Portfolio Advice

kayleigh

Could you please offer your views (good and bad) on my portfolio.

My ISA badly needs rebalanced.

Bit of background.

Married - no kids. Aged 38.

Mortgage is 14k on a 180k house. Should pay off within 12 months.

We had a few buy to let properties in various stages of years left to pay off - currently using the profit to pay off our residential mortgage for tax purposes. Value of BTL - 400k. Outstanding debt - 180k. Have a 10 year plan to get shot of the mortgages on these.

Cash - about 3-4 months net salary - will build up to 6 months over the next 6 months. Just bought a car - so it took a bit of dent.

Right - background out the way - it is my ISA I need help with.

I have just over 50k in shares ISAs - but it is all over the place - too much in some areas - too little in others.

Current -

Europe - 7.5%
UK - 35%
Global - 35%
Specialist - 9%
North America - 6%
Asia - 4%
Property - 3%

After reading many threads on this board - think I need to balance myself a bit better

Europe 15%

Neptune European Opps
Ignis Argonaut

I had been investing in Artemis European Growth - but it is doing terribly compared to others - time to bail out I think (unless I can be persuaded otherwise)

UK - 32%
Fidelity Special Situations 9%
Standard Life UK Equity Growth 9%
Standard Life UK Smaller 5%
Invesco Perpetual Income 9%

Asia 9%
Fidelity China 4%
Fidelity SE Asea 5%

Emerging Markets - 14%

Aberdeen Emerging 5%
Allianz BRIC 5%
Neptune Russia 4%

North America 10%

Neptune US Opp 5%
Schroder US Smaller 5%

Global 15%
Fidelity Global Special Sit 7.5%
Neptune Global 7.5%

Property 5%
Fidelity Global Property

I also hold M&G Recovery - about 5% of my total - which I top up if I have spare cash - it is not in an ISA - I currently fill my ISA anyway.

I also have JPM Natural Resources - bought 2 years ago (about 2.5%) - just left to do what ever it will do.

I was investing in New Star Global Financials - but think i will stop now their prize manager has gone to Jupiter. Will probably just hold and see how the new guy does - or move it to Jupiter - but it has already soared - so may just leave it and see what happens.

I have read about bonds - but never had them in my ISA - understand they are lower risk - might be persuaded.

So if your still reading -

1 - What would you change if this was yours. Either spread / funds. I plan to move the current 50k into these funds and then invest monthly into them as well - about £500 - so hopefully my monthly drip feed will not be below the limts.

fg22

Firstly, what are your objectives, is this a retirement fund?

My thoughts;
It's probably higher risk than I would choose (as it has no bonds and a high proportion of emerging markets), but so long as you're happy with its risk profile than thats ok.

Investments in emerging markets probably make up 25% of you're portfolio once you include the asian and global funds and you may have a particularly high exposure to china via the single country fund as it will also be a large component of some of the other funds. (You can run it through morningstar x-ray or similar to find out)

You have no Japanese funds, these have performed poorly in the past but Japan is still one of the largest economies - was this a conscious decision? You should also check which other countries are under-represented such as Australia.

Consider using a small percentage of your fund (5%) on alternative investments such as commodities or absolute return funds which have a lower correlation.

kayleigh

Thanks for the quick reply.

It is more a rainy day fund - with no thoughts of using it in the next 10 years - would ideally like to have enough in it to buy a 2nd home in Florida in 10-15 years time - I have a pension fund via my work.

No reason not to be in Japan - maybe go from Neptune Russia to to something Japan - probably enough exposure to Russia in BRIC.