JAMES Anderson, who runs the £2.4 billion Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, has declared he and his team have "little confidence" in companies' quarterly earnings figures and "none in the views of investment banks".

Mr Anderson, a partner of venerable Edinburgh investment house Baillie Gifford, also hammers home his view that technological innovation is now the "most important influence on the investment world", citing US technology giant Apple as the simplest example.

His forthright views are offered in the latest annual report of Scottish Mortgage, published yesterday. The trust trailed its benchmark FTSE All-World Index over the year to March 31, but is well ahead over five years.

Warning of the dangers of acting with short-term horizons, he says: "The investment management industry is ill-equipped to deal with the behavioural and emotional challenges inherent in today's capital markets.

"Our timeframe and ownership structure help us to fight these dangers. We are besieged by news, data and opinion. The bulk of this information is of little significance but it implores you to rapid and usually futile action. This can be particularly damaging at times of stress.

"Academic research argues that most individuals dislike financial losses twice as much as they take pleasure in gains. We fear that for fund managers this relationship is close to tenfold. Internal and external pressures make the avoidance of loss dominant. This is damaging in a portfolio context. We need to be willing to accept loss if there is an equal or greater chance of [almost] unlimited gain."

Mr Anderson declares the managers of Scottish Mortgage are "very dubious about the value of routine information".

He adds: "We have little confidence in quarterly earnings and none in the views of investment banks.

"We try to screen out rather than incorporate their noise. In contrast we think that the world offers joyous opportunities to hear views, perspectives and visions that are barely noticed by the markets."

In this context, he highlights the perspective of Baillie Gifford's office in Shanghai and the views of "futurists in California".

Mr Anderson says of technological innovation: "We have seriously underestimated this force. It is more powerful than we thought and far broader in its application than we suspected. We now believe it to be the most important influence on the investment world -The minds of normal human beings, let alone those of fund managers with their preoccupation with the immediate, have difficulty in coping with change that is exponential rather than linear and where the guidance offered by the past is so modest."

He notes progress from the "original Apple computer retailing at the equivalent of US$2500 (£1590) in today's prices without a monitor, power supply or even a casing to an iPad with at least 10,000 times as much processing power for a fifth the price".

Mr Anderson says: "In 2001 it took 91 weeks to sell one million iPods. In 2011 it took 24 hours to sell one million iPhone 4Ss. For the company this will translate into sales of over $150 billion this fiscal year, with China now running at 20% of sales, with near 40% operating margins and $110bn in cash. From the share price lows before the return of Steve Jobs in 1997 a market value of below $1.5bn has become $550bn.

"Identifying and holding such extraordinary companies is our primary task. Doing so holds far greater rewards than any amount of market prognostication."

However, he adds: "While we have owned Apple since early 2009 we feel that we deserve more criticism than praise for our actions. Not just did it take us several years to buy the shares but we were also quick to take profits in 2011. Our holding and our profits should have been significantly larger."