The US and UK governments are damaging the chances of companies "with ambition" via policies akin to "self-immolation", according to James Anderson, manager of Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (SMT). The manager of the £4.5bn trust also likened Mrs May's comments at Davos to the words of Hitler, in a damning indictment of the impact of UK and US policies on the types of innovative company he wants to invest in.

"Theresa May's "incantation at Davos that we should be worried about the cult of the individual surely could have come out of the mouth of Stalin or Hitler rather than any democratic leader", he said. "Investors should be very nervous about the insouciance of markets about what the great global powers are doing." ...

...Meanwhile, its board is cutting its management fee to reflect the growth in its size, and because the trust's manager, Baillie Gifford, has offered a further fee cut to the trust as part of ongoing efforts to leverage the benefits of increasing scale for shareholders, primarily through reducing costs. From 1 April, the trust will have a tiered fee: the annual management charge (AMC) will continue to be 0.3 per cent on the first £4bn of assets under management but fall to 0.25 per cent on those above that.