Best FTSE Tracker Fund

dunstonh

FTSE 100 has slightly trailed the all-share in recent years,

Slightly? FTSE100 trackers have been consistently in the 4th quartile for the last 15 years. 10 year performance to end of 2008 saw cumulative performance in bottom percentile. That means that they were in the worst 10% of funds for performance.

At least the FTSE all share is going to be consistently mid table.

Rollinghome

dunstonh wrote: »

Slightly? FTSE100 trackers have been consistently in the 4th quartile for the last 15 years. 10 year performance to end of 2008 saw cumulative performance in bottom percentile. That means that they were in the worst 10% of funds for performance.

I suggest you read what I said.

I said the FTSE100, i.e.the index, had underperformed the allshare index. You seem to be referring to funds. There is a considerable difference.

The figures I have are:
Year to 10/06/05 to 10/06/06 to 10/06/07 to 0/06/08 to 10/06/09
FTSE-100 16.09% 16.24% 18.89% -6.96% -20.28%
FTSE All Share 16.76% 17.75% 20.78% -8.61% -20.07%

Overall the FTSE 100 is down against the all-share by 2.3% over 5 years.

I also pointed out, please refer to my post, that FTSE100 trackers often charge higher fees than all-share trackers and therefore do less well as a result.

For example over 1, 3 and 5 years:
F&C FTSE 100 Tracker 1 -20.2 -13.0 +14.5 (fees 1.0%)
F&C FTSE All Share Tracker 1 Inc -19.1 -10.8 +21.1 (fees 0.30%)

The fees for the FTSE 100 are 1.00% pa but are only 0.30% p.a for the all-share tracker. There are of couse FTSE100 trackers that charge much less than F&C. It illustrates the effects of higher fees.

I'd also point out that as the average performance for UT's in UK all companies sector is -20.8 -13.7 +17.0 that does not seem to put even the F&C FTSE 100 tracker in the bottom quartile as you suggest.

10 year performance to end of 2008 saw cumulative performance in bottom percentile. That means that they were in the worst 10% of funds for performance.

No, to be in the "bottom percentile", if it were true, would mean they were in the bottom 1%, not the bottom 10%. I assume you mean "decile".

Perhaps you can give the figures for what you claim and say where you got them. Coming out with wild claims without figures and misusing statistical terms could cause confusion.

dunstonh

No, to be in the "bottom percentile", if it were true, would mean they were in the bottom 1%, not the bottom 10%. I assume you mean "decile".

Yes I did.

Perhaps you can give the figures for what you claim and say where you got them. Coming out with wild claims without figures and misusing statistical terms could cause confusion.

Not wild claims and figures have been posted a number of times in past similar threads and i have copied and pasted it below:

I have put the percentile in brackets. Sector average is mid table so would be 50. If a fund is (1) that makes it top. If it is (100) it makes it bottom. Each year is the discrete performance (that year only) I have also topped it off with the 10 year cumulative figures (if you started 10 years ago what would you have averaged)

Year    Sector Average     L&G 100      L&G all share
 
1996     16.62              13.75 (73)      15.15  (60)
1997     18.29              26.97 (13)      22.01  (46)
1998     9.78               15.22 (23)      13.13  (35)
1999     26.07              17.30 (89)      23.18  (54)
2000    -4.58              -9.78  (89)      -5.73  (53)
2001    -14.67             -15.41 (68)     -13.17  (38)
2002    -23.55             -23.88 (58)     -22.97  (42)
2003     22.66              15.32 (96)      19.99  (57)
2004     12.65              8.69  (85)      11.88  (48)
2005     21.23              17.94 (83)      21.11  (43)
2006     17.46              12.39 (89)      16.42  (53)
2007     1.62               4.83  (34)       4.45  (37)
10 year cumulative
        5.55%               3.18% (94)      5.68%  (46)

Source: Financial Express

Rollinghome

1) First of all, do you understand that I referred to the indices, see my post:

FTSE 100 has slightly trailed the all-share in recent years

The FTSE100 has underperformed the All-share by 2.31% over the last 5 years according to the H-L which uses data from Financial Express. Financial Express give the FTSE 100 as up 18.99% over the last 5 years, the All-share 21.3%. Over the last 3 years the difference is 0.05% and over 1 year 1.89%.

So do you still think it wrong to describe that as having "slightly trailed", as I did, and if so could you explain why?

2) You said:

FTSE100 trackers have been consistently in the 4th quartile for the last 15 years

Are you sure you aren't getting muddled?

I haven't found those figures you give so can't check your interpretation but I can direct you to the figures here also supplied by Financial Express on their Trustnet site. http://www.trustnet.com/Investments/Perf.aspx?Pf_Sector=U:UG&univ=U&Pf_AssetClass=A%3a&Pf_sortedColumn=Performance

You'll see there that the L&G UK 100 tracker retail was -19.5% down this year. That puts it in position 114 out of the 328 funds in the UK All Companies sector. It's therefore as usual in the upper half of the 2nd quartile. The average loss by the 328 UT funds in that sector, including both managed funds and trackers, was -20.8%.

Are you sure you aren't getting muddled up with "percentiles" again. Are you sure those figures in brackets aren't their position in the sector and nothing to do with the percentile positions? Could you do as I've done and give your figures with a link so that we can verify them?

I don't disagree with you that the L&G all-share tracker is likely to be the better bet, not least because the charges are lower, but I can't help thinking you might be getting muddled with your figures somehow. So if you could direct us to where we can see the figures you quote for ourselves that would sort things out.

As you describe yourself as an IFA other users will tend to rely on what you say so if you keeping repeating the same facts it's important that they should be right and not misinterpretted.

dunstonh

You'll see there that the L&G UK 100 tracker retail was -19.5% down this year. That puts it in position 114 out of the 328 funds in the UK All Companies sector. It's therefore as usual in the upper half of the 2nd quartile

How can you say it was " as usual in the upper half of the 2nd quartile" when between 1996 and 2007 it only made the second the second quartile twice?

Are you sure you aren't getting muddled up with "percentiles" again. Are you sure those figures in brackets aren't their position in the sector and nothing to do with the percentile positions?

Is there really only 100 funds in the sector?

I don't disagree with you that the L&G all-share tracker is likely to be the better bet, not least because the charges are lower, but I can't help thinking you might be getting muddled with your figures somehow.

copied and pasted direct from source. Only the formatting was edited so it appeared in the post visually correct.

So if you could direct us to where we can see the figures you quote for ourselves that would sort things out.

Look them up yourself. The figures are the annual discrete performances by calender year.

As you describe yourself as an IFA other users will tend to rely on what you say so if you keeping repeating the same facts it's important that they should be right and not misinterpretted.

Others have checked them and verified them. Its all taken from published data.

In fact I am more concerned with your data.

You said

You'll see there that the L&G UK 100 tracker retail was -19.5% down this year. That puts it in position 114 out of the 328 funds in the UK All Companies sector. It's therefore as usual in the upper half of the 2nd quartile. The average loss by the 328 UT funds in that sector, including both managed funds and trackers, was -20.8%.

Financial Express show the fund up 3.3% year to date (and check the 2005, 6 and 7 figures as they match what I posted before. 2008 wasnt on those figures as the data was posted in 2008. BTW, the year to date figure of 3.3% puts it 250th out of 335 funds. Right at the bottom of third quartile.

           YTD   2008     2007    2006    2005   
L&G 100  3.30%   -29.19%   4.83%   12.39%  17.94%   
Sector   8.54%   -31.96%   1.85%   17.38%  20.86%   
      

Here are links to two pdf files of data taken straight from the Financial Express server. One just shows sector average and L&G 100 fund and the other shows all funds in the sector (alphabetical order) and their performance stats and their position in ranking (out of all funds in sector).

http://files.me.com/files2/iereoy all funds
http://files.me.com/files2/f6i44c just l&G and sector average

Rollinghome

dunstonh wrote: »

How can you say it was " as usual in the upper half of the 2nd quartile" when between 1996 and 2007 it only made the second the second quartile twice?

How can you say as you did " FTSE100 trackers have been consistently in the 4th quartile for the last 15 years." when even you later say that fund occupied the 13th percentile in 1997. That isn't consistent.

Is there really only 100 funds in the sector?

No, as I said, according to the Trustnet/Financial Express link I gave there are 328.

In fact I am more concerned with your data.

The figures are all on the link to Trustnet/Financial Express I gave you. Take a look. It should be right up to date, not old data.

Thanks for the links you've now given. I'll take a look tomorrow.

dunstonh

How can you say as you did " FTSE100 trackers have been consistently in the 4th quartile for the last 15 years." when even you later say that fund occupied the 13th percentile in 1997. That isn't consistent.

I said the fund made the top quartile twice in that ten year period. The bulk of the time it was in the 4th quartile.

The figures are all on the link to Trustnet/Financial Express I gave you. Take a look. It should be right up to date, not old data.

The figures in the pdf come straight off financial express and are dated and timed to a few hours ago and goes back 10 calender years. There is no point me looking at the free version of financial express when the paid for version I use gives more information.

jem16

Rollinghome wrote: »

You'll see there that the L&G UK 100 tracker retail was -19.5% down this year. That puts it in position 114 out of the 328 funds in the UK All Companies sector. It's therefore as usual in the upper half of the 2nd quartile. The average loss by the 328 UT funds in that sector, including both managed funds and trackers, was -20.8%.

1. You each seem to be looking at a slightly different version of the fund.

2. Dunstonh is giving the YTD figure and the discrete performance figures (i.e. that year only), usually a better indication of how a fund is performing.

You are giving the cumulative figures for 1yr, 2yr, 3yr etc.

I've customised the Trustnet table to use YTD and discrete performance figures. YTD shows 3.9% for your version of the fund. Clicking on YTD to sort the table brings the fund at 240th.

http://www.trustnet.com/Investments/Perf.aspx?univ=U&Pf_AssetClass=A:&Pf_Sector=U:UG&Pf_sortedColumn=Performance[Ann].PToDate,NameFull&Pf_sortedDirection=DESC

Basically fits with what Dunstonh is saying.

jamesd

Rollinghome, here are the annual performance rankings from Trustnet for that fund:

2008: 77/328 first quartile
2007: 70/328 first quartile
2006: 213/328 third quartile
2005: 286/328 fourth quartile
2004: 278/328 fourth quartile

So maybe it's been less bad recently than in the past.

Rollinghome

Dunstonh, I think the confusion is because the links you gave refer to two different funds - including one having much higher charges than the standard Retail version of the fund.

The PDF file on the first link you give seems to refer to the L&G UK 100 INDEX RET ACC which is the normal retail one that is available direct from L&G (and from H-L).

The most recent figures that file gives are for 31/12/07 to 31/12/08. (Page 9) Those show the performance of the L&G UK 100 Index for that period as being -28.29% and ranks it at position 81 of the 326 funds in the sector - i.e. at the bottom of the top quartile. Your link doesn't give any data on the percentiles for funds and doesn't give the 10 year cumulative data for that fund because it's only been running for about 3 or so years.

(It also gives the 'bid to bid' statistics and not the 'offer to bid' statistics which therefore ignores any front-end or exit fees on funds that would apply unless fully rebated to the client. There are no front-end or exit charges on the L&G Retail trackers which would considerably enhance its position if taken into account.)

On the second link you gave, the figures seem to be for the L&G UK 100 INDEX E ACC.

The yield on the Retail fund is 3.8% but only 2.4% on the E fund. The big 1.4% gap seems to be due to whacking charges on the E fund, possibly to allow for a better commission structure for intermediaries or whatever.

You can see that the figures on the second link don't agree with the figures on your first link. For example, on the first link the figure for 31/12/07 to 31/12/08 is given as -28.29. On the second link the figure is shown as -29.19. The second link gives figures for 12 years but the first link doesn't give figures beyond three years for that fund and the earliest period given looks like it could be a partial year only. That ties in with the Financial Express figures on the H-L site and on Trustnet.

The figures on the Financial Express/Trustnet site or the H-L site using the Financial Express feed properly identify the different funds so aren't ambiguous and certainly don't support the idea that the retail fund is "consistently" in the bottom quartile or bottom percentile. It's where you'd expect it to be:

L&G UK 100 Index Ret Acc, position 114 of 328 over 1 year and ranked at 122 over 3 years, i.e, both towards the top of the second quartile. The ranking given in your first PDF file for last year is 81 which is bottom of the top quartile.

Cumulative figures to date for the two funds/classes over 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years…
L&G UK 100 Index R Acc : +4.30%, -20.04%, -12.93%, N/A
L&G UK 100 Index E Acc : +2.91%, -21.02%, -15.58%, +9.21%

Discrete calendar year performance:
For 11/06/04-1/06/05, 11/06/05-1/06/06, 11/06/06-1/06/07, 11/06/07-11/06/08, 11/06/08-1/06/09
L&G UK 100 Index Ret Acc N/A, N/A, 18.05% -7.76% -20.04%
L&G UK 100 Index E Acc 14.28% 13.19% 17.37% -8.92% -21.02%

With charges similar to a managed fund the E fund will be well behind over time also as expected.

Obviously if anyone has been sold the E fund rather than the normal Retail fund they should look to swapping - and maybe swapping their adviser.