Passive investment - investments and platform

moneybrief · 4 July 2010 at 7:40PM

I'm a new user - apologies if this thread is in the wrong place, or has been covered previously.

I have a collection of ISAs/old PEPs and other investments, mainly in actively managed investment and unit trusts. I'm thinking of moving largely to passive investment, aiming to save cost and simplify my portfolio. (My thinking has been influenced by "Smarter Investing" by Tim Hale, recommended by others on this site). At present I use the Alliance and Fidelity platforms.

Current thoughts are to have passive investments for some or all of the following sectors (1) Global Equity; (2) possibly Global Value and Smaller Companies; (3) Emerging Markets Equity; (4) Global commercial property; (5) Commodities; (6) possibly UK Equity; (7) possibly UK Value and Smaller Companies.

The aim would be to invest for 10-15 years or more, with annual rebalancing.

Questions:
(1) Does anyone have experience of setting up this kind of passive investment portfolio?
- If so, do you have any recommendations of funds/ETFs which are good for sctors identified above? (ie good tracking and low cost)
(2) Do you have any recommendations as to a platform on which to do this exercise cheaply and simply?
- Any experience of using Alliance or Fidelity platforms for this purpose?
(3) Any particular advice on do's and don'ts in carrying out this exercise?
(4) Any strategic views on passive asset allocation at the moment? eg as to particular "tilts" to adopt when structuring the portfolio.
(5) Any thoughts on tracking gold at this stage, and best ways of doing so?

Many thanks in advance for any constructive ideas.

smallfry27 · 16 August 2010 at 6:04PM

Just found your old post, I think you raised too many questions in one go, hence no replies. I have just finished Tim Hale's book, I didn't really understand the tilts bit. I plan to just find a UK all share tracker, possibly two global trackers with slightly different targets (only because Hale says put quite a lot in the global sector, and I don't want too much in one fund), and something based on property.

Not wishing to plagarise everyone elses posts, but info I've found on the forum includes - BestInvest were reckoned by some to be cheapest for trackers, but I don't think they do ETFs. A few comments put me off using Fidelity, though someone also said their site was good for planning portfolios. Motley Fool do ETFs, also TD Waterhouse but their site didn't strike me as very DIY-user friendly. Apparently a lot of gold funds are actually gold mine investments, but you could try BlackRock.

Chapter 13 of Hale gives fairly easy steps to follow in seeking out funds. I aim to start out with the ones in the book, and another one I have by John Kay, then also seek out the ones with low TER as Hale recommends. Sites like Morning Star let you select by keyword and then list in order of TER. When I have a list of possibles, I will compare reviews or fact sheets on some other sites, eg TrustNet. You can also use reviews on BestInvest, Hargreaves Lansdown, but they are marketing driven.

juicyjude · 16 August 2010 at 7:17PM

Have reported above as spam

smallfry27 · 17 August 2010 at 9:40AM

Unfortunately now that they have deleted the spam (which I also reported) it now looks like my post was the spam. Better to just report it, or just say 'spam reported'.