Global technology found.Am I too late?

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  • Why was it deleted? Good replies whatever the question was...
  • donmaico
    donmaico Posts: 376
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    edited 11 January 2018 at 7:40PM
    bowlhead99 wrote: »
    Unless you accidentally posted something that personally identifies you in the real world that you don't want us to see, please don't delete your posts.

    It's a bit disrespectful to those who gave their time to help out or comment or discuss, but more importantly it can be interesting or useful for other people coming along in future who are in similar circumstances to you with the same questions, to be able to search and find what points or questions have been made before and what the answers were.

    :)

    My Apologies, but I possibly overacted somewhat after having given rather a lot of information about my portfolio.I didn't mean to delete the OP. That was a mistake and I certainly did not mean to disrespect anyone.I dont feel i have anything to hide but my other half is very sensitive about what i divulge both personally and on any other level
    Argentine by birth,English by nature
  • donmaico
    donmaico Posts: 376
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    bertpalmer wrote: »
    Why was it deleted? Good replies whatever the question was...

    they were and I feel a bit of a numpty for deleting it
    Argentine by birth,English by nature
  • I don't think you are too late, and I do think being invested in tech over the next few decades is likely to be extremely profitable. I get the impression that some here appear to think that technology has "peaked", but thinking that is a huge mistake IMHO.

    We are moving towards a "Star Trek" future, where technology is "everything", so there is a long way left to run yet. There are bound to be ups and downs along the way, but tech is quickly finding it's way into every part of life, and even now it's already indispensable. You just have to look at what happens when you try to take away someone's smart phone. They go into a panic which does not end till they have their phone back! What makes anyone think that this will change, or even reverse?

    If anything we need tech even more now to solve the problems society faces: climate change, feeding our selves, energy generation, and curing disease to name some of the most obvious challenges.

    I have been invested heavily (over 1/3 of my main portfolio) in biotech for the last couple of years, and only just took a position in PCT in mid 2017, with a further investment in late 2017 tat takes my total holding in PCT to just over 10% of my main portfolio presently.

    Here are my PCT buys shown on a chart - the pink/red dots:
    PCT_buys_2017_zpsudelbkfv.jpg

    I would say though, if you are going to invest, buy in the dips and keep cash on hand/don't go all in initially as I do to minimize risk and to have a chance at getting a better price should the sector decide to correct after you have bought.
  • economic
    economic Posts: 3,002 Forumite
    I don't think you are too late, and I do think being invested in tech over the next few decades is likely to be extremely profitable. I get the impression that some here appear to think that technology has "peaked", but thinking that is a huge mistake IMHO.

    We are moving towards a "Star Trek" future, where technology is "everything", so there is a long way left to run yet. There are bound to be ups and downs along the way, but tech is quickly finding it's way into every part of life, and even now it's already indispensable. You just have to look at what happens when you try to take away someone's smart phone. They go into a panic which does not end till they have their phone back! What makes anyone think that this will change, or even reverse?

    If anything we need tech even more now to solve the problems society faces: climate change, feeding our selves, energy generation, and curing disease to name some of the most obvious challenges.

    I have been invested heavily (over 1/3 of my main portfolio) in biotech for the last couple of years, and only just took a position in PCT in mid 2017, with a further investment in late 2017 tat takes my total holding in PCT to just over 10% of my main portfolio presently.

    Here are my PCT buys shown on a chart - the pink/red dots:
    PCT_buys_2017_zpsudelbkfv.jpg

    I would say though, if you are going to invest, buy in the dips and keep cash on hand/don't go all in initially as I do to minimize risk and to have a chance at getting a better price should the sector decide to correct after you have bought.

    I added to my position in PCT at exactly those points as well!! Plus i added just before the rise in October.

    with biotech i own BIOG and WWH. Poor performers so am disappointing but they are not huge positions. I am overweight tech and financials (US banks).

    It seems i have tech all over the place - US index funds, single stocks, managed growth funds, PCT.
  • Sally57
    Sally57 Posts: 205
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    economic wrote: »
    I added to my position in PCT at exactly those points as well!! Plus i added just before the rise in October.

    with biotech i own BIOG and WWH. Poor performers so am disappointing but they are not huge positions. I am overweight tech and financials (US banks).

    It seems i have tech all over the place - US index funds, single stocks, managed growth funds, PCT.

    I have held WWH for a number of years and it is certainly not a poor performer.
  • economic
    economic Posts: 3,002 Forumite
    Sally57 wrote: »
    I have held WWH for a number of years and it is certainly not a poor performer.

    I only started buying in the last year (hence the relatively small position in it). so that's why its been one of my weaker performers.
  • economic wrote: »
    I only started buying in the last year (hence the relatively small position in it). so that's why its been one of my weaker performers.

    I'm sure it will come good if you hang on in there. It was one of the first funds I bought (in May 2015), a bit before I was as clued up as I am now, and I didn't wait for a dip, but even so it has done OK. I wish I had topped up later on in 2015 now, when biotech was tanking!

    I still think the Polar Capital Biotechnology fund is the best bet in that sector though (small cap biotech looks well positioned for 2018), so I've been topping that up too, along with a top up of BIOG (at the same time as my PCT top up) late last year which is already growing nicely. The plan was to sell some after a quick profit (BIOG usually springs back quickly after a sharp dip), but I may hold off for a little longer before selling, or perhaps even stick with it.
  • Linton
    Linton Posts: 17,066
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    I don't think you are too late, and I do think being invested in tech over the next few decades is likely to be extremely profitable. I get the impression that some here appear to think that technology has "peaked", but thinking that is a huge mistake IMHO.

    We are moving towards a "Star Trek" future, where technology is "everything", so there is a long way left to run yet. There are bound to be ups and downs along the way, but tech is quickly finding it's way into every part of life, and even now it's already indispensable. You just have to look at what happens when you try to take away someone's smart phone. They go into a panic which does not end till they have their phone back! What makes anyone think that this will change, or even reverse?

    If anything we need tech even more now to solve the problems society faces: climate change, feeding our selves, energy generation, and curing disease to name some of the most obvious challenges.

    I..

    There are two different discussions. One is whether technology has peaked. I don’t think anyone believes that. We are only just beginning an enormous upheaval in society, economics, and politics across the world brought about by advances in technology.

    A quite different discussion is whether the private investor can gain a long term benefit from this. The key problem I see is that everything is hyped up a few years too early. In the tech boom and crash around 2000 we saw the price of almost any company that added an @ to its name rise to crazy levels. IIRC Companies that had never made a profit nearly reached the FTSE100. Then it all crashed. Virtually none of those early pioneers are still around. And it wasn’t until 5 or more years later that the web economy became a significant reality creating a new set of major companies focussed on the consumer rather than the technology.

    We are seeing the same thing happen again with block chain and AI. Look at what happened to the price of Kodak over the past few days. Both to my mind are no more than interesting programming techniques where serious rewards are some way off. From an investment point of view the problem with both is that there is no cost of entry. Anyone can start up a company to develop the software. But very few software development companies make serious money, the rest simply burn their backer’s money away in a small number of years and disappear.

    So the question should be whether you focus your investing on technology or in the areas which may benefit from the technology.

    The best answer I can come up with is to simply continue investing as broadly as you can. It would be a mistake in my view to overweight technology more than it is already weighted in the major indexes. And that I fear may be too high.
  • Linton wrote: »
    mmm you can claim it is. Perhaps if the bank's voice recognition system used identical software to Siri but had just been trained differently I might be a bit more convinced. Or perhaps if it heard me becoming agitated it showed some sympathy. AI perhaps is a bit like magic where once you can see how it's done it ceases to be magic.

    More importantly to us on MSE - Do you think it has provided a lucrative investment?

    In the past people thought AI would be robots that behave like humans, and act as servants. Or be all knowing computers as per the ship computer in the original Star Trek series. The reality is quite different. Modern AI tackles narrow problems. Speech recognition is one. Already there are programs that can diagnose illness better than a doctor, or formulate an investment portfolio better than an IFA. And self driving cars too. This is going to transform society. Some predict massive job losses in middle class professions. I think there will be new jobs, managing the AI, and in the leisure sector.

    As you said in another post, it’s really hard to know where to invest. When Microsoft and Apple started, there were lots of computer companies. I remember the era well. Most have long since died. It will be the same with AI companies. I’ve worked in many tech companies where I knew the company was tarted up so it could be sold to an investor, to make the owners money. The staff knew the buyers were getting a pup. The original owners retired to the Bahamas after the sale. This is quite common. Perhaps the best approach is to do lots of research, then invest in a handful of small companies. Forget the hype, just decide if they have a good product, with an expanding market.
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