But trying to make a quick turn from buying trusts trading at above-average discounts is best left to the professionals. Once market sentiment turns against them, then share prices will fall.”Most trusts trade at some sort of discount. But as the trusts’ shares are listed on the stock market, this often means that their own share prices fall in anticipation of a correction.”As people have been talking about a market correction of some kind for months now,” says Liz Walkington of Ivory & Sime, “I think you would find most trusts were fairly lowly geared. This has the effect of exaggerating both the good stock picking selections and the bad ones.

With the average investment trust gearing level around 10 per cent, this makes the average trust share price more volatile than its unit trust equivalent.When investment trust managers see a spell of market volatility, they can reduce their gearing to limit any potential damage. As these shares are listed on the Stock Exchange, their value will change with the view of a particular trust’s prospects and with the way the investment climate is shifting.Another difference is that investment trusts can take advantage of gearing, whereby they are allowed to borrow money which they can invest in chosen stocks, something no unit trust can do. Not only to quarrel and accuse but also to search for compromise.”Mr Yeltsin said there had been two truths about the revolution. One was that it helped turn Russia into a superpower which won in the Second World War and pioneered space exploration. The other was that the revolution was followed by a bitter civil war and had then unleashed “political fanaticism”, he said in a clear reference to Stalin’s purges in which millions died.The President said he had ordered the construction of a monument to those killed on both sides in the civil war.Mr Yeltsin has renamed the 7 November holiday, formerly known as Revolution Day, as the Day of Reconciliation and Accord He said he had opposed appeals to scrap the holiday.. The US House of Representatives yesterday postponed a crucial vote at the request of the White House, as President Bill Clinton and other members of the administration prolonged their frantic lobbying effort among sceptical Democrats. The vote on whether to approve what is known as the President’s fast-track authority – the power to negotiate international trade agreements that would not be subject to Congressional amendment – was considered too close to call.

The postponement was announced less than an hour after Mr Clinton had made his second televised appeal in 24 hours for fast-track to be approved. Flanked by Vice-President Al Gore and the Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, Mr Clinton said that America’s economy was now “the strongest it’s been in a generation” and warned: “It would be folly to turn back now.” He said the choice before Congress was clear: “The question is not whether we have a system of world trade, but whether we have one that works for us.”
The vote is seen as a test both of Mr Clinton’s authority and of US openness to the outside world. American presidents, from Gerald Ford onwards, enjoyed fast-track authority, but a Republican Congress withdrew it from President Clinton three years ago. Mr Clinton has made two unsuccessful attempts to have it restored and this year is seen as the last opportunity until after the next presidential election.