioning. Slater has outlined what the management team calls the âAgentic Eraâ of artificial intelligence â a phase where the focus moves beyond software into the physical infrastructure that powers it. The exploding demand for electricity is a central theme, and the trust is hunting for hardware and energy solutions to support the massive build-out of data centres.
Space-based infrastructure plays a key role in that vision. Scottish Mortgage sees global computing capacity increasingly reliant on satellite networks and rocket technology, areas where portfolio companies like SpaceX have a natural edge. Slaterâs strategic update in July identified âAI infrastructureâ and âspace-based connectivityâ as the two defining themes for the portfolioâs evolution.
Baillie Gifford, the trustâs manager, remains committed to its five-to-ten-year investment horizon, targeting companies with deep competitive moats that can define new industries. The shift toward private equity stakes is accelerating, and those holdings now make up a significant portion of total assets.
A Solid Annual Return Masking Short-Term Pain
Despite the recent turbulence, the trustâs year-to-date performance remains positive at 13.04 percent, with a 12-month gain of 25.14 percent. The short-term headwinds and long-term trajectory are currently pulling in opposite directions â a dynamic that the buyback programme is designed to exploit.
The next major checkpoint comes in November 2026, when Scottish Mortgage releases its half-year results. Investors will be watching for two things: how much capital has been deployed into private holdings, and whether the new energy and space infrastructure tilt is already visible in the portfolio structure. Until then, the boardâs primary tool for closing the discount remains the buyback â a strategy that, so far, is fighting a losing battle against market sentiment.
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