UK investment trust companies were at the forefront of financial innovation during the so‐called first globalization era before the First World War. This study examines their portfolio strategies in detail, using a unique dataset of 115 portfolio observations for 30 different investment trust companies, comprising a total of 32,708 portfolio holdings. Our results reveal strong performance and relatively sophisticated asset management, which was based on a mixture of a buy‐and‐hold investment strategy and active portfolio management. Investment trusts employed global rather than domestic diversification. The early predominant investment in bonds in the 1880s gradually declined in favour of ordinary and preferred shares. North and Latin American markets were the main geographical target of UK investment trusts, with less appetite for domestic investments and negligible interest in continental European financial securities. There is significant cross‐sectional variation in asset allocation between investment trusts; they thus avoided herding behaviour in portfolio choice and developed a wide range of different portfolio strategies.

中文翻译：

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第一次世界大战之前的英国投资信托投资组合策略†

在第一次世界大战之前的所谓第一个全球化时代，英国投资信托公司处于金融创新的最前沿。这项研究使用30个不同投资信托公司的115个投资组合观察的独特数据集，详细研究了他们的投资组合策略，包括总共32,708个投资组合持有量。我们的结果显示了强大的性能和相对复杂的资产管理，这是基于并购投资策略和主动投资组合管理的组合。投资信托采用全球多元化而非国内多元化。1880年代初期对债券的主要投资逐渐下降，转向普通股和优先股。北美和拉丁美洲市场是英国投资信托的主要地理目标，对国内投资的兴趣较小，对欧洲大陆金融证券的兴趣可忽略不计。投资信托之间资产配置的横截面差异很大；因此，他们避免了投资组合选择中的羊群行为，并开发了多种不同的投资组合策略。