Excluding dividends, Scottish Mortgage has returned 375% over the past decade, making it the eighth-best-performing Footsie stock over this period.

At the start of June, the share price closed at a record high of 1,545p. And while it’s pulled back to 1,359p since, I have no intention of selling.

Indeed, I intend to keep holding for decades. Here’s why.

What does it do?

Founded in 1909, the investment trust puts money into what it considers to be the world’s most transformative companies. It searches for these globally — including in China and Latin America — and is agnostic as to whether they’re listed or not.

Nowadays, a typical company lists on the stock market after 11 years, up from seven just a decade ago. So the really exciting ones are increasingly staying private for longer, making the ability to invest in unlisted firms all the more valuable.

Not a bug

Recently, the trust has made blockbuster paper gains from SpaceX, which recently had its record-breaking IPO. However, the returns have been so spectacular that SpaceX has ballooned to over 20% of assets.

Cleary, this adds concentration risk because the trust cannot reduce this mammoth holding just yet. It could take another few months to suitably trim back the position due to restrictions on when existing investors can start selling.

Therefore, with SpaceX crashing 41% in the past month, the Scottish Mortgage share price has come under pressure. It’s down 12% from the early June high.

Here’s the thing, though. Volatility isn’t a bug, it’s a feature of this type of investing. Scottish Mortgage has come under pressure plenty of times in the past.

A few years ago, it was Tesla that became a huge position. Fast-forward to today, it isn’t even in the portfolio. Tesla was identified early (2013), generated spectacular returns, and then the managers methodically sold it down, helping to drive shareholder returns.

In other words, it served its purpose. So while the next few months might be rocky because of SpaceX, the existing large position doesn’t worry me too much long term.

Top 10 holdings

An investment in the future

The world is changing faster than it has in decades. Scottish Mortgage would rather own the companies driving that change than shelter from it. Artificial intelligence is rewiring the global economy, creating the most important structural shift since the emergence of the internet.
Scottish Mortgage

As mentioned, the trust gives my SIPP exposure to world-class growth companies that I can’t buy myself. These include Stripe, Databricks, Anthropic, Revolut, and innovative AI start-ups in China that I know little about.

So, is the FTSE 100 stock worth considering today? I think so, but I wouldn’t back up the truck. There’s really no need.

Instead, I’d consider buying some shares, topping up whenever it suffers a meaningful dip (as it regularly does), and then leaving the investment to compound over the long run. 

Ultimately, Scottish Mortgage is an investment in a future that’s coming at us faster than ever before.

Should you invest £5,000 in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc made the list?

Ben McPoland own shares in MercadoLibre, Nvidia, Scottish Mortgage, and TSMC.

The post Here’s a FTSE 100 stock I’m happy to hold for decades inside my SIPP appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 had dropped more than 4% and Taiwan’s Taiex index had shed 6.5%. But the Nasdaq Composite closed just 1.25% down while the S&P 500 fell 0.58%. The FTSE 100 actually rose 0.27%. As bloodbaths go, this was pretty PG-rated. I adjusted my towel and returned to topping up my tan.

Why investors should ignore volatility

It doesn’t look like a massive crash has hit us. Investors should always treat dramatic headlines with caution. What matters isn’t what markets do in a day, but over years and decades. History shows that over the longer run shares work investors’ money harder than almost any other asset class, but with plenty of short-term volatility along the way.

Of course, there are reasons to be cautious right now. The US conflict with Iran continues to unsettle markets. Investors are questioning whether the artificial intelligence boom can justify the hundreds of billions being poured into infrastructure. Even if AI fulfils its promise, there will be losers as well as winners.

Yet markets never rise in a straight line. US technology stocks have delivered exceptional returns over the last dozen years. So far, patient investors have treated short-term setbacks as buying opportunities. This may prove another one.

Despite the so-called bloodbath, the FTSE 100 is still up 17.6% over the last 12 months, with dividends on top. The S&P 500 has climbed 18.3% and the Nasdaq 21.7%. Investors remain comfortably ahead.

Is this an opportunity to consider Scottish Mortgage?

It’s a similar story at the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT), one of the UK’s most popular technology-focused funds. Despite the name, it’s actually a FTSE 100 company whose job is to invest in public and private businesses that are aiming to transform their industries through technology and innovation.

The portfolio typically holds between 50 and 100 companies, but its biggest position by far is Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, better known as SpaceX.

Scottish Mortgage first invested in SpaceX in 2018 and benefited enormously as its valuation surged. Inevitably, the trust has slipped as enthusiasm around SpaceX has cooled in recent days. The trust is the weakest FTSE 100 performer over the last week, down 8.05%. Even so, it’s still up 57% over one year and 101% over three.

SpaceX isn’t the whole story. Scottish Mortgage also backed private companies such as ByteDance and Anthropic early, alongside listed giants including Nvidia and Amazon. So it’s been hit by the wider sector sell-off– but should also benefit if the sector recovers.

Scottish Mortgage is certainly worth considering for investors who want greater exposure to disruptive tech, but they should first check how much exposure they already have through any shares or funds they currently hold. Those comfortable with the risks may decide this is a chance to get in at reduced price. If markets remain volatile, there could be more buying opportunities ahead.

Should you invest £5,000 in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc made the list?

Harvey Jones owns shares in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust.

The post Are we really staring at a massive stock market crash? appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

Much of this has been driven by the incredible success of Space Exploration Technologies, which it first invested in back in 2018. That stake has ballooned in value.

However, Scottish Mortgage is currently in a strange period. While it’s sitting on massive unrealised profits, it can’t offload any SpaceX shares until the rocket/satellite firm reports its Q2 results, sometime in August.

At that point, only 20% can be sold, rising to 30% if SpaceX stock is 30% above its IPO price. But that’s not guranteed because it’s currently only just above its IPO price of $135.

For better or worse then, Scottish Mortgage’s day-to-day share price performance is currently tied to what happens with SpaceX. And at the end of June, Elon Musk’s firm made up a whopping 25.7% of assets!

Should Scottish Mortgage investors be worried?

Holding at scale

For me, the answer depends on how large a weighting SpaceX is by mid-December. Then, the investment trust will be able to sell the entire position if it chooses to.

However, reading manager Tom Slater’s latest commentary on SpaceX’s monopolistic position and commercial opportunities makes it clear that SpaceX will likely remain a top holding.

SpaceX is…a dual monopoly in launch and global connectivity, with Starlink building highly profitable, recurring revenue that the best software businesses aspire to, except that its assets are in orbit and extraordinarily difficult to replicate…If Starship achieves full reusability, the economics of placing AI infrastructure in orbit become compelling. And that’s why we hold it at scale.
Tom Slater, July 2026.

Fair enough. But surely holding SpaceX “at scale” won’t involve it being over 20% of total assets, though?

If so, then I think there’s a lot of concentration risk because SpaceX’s valuation looks too high to me. At a market cap of $1.8trn, it’s trading at around 47 times this year’s forecast sales. No profits are expected until 2028 due to heavy AI capex.

Speaking as a Scottish Mortgage shareholder, I would like to see SpaceX reduced to 4%–8% of the portfolio (in line with TSMC and Nvidia). At this type of weighting, it can still drive meaningful returns if successful, while the damage is limited if its valuation fails to live up to expectations.

Beyond SpaceX

While SpaceX hogs all the headlines, it’s important to remember that the rest of the portfolio’s progressing well. Holdings MercadoLibre, Nu, Revolut, and Stripe are growing rapidly as they build the infrastructure of digital finance.

Anthropic’s annualised revenue run rate has gone from $1bn at the start of 2025 to more than $47bn today. And TSMC, SK Hynix, Nvidia and ASML are all at the very epicentre of the AI infrastructure buildout.

Meanwhile, Cloudflare is helping websites identify and charge AI agents for access to their content. In Q1, CEO Matthew Prince said that AI is “shaping up to be the biggest tailwind we’ve ever seen in Cloudflare’s history“.

Scottish Mortgage is trading at a 7% discount to net asset value. If the stock keep falling, I think it’s worth considering on the dip, then holding long term.

Should you invest £5,000 in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc made the list?

Ben McPoland owns shares in Cloudflare, MercadoLibre, Nu Holdings, Nvidia, Scottish Mortgage, and TSMC.

The post SpaceX stock now makes up 25.7% of this top FTSE 100 investment trust! appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

But a quick reverse took the price down to $147.11 on Tuesday (23 June), for an all-time low — though all-time does mean just 12 days in this case. The 34.8% slide from the peak technically falls into crash territory. Investors fear worse to come. So what should Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT) shareholders do now?

AI jitters

The tech stock rout that hit Wall Street appeared to be led by several factors…

• Doubts over AI spending sustainability
• Concerns over the true profit potential of AI
• Momentum simply running out of steam

If this does mark the start of a downturn, the SpaceX launch — which raised raised $85.7bn — might have been timed to perfection.

Nvidia and Intel also felt a fair bit of the pain. And Elon Musk’s Tesla is now down 10% over the past month.

I’m genuinely excited about SpaceX, and I’ll tell you the number one thing I like about it. The company’s rockets are behind nearly 80% of all payload mass lofted into orbit globally. That’s a cracking bedrock to support the rest of the company.

The long-term potential of AI and robotics? That ticks boxes too, but it’s still a big unknown. And unlike the profitable launch business, it’s burning through cash.

Putting a human colony on Mars? I doubt that’ll happen in the lifetime of anyone breathing today. And I haven’t the first clue how it could make a profit. It’s the kind of thing for government agencies to throw trillions at. Commercial interests should have greater potential opportunity once the high-risk ground has been broken.

So what about SMT?

So, on to fears for Scottish Mortgage. Its share price has also dropped. At the time of writing, it’s down 7.4% in the past five trading days. The reason seems obvious. On the latest valuation, it has 17% of shareholders’ assets tied up in SpaceX — which it first invested in privately back in 2018, at well below today’s price.

Interestingly, the share price hasn’t kept up with the investment trust‘s net asset value (NAV). And Scottish Mortgage shares can be bought at a 14% discount to the latest NAV at the time of writing. Hmm, maybe it’s time to think about topping up and effectively nabbing some SpaceX stock at below market value rather than considering selling?

What will I do? Neither. When I bought my shares I did so as a way to get some tech stock exposure in my ISA, but in a nicely diversified way. And I still want that. I expected (and still expect) plenty of share price volatility. But with my long-term horizon, I’m fine with that.

So what should investors do about Scottish Mortgage shares now? Maybe think about waiting until the current mini-panic works itself out, and then consider buying. And holding, of course.

Should you invest £5,000 in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc made the list?

Alan Oscroft owns shares in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust.

The post As SpaceX stock plunges below its opening price, is it time to dump Scottish Mortgage shares? appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

The rocket firm has propelled Scottish Mortgage’s share price to levels not seen since late 2021.

Yet there’s another company lurking in the portfolio that’s started to drive tasty gains…

The next mega-IPO?

The holding I’m referring to is Anthropic, the leading AI lab and maker of Claude. It’s reportedly going to attract a $965bn valuation (or thereabouts) when it goes public later this year.

This despite only being founded in 2021!

As such, it hasn’t been knocking around the Scottish Mortgage portfolio for very long (like SpaceX has). In fact, the Footsie fund’s manager — Baillie Gifford — only took a stake in September 2025.

Back then, the AI lab was valued at $183bn, indicating that this has become a multibagger in a very short period. And this incredible ascent has seen Anthropic already enter the trust‘s largest 10 holdings — rubbing shoulders with established tech giants such as Meta and Amazon.

Why not OpenAI?

Probably the most astonishing thing is just how quickly Anthropic is growing. According to co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei, Q1 revenue and usage grew 80-fold on an annualised basis, driven by widespread adoption of Claude Code, its agentic coding tool.

The company has already hit a $47bn annual run rate, with Q2 revenue set to jump to around $11bn (more than doubling quarter on quarter). And reports indicate it could even record an adjusted quarterly operating profit of more than $550m.

Anthropic has delivered one of the most remarkable growth stories in the history of enterprise software.
Scottish Mortgage

But why did Baillie Gifford plump for Anthropic over ChatGPT maker OpenAI? There appear to be a few key reasons, including:

• Anthropic’s focus on the enterprise market, which is higher-value and stickier than consumer AI chatbots.
• A focus on trust and safety makes its AI models more reliable for enterprise use.
• Beyond coding, Anthropic has built products for financial services, life sciences and other industries.
• Strong corporate culture and talent retention.
• Anthropic trains frontier AI models at roughly half the cost of rivals (supporting potentially superior margins).

What are the risks?

Of course, there’s no guarantee that Anthropic will prove to be a great investment over the long run. There’s fierce competition from OpenAI and Google, and potentially SpaceXAI in future.

Meanwhile, AI technology is evolving rapidly, so upstarts could emerge and start taking market share. If so, that could damage Anthropic’s chances of building sustainably positive cash flows.

A high valuation obviously amplifies these risks.

Beyond SpaceX and Anthropic

Scottish Mortgage holds dozens of disruptive growth stocks across both public and private markets. However, SpaceX currently represents over 20% of the entire portfolio, a position the trust can’t reduce until August.

Given this scenario, a SpaceX crash could really hit the FTSE 100 stock. At a minimum, daily turbulence is likely.

But for investors who fancy exposure to SpaceX and Anthropic — as well as other game-changing private firms like Stripe and Revolut — I think the trust is worth considering. Especially after a 6% pullback has left it trading at a 10.4% discount to net asset value. 

Should you invest £5,000 in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc made the list?

Ben McPoland owns shares in MercadoLibre, Nvidia, Scottish Mortgage, TSMC.

The post An AI beast just racked up 80-fold growth and is now a top holding in this FTSE 100 trust appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

Yet despite that, some people’s passive income streams could be boosted by the strong performance of SpaceX shares. How come?

The role of investment trusts in converting growth to income

The answer is that some investors will be able to sell SpaceX shares for more than they paid for them. But wait, you say. That is not income – that is a capital gain. And you would be right – so far as those investors are concerned.

But what if those investors then used some of those capital gains (or even all of them) to fund dividends to their shareholders? Then, suddenly, it could be passive income. That is exactly what some investment trusts do.

Understanding how such an approach operates can potentially turn some brilliant growth opportunities into passive income opportunities too.       

A dividend run stretching back almost a century

As an example, consider the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT). An investment trust run from the Scottish city since before the Titanic sank may hardly seem an obvious place to look for understanding of financing behind the current space race.

In fact though, Scottish Mortgage did brilliantly by taking a long-term investment position in Tesla. It has sold that altogether, taking massive profits in the process. (Interestingly, it owns a stake in Tesla’s rival BYD).

Having done so well with its Tesla stake, Scottish Mortgage invested in SpaceX years ago when it was a private company.

Soaring valuations mean that it now represents 17.9% of Scottish Mortgage’s total assets. If SpaceX stock keeps performing strongly as it has done in the week since its flotation, the actual number could be even higher than that.

Here is another interesting fact about Scottish Mortgage: it has not cut its dividend per share since the fallout of the 1929 stock market crash.

Yet its growth focus means the trust’s portfolio is stuffed with shares many of which pay no dividend. So how can it maintain let alone keep growing its own shareholder payout?

Growth can fuel income

The modest size helps – Scottish Mortgage’s yield is only 0.3%. But it also helps that, as a general rule, a company can use spare funds to pay dividends. That could be income it earns in the ordinary course of business.

It could be dividends it earns from investments. Or it could be money raised from asset sales. That might be selling a factory or some land. But it could also be selling shares.

Scottish Mortgage’s growth focus means there is a risk that a sharp tech downturn could hurt its performance. But it has a strong track record in identifying promising companies, as shown with SpaceX.

The trust’s share price is up 45% in a year and I see it as a share for investors to consider.

Should you invest £5,000 in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc made the list?

Christopher Ruane does not hold any positions in the companies mentioned.

The post SpaceX doesn’t pay a dividend. So how come it may help these investors earn passive income? appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

With Elon Musk’s company soaring in value after its successful IPO, it stands to reason that Scottish Mortgage should see a rise in its share price. However, by lunchtime on 19 June, it had only risen by 1.7% since trading in SpaceX commenced on 12 June.

Significantly, it means the trust’s shares are trading at a discount. Let me explain.

A knock-down price?

The table below shows Scottish Mortgage’s closing share price and its net asset value (NAV) per share over the past few days.

It reveals that before SpaceX’s IPO, the trust’s shares were changing hands broadly in line with its NAV per share. However, since then, it’s failed to keep up with the rise in the value of its investments, much of which is attributable to SpaceX.

But what does this mean?

Specifically, it suggests that buying shares in Scottish Mortgage gives investors a stake in some of the world’s fastest-growing companies at a near-10% discount. In theory, it’s a bit like being given a money-off coupon.

However, we mustn’t get carried away.

Back down to earth

Previously, much has been written about the extraordinary valuation of SpaceX. Indeed, for a company that’s loss-making, its market cap is truly breathtaking. Investors in Scottish Mortgage might be of the view that the hype could soon evaporate and that the space, connectivity, and AI group’s stock price will soon fall back to a more reasonable level.

Also, it must be remembered that as a major shareholder, Scottish Mortgage is subject to lock-in restrictions. Consequently, it can’t dispose of all of its shares (assuming it wants to) for a period of 180 days post-IPO.

I do not want to focus on quarterly earnings. I’m not saying we’re not going to do right by our investors, but what folks who invest in SpaceX need to know is that what we’re doing is very futuristic.

Gwynne Shotwell, President, SpaceX

The biggest and best?

Away from SpaceX, a significant proportion of the trusts’s investments are in unquoted companies. Generally, these are difficult to value. And although its fund manager follows the appropriate industry guidelines, there’s always an element of doubt over valuations when a company’s shares aren’t actively traded.

However, I think Scottish Mortgage is well placed to grow over the next decade or so, particularly if AI takes off as many are predicting. For instance, it has stakes in all of the Magnificent Seven and plenty of other famous names. If Anthropic’s anticipated IPO is as successful as SpaceX’s, Scottish Mortgage could see another nice uplift to its NAV.

But it’s not just about pure tech stocks. It owns shares in, for example, Ferrari and Spotify.

My view

For those wanting to invest in some of the most talked about companies on the planet, but can’t really decide who the winners and losers might be from the fourth industrial revolution that’s currently underway, Scottish Mortgage could be worth a close look.

In fact, I have it in my own portfolio. Others could consider adding it to theirs.

Should you invest £5,000 in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc made the list?

James Beard owns shares Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust plc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

The post Scottish Mortgage shares are now even cheaper after SpaceX’s amazing stock market debut! appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

It all comes down to compounding, which is the secret to building long-term wealth. Let me explain.

The sooner you start compounding the better

Compounding is the process of earning a return on past returns. Over time, it leads to exponential financial returns because of the ‘snowball’ effect (your money starts making money, and then that money makes money etc).

The problem is, the majority of people miss out on the first 20 years or so of investment compounding. Generally speaking, most people don’t start investing until they’re at least 20 (ie when they start work), which means they’re missing out on huge potential gains.

This is where Junior ISAs and Junior SIPPs come in. With these accounts, parents can put money away for their children from birth so they can benefit from compounding in the first 20 years of their lives (and beyond) tax-efficiently.

The results can be incredible. For example, if a parent was to put £5,000 into a Junior ISA today for a new-born baby and was able to generate a 9% return a year after fees, that money would be worth almost £30,000 by the time the child turned 20 (by 50 it would be worth almost £400,000).

Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice. Readers are responsible for carrying out their own due diligence and for obtaining professional advice before making any investment decisions.

Investment vehicles for children in the UK

It’s worth noting that in the US, the government has acknowledged the benefits of compounding early on in life and taken action. Recently, it launched ‘Trump accounts’, where children born between 2025 and 2028 receive $1,000 in an investment account (the money is invested in the S&P 500 index).

We don’t have this kind of thing in the UK at the moment. But Junior ISAs and Junior SIPPs are good alternatives – both allow money to be put away for children and for the money to grow free of capital gains tax and income tax.

An investment to consider

I’ll point out that with these two types of accounts, parents are responsible for investing the money. Performance will depend on the investments selected so parents need to invest thoughtfully.

Get it right, and the returns could be excellent (eg 10%+ a year). Get it wrong however, and the returns could be ugly (ie negative).

Personally, I think a good place to start is a diversified growth fund such as the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT). There are a few reasons why.

First, with a product like this, investors get exposure to industries that are likely to see strong growth over the next few decades. I’m talking about industries such as AI, robotics, FinTech, and space.

Second, investors’ money is spread out over many different companies. So stock-specific risk is mitigated (meaning it’s far less risky than investing in individual companies).

Now, funds that are focused on growth/tech stocks tend to be volatile. And this is a risk here – in recent years the Scottish Mortgage share price has swung around wildly at times.

Children can afford to take on risk in the pursuit of higher long-term returns however, as they have time to ride out volatility. So I think this trust – which has an excellent long-term track record – is worth considering.

Should you invest £5,000 in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc made the list?

Edward Sheldon owns shares in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust

The post Most Britons miss out on the first 20 years of investment compounding. Here’s how a Junior ISA or SIPP can change that appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

Yes, the IPO of the trust’s top holding — SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) — has been a roaring success. The firm raised $87.5bn ($10bn more than first thought) and the share price has jumped from an IPO price of $135 to $192 in just two days.

Plus, as I write, SpaceX is set for another rise today (16 June), pushing the share price above $200. This would put the rocket-satellite-AI company’s market cap close to $2.7trn!

Of course, this is all getting very silly now. So does SpaceX present a major risk to the Scottish Mortgage share price?

One for the trophy shelf

As a quick reminder, the FTSE 100 trust invested in SpaceX between December 2018 and August 2021. The total invested was £151m (roughly $200m at the time of purchase).

Fast forward to March 2026, the value of the stake had mushroomed to £2.98bn ($3.94bn). That was based on a valuation of $1.25trn, according to Baillie Gifford (the trust’s manager) at the time.  

By early June, that looked too conservative, so it was raised for the third time in six months. According to calculations by QuotedData, this meant Baillie Gifford was valuing SpaceX at $1.6trn, putting the stake at around £3.5bn ($4.7trn).

Following the IPO though, SpaceX’s market cap has ballooned to more than $2.5trn, and keeps climbing. So this has been an enormously successful investment — one for the trophy shelf!

But with SpaceX now representing more than 21% of the portfolio, is there too much concentration risk here?

All eyes on August

Any lock-up period would affect our ability to manage position size in response to price movements after listing.
Scottish Mortgage.

There might be, if SpaceX stock tanks before early August. That’s when SpaceX is scheduled to report its Q2 earnings.

It’s also when Scottish Mortgage, as a pre-existing shareholder, can first unload a chunk of its long-held stake to crystallise profits and reduce risk. Regardless of where the share price is trading then, the trust can offload 20% of its shares.

But it could be 30% — an additional 10% — if the stock is at least 30% above the IPO price at that point. So that would be about $176.

With SpaceX currently riding high above $200, that looks very doable. But things can change rapidly in the stock market and nothing is guaranteed (except volatility).

Additional shares can be sold in 7% instalments between August and mid-December when the lock-up restrictions end.

Anthropic to come

Manager Tom Slater views SpaceX as a “dual monopoly“, dominant in rocket launches and operating as a “global connectivity utility with the potential for software-like margins“.

Even so, SpaceX stock now trades above 130 times sales and is reporting losses. By their own admission, the managers failed to pay enough attention to sky-high valuations back in 2022. I don’t expect them to make the same mistake again.

Looking ahead though, we also have major holding Anthropic — the AI juggernaut behind Claude — likely listing this year. So investors could still consider Scottish Mortgage stock.

But perhaps with enough caution to not make it a huge position.

Should you invest £5,000 in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc made the list?

Ben McPoland owns shares in Scottish Mortgage.

The post Is rocketing SpaceX now a major risk to the Scottish Mortgage share price? appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

Scottish Mortgage invested a total of $200m in SpaceX between 2018 and 2021. After Friday’s record-breaking IPO SpaceX is now valued at $2.1trn, and Scottish Mortgage’s stake could be worth just shy of $5bn. That’s a return of around 25 times, which is pretty handy.

It’s also a vindication of the trust’s high-conviction investment strategy, which includes targeting private companies. This gives investors access to fast-growing businesses long before they go public. Manager Tom Slater believes a small number of exceptional outliers drive the vast majority of stock market returns. It’s certainly paid off here.

How volatile is this investment trust?

It’s also paid off for Scottish Mortgage shares. They’re up 45% in the last year, and 120% over three. Yet it’s not all fun and games. You see, 2022 was a nightmare for the trust, which crashed by half. The trigger was a sell-off in US technology stocks. That hit every fund in the sector, but Scottish Mortgage was among the hardest hit.

I took advantage of the crunch by adding it to my SIPP in May 2025, and I’m personally up 105%, with dividends on top. As a rule, I prefer to buy stocks when they’re down rather than up. So is Scottish Mortgage flying too high?

Inevitably, it’s pricier than it was, trading at a discount of just 2.27% to underlying net asset value. That compares to its 12-month average discount of 6.94%. It’s also heavily exposed to whatever happens next with SpaceX, which now makes up more than 20% of its total portfolio.

Should you consider this FTSE 100 stock today?

SpaceX shares closed on Friday (12 June) at $160.95, an increase of 19.22% on the original quoted price of $135. Thanks to rules design to curb ‘flipping’, instant profit taking should be kept to a minimum, but could still happen. Hazarding a guess, I’d expect SpaceX to trail downwards over the days ahead, as the novelty ebbs.

Much will depend on wider events. Once again, there’s talk of peace in Iran, and if there’s meaningful progress, it could light a rocket under stock markets generally. Also, there are more high-profile tech IPOs coming our way, notably Anthropic (which Scottish Mortgage holds) and ChatGPT owner Open AI (which it doesn’t). That could keep sentiment simmering nicely, especially if we get evidence that artificial intelligence really will drive a generational leap in productivity. Alternatively there could be no peace, a violent oil price and inflation spike, and the AI bubble could burst.

I’m treading carefully around Scottish Mortgage shares today. But I won’t be selling my stake. The trust aims to build wealth with a long-term horizon, and that’s how it should be. It’s worth considering, but investors might be wiser to drip-feed capital than to chase its shares even higher today.

Should you invest £5,000 in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc right now?

When investing expert Mark Rogers and his team have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the flagship Twelfth Magpie Share Advisor newsletter he has run for nearly a decade has provided thousands of paying members with top stock recommendations from the UK and US markets.

And right now, Mark thinks there are 6 standout stocks that investors should consider buying. Want to see if Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Plc made the list?

Harvey Jones owns shares in Scottish Mortgage.

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