Liontrust First Income manager Jeremy Lang has his eye on those stocks others have shied away from in recent months.

Jeremy Lang, manager of the Liontrust First Income fund, has increased the ‘angst factor’ in his fund’s portfolio.

Lang argues that investors have become less anxious about growth prospects so the prices of traditionally high yielding stocks have increased and consequently reduced their yields.

However, he believes the prevailing mood has provided him with the opportunity to buy into stocks about which others are anxious but pay a good and growing dividend yield.

Lang is selling 14 stocks as a result of his latest annual review, a large number by his standards, most of which no longer fit his anxiety criteria.

In the half-year to the end of December the fund’s units rose 13.1% compared with an 11.5% rise by the FTSE All-Share.

CITYWIRE VERDICT:
Lang has underperformed many of his peers and has lost his Citywire rating.
However, his performance has started to pick up again and independence from the index is part of his investment philosophy.

Since Lang began managing the fund it is up 255% compared with 103%. His periods of outperformance cannot be written off as a flash in the pan and for those who are prepared for returns that may be out of kilter with the index Lang continues to look like an excellent manager to back.