Portfolio & Corporate Bonds

artha

jamesd wrote: »

The workaround for that at HL is to buy one fund then do a sell-split transaction. You can split the sale proceeds into say £25 of each fund you want to buy if you like. Maximum of five funds being bought per sale. Once you have any amount held in a fund the minimum purchase limit at HL falls to £250.

No other reason, just because you already have it.

Can you just clarify the advice here please as I'm not sure I understand it.

As I read it the minimum investment at H_L for a new portfolio fund is £1000 one off or £50 as a regular saving or £250 as a top up

For the former this means, if i understand correctly, that for a £1000 investment in fund X you could sell £125 and buy into 5 other new funds at £25 initial investment but then have to top up at £250 per fund?

DiggerUK

lemon26,

"Corporate bond flows suffered their first net outflows in nearly a year, as falling yields in the sector drove investors to look elsewhere for income.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e854b58c-e0c4-11de-9f58-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss

That is the explanation for the advice to "get out of corporate bond funds" as you report in your post.
Simple answers, don't you just love 'em.

Best of fortune.

TH1878

ozzage wrote: »

I had holdings in two pure corporate bond funds, but I've just moved them into M & G Optimal Income as I've decided I can't predict what's going to happen with bonds now and I'll leave it up to the expert...

Which is precisely what we're doing with our clients now - the Strategic Bond (Optimal Income) should perform better over the next phase of the cycle. It's probably a good time to start re-increasing property exposure as well.

Porcupine

artha wrote: »

As I read it the minimum investment at H_L for a new portfolio fund is £1000 one off or £50 as a regular saving or £250 as a top up

Yes, I think (there may be some funds where the minimum lump sum is £500 - haven't really been paying attention.

For the former this means, if i understand correctly, that for a £1000 investment in fund X you could sell £125 and buy into 5 other new funds at £25 initial investment but then have to top up at £250 per fund?

Yes. Or you could change your monthly payment to be £125 of some unexciting fund (gilt fund, perhaps). Let the payment go through and you buy the units. Then you do a switch, chopping that into 5 bits and switch into 20% (roughly £25) each of the funds you want. You can do this each month if you like (and it doesn't have to be £125/5, could be £50/2). Once you have a lump in each fund you can add to them in chunks of £250. When you're done, change your monthly payment back again.

jamesd

artha wrote: »

For the former this means, if i understand correctly, that for a £1000 investment in fund X you could sell £125 and buy into 5 other new funds at £25 initial investment but then have to top up at £250 per fund?

Right. And if you happen to have one you want to put 50 into and it doesn't let you, just add that to another one and then sell/split once the first purchase completes.

You should use an OEIC type fund for this normally, to avoid initial charges. But a unit trust with no initial charge is fine also. You lose a little bit in either case on the costs of purchasing that aren't fully accounted for in the initial charge but not enough to avoid doing it.

lemon26

Hi again, I may move to H-L in the future but, for the meantime, I have found a work-around with Fidelity. I have a tracker fund in my portfolio so I can pay into that (£250 min) then transfer out, only incurring a 0.25% fee. I can't afford the H-L minimum investment of £1000 so that's why I'm with Fidelity.

My portfolio is now:

Invesco Perp High Income: 22.14%
Artemis Strategic Assets R: 20.79%
Invesco Perp Corp Bond: 10.58%
Jupiter Int'l Financials Fund: 9.36%
Jupiter Financial Opps: 9.33%
Threadneedle UK Property Trust: 8.4%
HSBC Pacific Index: 6.53%
Jupiter India: 6.51%
JPM Natural Resources: 6.36%

Is there anywhere I'm missing out - would it be of benefit to increase the Pacific Index fund, get some more American Exposure (American Index / Threadneedle American Smaller Co's Acc) and maybe some emerging markets (Aberdeen / Baillie Gifford)?

I'm also looking at Invesco Global Smaller Co's for the New Year.

Thanks for any opinions / advice and Happy Christmas! Cheers, L

Lokolo

With HL you can set up a regular payment, which is £50 minimum per month per fund. Just set it up for £250 a month for one month then cancel.

QuietDragon

lemon26 wrote: »

My portfolio is now:

Invesco Perp High Income: 22.14%
Artemis Strategic Assets R: 20.79%
Invesco Perp Corp Bond: 10.58%
Jupiter Int'l Financials Fund: 9.36%
Jupiter Financial Opps: 9.33%
Threadneedle UK Property Trust: 8.4%
HSBC Pacific Index: 6.53%
Jupiter India: 6.51%
JPM Natural Resources: 6.36%

Is there anywhere I'm missing out - would it be of benefit to increase the Pacific Index fund, get some more American Exposure (American Index / Threadneedle American Smaller Co's Acc) and maybe some emerging markets (Aberdeen / Baillie Gifford)?

I'm also looking at Invesco Global Smaller Co's for the New Year.

Thanks for any opinions / advice and Happy Christmas! Cheers, L

Hi Lemon26,

My information offerings on your situation:

Your current fund is

HSBC Pacific Index Fund
Trailing Returns 24/12/2009
YTD 51.59%
3 Years Annualised 9.52%
5 Years Annualised 14.16%
10 Years Annualised 6.87%

These funds also exist:

Aberdeen Investment Asia Pacific Fund A Acc
Trailing Returns 24/12/2009
YTD 51.60%
3 Years Annualised 13.30%
5 Years Annualised 17.62%
10 Years Annualised 11.59%

Fidelity South East Asia
Trailing Returns 24/12/2009
YTD 55.71%
3 Years Annualised 18.34%
5 Years Annualised 23.97%
10 Years Annualised 9.87%

First State Asia Pacific A Acc
Trailing Returns 24/12/2009
YTD 38.63%
3 Years Annualised 15.98%
5 Years Annualised 20.42%
10 Years Annualised 14.13%

First State Asia Pacific Leaders A Acc
Trailing Returns 24/12/2009
YTD 33.88%
3 Years Annualised 17.22%
5 Years Annualised 20.30%
10 Years Annualised -

With regard to emerging markets...

Aberdeen Emerging Markets A Acc
Trailing Returns 24/12/2009
YTD 60.54%
3 Years Annualised 17.70%
5 Years Annualised 23.66%
10 Years Annualised 14.28%

First State Global Emerging Market A Acc
Trailing Returns 24/12/2009
YTD 55.36%
3 Years Annualised 16.38%
5 Years Annualised 21.61%
10 Years Annualised 13.77%

Baillie Gifford Emerging Markets Growth A Acc
Trailing Returns 24/12/2009
YTD 76.77%
3 Years Annualised 15.57%
5 Years Annualised 23.73%
10 Years Annualised 12.94%

JP Morgan Emerging Markets A
Trailing Returns 24/12/2009
YTD 52.85%
3 Years Annualised 11.63%
5 Years Annualised 21.17%
10 Years Annualised 11.03%

Schroder Global Emerging Market Acc
Trailing Returns 24/12/2009
YTD 57.40%
3 Years Annualised 13.56%
5 Years Annualised 20.28%
10 Years Annualised 7.74%

American exposure...

Take off your pants in Times Square?

Alternatively...

US Small-Cap Equity
Schroder US Smaller Companies Acc

US Mid-Cap Equity funds
Schroder US Mid Cap Fund Acc

US Large-Cap Growth Equity
Baillie Gifford American A Acc

None of the above constitutes "advice" (especially the bit about removing your trousers...). Rather, it is information freely available through a number of on-line investment service and information providers.

I use Morningstar.co.uk, and in particular its Portfolio Manager, Fund Screener, Fund Compare, and Fund X-Ray. If you have never used this service, the one piece of genuine advice I can give you is "give Morningstar a try". It is ABSOLUTELY free, and I haven't come across anything that matches its power, thoroughness, and ease of use.

lemon26

Hi QD, thanks for your posts, I'm going to stick with the Pacific Index tracker at present as it has a good return (mid-table) at quite a low cost. I'm going to build it up to 20% or so of my portfolio and I'm going to avaoid any specific American funds for the time being - I take it that was your views when you suggested I drop my pants in Times Square??

My portfolio, once I've done some tweaking, will look like this;

15-18% each - Artemis Strategic Assets, Invesco Perpetual High Income, HSBC Pacific Index, Threadneedle UK Property Trust

5-9% each - Invesco Perpetual Corporate Bond, JPM Natural Resources, Jupiter Financial Opportunities, Jupiter India, Jupiter International Financials

I've been using Morningstar to track my portfolio for a little while now but have only started investing 2 months ago so am still finding new things on it! I've been using Citywire too for fund rankings and performance.

Thank you for taking the time to provide the information in your post, L

QuietDragon

lemon26 wrote: »

Hi QD, thanks for your posts, I'm going to stick with the Pacific Index tracker at present as it has a good return (mid-table) at quite a low cost.

[Snip]

I've been using Morningstar to track my portfolio for a little while now but have only started investing 2 months ago so am still finding new things on it! I've been using Citywire too for fund rankings and performance.

Hi again,

If you're already using Morningstar, what you could do is set up a dummy (virtual) portfolio containing the Pacific Index tracker fund, alongside an equal value of (say) the Aberdeen Investment and Fidelity funds, and then watch them and compare them over the coming months. The historical performance differences markedly outweight the 0.7% or so difference in annual charges.