Funds/portfolio advice

blinko

DiggerUK wrote: »

You seem very light in gold exposure, JPM gives you some, but no great amount.
M&G Recovery served Digger Mansions well in the days that equities did what they said on the tin. Not any more, time to move on.

Get some gold exposure, it's the only game on the horizon. And I include physical in that recommendation, especially at a 15 year time frame.

Best of fortune.

gold is at all time highs ???

chedburgh

DiggerUK wrote: »

You seem very light in gold exposure, JPM gives you some, but no great amount.
M&G Recovery served Digger Mansions well in the days that equities did what they said on the tin. Not any more, time to move on.

Get some gold exposure, it's the only game on the horizon. And I include physical in that recommendation, especially at a 15 year time frame.

Best of fortune.

Yes, i am light since i believe it is looking like a bubble at the moment, bad time to buy.

chedburgh

masonic wrote: »

I spent quite a long period of time looking for a US fund that I liked the look of, but eventually I gave up. I got my extra US exposure through global funds that were biased toward the US (e.g. Neptune Global Equity and Jupiter Global Managed). I didn't need or want much, so I was able to do that without throwing everything else off. The other benefit of taking that approach was that by not being tied down to a particular geography, there is at least theoretically somewhere for the manager to flee when things don't look good in the US. With the Neptune fund, there is also the benefit of getting a bit of Russia on the side without having to cope with the full-on swings of that market. For the same reasons I've also tended to stick to the generic emerging market funds (I hold both of those you've mentioned), but in general I have a quite similar portfolio to yours - right down to several of the individual fund choices.

Thanks, another good idea to look into, using Global Growth to gain exposure in the US and other markets (Japan). I like Robin Geffen's, so the Neptune fund is attractive to me anyway, but there are quite a few good funds in this sector. I think something like a global special situations would be interesting!

ScarletBea

Sorry to peg on your thread, but I found it quite interesting, both your question and the replies.
I'm very risk averse, and have basically all my savings in fixed bonds or guaranteed return products), but the rates are bad at the best times, and I want to diversify a bit.

Last year I opened a S&S ISA for the first time, with £1000 in each fund, and now I want to do the same.
I have 2 corporate bond funds (still my cautious side winning), M&G and Invesco, and a UK equity one (Invesco Income)
Now I wanted to risk a bit, and move outside Europe, and was wondering if your option of First State Asia Pacific Leaders would be ok, not *too* risky.
Or if I should select a USA fund first, before moving into Asia (although I'll probably get both this year).
Which ones?

I know all about going down as well as up, and as long as the total's ok, I don't mind it going down for a while, if after, say, 5 years, the result is positive.
Sorry for the totally dumb request...

blinko

how are you bond returns doing ?

savings have always been dire but they are risk free, eg my portfolio i invested last monday and it was down 2.5% on friday !!! but subsequently its down 0.5% today so its a pain to have to see it in the red but hopefully this time next it will all be green

I would recommend emerging markets if you have 5 years, the US is a good bet at the moment long term but probably not as good a long term as emerging markets

ScarletBea

blinko wrote: »

how are you bond returns doing ?

quite good, about 4-5% higher (since Feb when I started).
It's the Invesco Income one that's currently slightly lower, but I'm still holding on to it.

masonic

ScarletBea wrote: »

Now I wanted to risk a bit, and move outside Europe, and was wondering if your option of First State Asia Pacific Leaders would be ok, not *too* risky.
Or if I should select a USA fund first, before moving into Asia (although I'll probably get both this year).
Which ones?

I don't think being risk averse should automatically rule out any particular fund you are interested in - it's about striking the right balance between high and low risk funds. As you move up the scale of risk, you'd ideally want to reduce the proportion of your portfolio allocated to those riskier funds, down to 10% (or even 5%) in a more risky fund (or market sector). As long as a significant majority is at a comfortable risk level, the riskier funds can only do limited damage if they perform very badly.

As for the First State fund, it is lower risk than many other Asia Pacific funds, so it seems to fit what you are looking for, but it is obviously still significantly higher risk than anything you currently have.

sabretoothtigger

I noticed a random choice of funds I made in july for a newspaper competition has done ok. July 1st was roughly the bottom for this year so probably that was the biggest reason why I got average 7% but still thought I'd post up what I chose




http://fantasyfundmanager.telegraph.co.uk/my_account/

sunil1234

chedburgh wrote: »

Hello Folks,

I was hoping some of the knowledgeable investors here could give me a little feedback or critique of my current funds portfolio. I am coming up to a milestone where i am going to attempt to balance things out a little more. It looks as follows:

Invesco Perpetual High Income 12.7%
JPM Natural Resources 11.0%
First State Global Emerging Markets Leaders 9.6%
Invesco Perpetual Monthly Income Plus 9.4%
First State Asia Pacific Leaders 9.1%
Schroder European Alpha Plus 8.1%
Marlborough Special Situations 8.0%
Neptune Russia and Greater Russia 6.0%
M&G Recovery 5.9%
Aberdeen Emerging Markets 5.9%
Henderson UK Property 5.8%
First State Indian Subcontinent 2.9%
Marlborough UK Micro Cap Growth 2.9%
Neptune Latin America 2.8%

Now some important notes!

I have grown the portfolio a an ad-hock way, mainly with my interest in higher risk areas, and also with an view to emerging markets and UK equity/assets. Yes, i am very tolerant to high risk, but i would like to balance things out as i see as a sensible idea at this point in the portfolio's life. My investment time-frame is around 15 years or more.

I am currently primarily focusing on growing the Marlborough UK Micro Cap, Neptune Latin America and First State Indian Subcontinent, secondly with M&G Recovery and First State Asia Pacific Leaders, this suits my current aims (stated above), but i am reaching them end of this "phase". I do top up other funds with small amounts.

This is not an eggs all in one basket scenario, i make sure i hold the portfolio value again in cash, and i am becoming interested in share investing (in UK equities only) as a smaller part of the complete portfolio.

I was thinking of adding an single North America fund, maybe a european special situations. Possibly a sovereign bonds fund, but i feel these are a little over valued right now, so maybe emerging markets bonds or high yield?

What do you think? Feedback, ideas and pointing out anything bad in my strategy very welcome!

Many thanks

i like your fund choice, i am investing in many of the same funds with H-L for ISA and SIPP.

I would also suggest some gold fund, maybe blackrock. Also maybe STd Life UK smaller companies and a Bond fund?

HTH

S

chedburgh

sunil1234 wrote: »

i like your fund choice, i am investing in many of the same funds with H-L for ISA and SIPP.

I would also suggest some gold fund, maybe blackrock. Also maybe STd Life UK smaller companies and a Bond fund?

HTH

S

I used to hold the Blackrock Gold fund, but i sold it and took the profits earlier this year, since it unbalanced my portfolio and weighted it far to heavily into gold. I retain a small overall percentage invested in gold mining via JPM Natural Resources and various other funds.

I have both Marlborough Special Situations and Micro Cap Growth, both UK smaller companies, one of my favoured areas (UK Equity).

In the end I decided to take Invesco Perpetual's Global Smaller Companies and Investec's Emerging Market Debt. These both suited what i was originally looking for, additional exposure to the US, trying to balance out the equity versus bond element, yet retain the aggressive roller-coaster ride.