European Growth ISA - keep or sell ?

noahveil

moneytroll wrote:

while i can sort of see the logic of doing a little bit of market-timing with shares (eg buy some when they are low) i don't quite understand why it would be beneficial when it comes to funds. surely slightly different principles apply (as opposed to a diy approach) as you have a manager who will switch between mini-sectors for you if really necessary (even if it is within one big sector, like EU). so by switching funds frequently when there are large fluctuations in the economy, you have the costs for trading shares within a fund (which are reflected in the performance of a fund i suppose) as well as the costs of switching to another fund if you do 'sector rotation' (if there are initial charges

While it may not be necessary to switch funds as often as individual shares, a certain amount of funds monitoring is vital ;

a) Previously good managers can and do go off the boil vis a vis their sector peers.

b) The fund can become just too large and struggle to maintain outperformance (most relevant to small-cap funds).

c) A good manager may leave/retire etc. to be replaced by a not-so-good or unproven talent.

Also, if in narrowly based specialist funds, and these sectors fall from grace, a fund manager, no matter how good, has nowhere to go and the only option is to sell/switch.

Lilaclily_2

Thank you to everyone who has left a view/comment/answer to my question, it is helpful to share thoughts with others. It is still a difficult process to work out what and when to do the right thing, but with everyone's help I'm sure I'll get there.