How many funds in your portfolio?

PParka

Hi,

It's a bit of a "how long is a piece of string" question, but what is the normal number of funds to have in your portfolio?

I currently have a S&S ISA with H&L and have a pretty balanced portfolio of 10 funds. The split is fairly even with about 10% of the total value held in each fund.
I'm thinking of putting some more money in, but can't decide if to add to my current funds or invest in new ones.

Is there a recommended number of funds to hold in a portfolio?
Would 15 funds be too many?

I'm looking at a long term investment (>15 years) if this makes a difference.

blinko

i hva about 4 but my portfolio is major risk and i very actively manage it, im looking to ride peaks and troughs which admitedly is the wrong way to do it,

but i keep a close eye on all the news feeds so i wouldnt recommend my strategy but everyone has there own

there arent too many funds or any rules the only thing i would recommend is if you do hold 15 funds doubel check them as there is a probability you are overlapping in areas eg emerging markets/brics/asia etc and you could be overexposed depending on yoru risk profile etc

its never easy but make your decisions based on data you can go heavier in an area and rebalance at a later date

Reaper

There isn't really a right number. You just need enough to cover the areas you want to cover.

If you only want to be in one market - e.g. UK smaller companies, there is no point in having 15 funds all duplicating the work.

If you want to be in 20 different sectors 15 may not be enough.

masonic

I try not to hold more than about 10% in any single fund, but there are a couple of areas where I only want to have, say, 5% exposure, so my portfolio tends to be spread between around 15 funds overall. I tend to be biased towards funds with a fairly broad investment area, so I don't normally go for single country geographic funds etc (other than the UK of course). If I did, I'd probably struggle to keep that number from creeping upward.

cloud_dog

PParka wrote: »

Is there a recommended number of funds to hold in a portfolio?

As this is a self managed investment my question would be... How many funds are you comfortable to actively monitor and manage?

I like to maintain a fairly focussed approach, which has its own set of risks, but it allows me to apply my efforts, research, investigations in certain areas.

Wobblydeb

None

There are currently 4 shares and 2 ETFs and about 20% in cash waiting for me to get off my bum and do some research

Loughton_Monkey

Currently, I'm in 25 funds, but really it's not that bad! For a start, I'm talking about both my own and my wife's ISA (I feed and manage both), and I would claim to have about 8 or 9 'positions'. For example, one of those positions is 'India' and so I tend to hedge it a bit (First State, Neptune, Jupiter) to ensure a good spread.

I tend to be comfortable with that number of positions, but wouldn't want any more. If you go too high, you might end up more or less with your own 'tracker' but paying too much for it!

cashbackproblems

Some of these funds are safe/low risk so having so many funds is just stupid, i will be opening 2/3 and keeping over long time. You go on about spreading your risk but the risk is spread in most funds e.g. different companies/countries.