Hargreaves Lansdown marketing just a load of rubbish?

kar999

Although I am a customer of HL, I personally I do as much research as I can from as many sources as I can before parting with my hard earned cash.

RobStaffs

kar999 wrote: »

Although I am a customer of HL, I personally I do as much research as I can from as many sources as I can before parting with my hard earned cash.

Ditto.although after that process I am still utterly indecisive.:rotfl:

dunstonh

RobStaffs wrote: »

Ditto.although after that process I am still utterly indecisive.:rotfl:

That sums up most investment decisions

blinko

almondsalty wrote: »

This is the exact question a lot of people are asking! According to HL it is from a rigorous selection process and a complex maths modelling, but no methodology is detailed and a lot of people are becoming suspicious of selections.

The question is not for me to answer but HL themselves don't you think?

not really ! in your mind how did you think they made this 150 list up ?

Rollinghome

Some people won't see it as any worse than the way that soap powder’s sold. But I think investments that could have a long-term effect on people's lives are different and that's generally recognised by government and by the FSA. Investment advertising has always been more strictly controlled than sales of soap-powder.

IFAs are rightly to be reined in by the FSA's RDR banning commission, so that the investment companies won’t be able to use them as just a salesforce to sell their products after 2012. From 2013, IFAs will have to sell advice and not commission-paying investment products. That could mean the fund managers become still more reliant on companies like HL for sales and that doesn't sound healthy to me.

It's particularly a problem when HL's marketing is given credibility by so many lazy journalists in return for a free articles and quotations. The marketing of the Fidelity China SS fund that was initially slated by Dampier until HL found out how much commission they could earn from it and it suddenly became the best thing ever shows the high level of cynicism in the company.

Reining in IFAs only to give HL a free run can't be good for investors. I use HL but for anyone with more than a few pence invested with them their remuneration is huge for what they do in return and we need more and better competition.

jamesd

HL is exemplary in many ways. Some good - customer service - others less so - costs for larger pots and potential consumer detriment if the payments they seek cause funds to increase charges or move charges from AMC to TER or out of TER as well.

When writing here I really like the confidence I can have that if I send a newcomer to HL they are going to get the help they need to get things set up and transferred or have their technical questions answered by a very capable organisation.

almondsalty

Rollinghome wrote: »

It's particularly a problem when HL's marketing is given credibility by so many lazy journalists in return for a free articles and quotations. The marketing of the Fidelity China SS fund that was initially slated by Dampier until HL found out how much commission they could earn from it and it suddenly became the best thing ever shows the high level of cynicism in the company.

Good point about the lazy journalists. They seem to love 'free quotes' and HL is always there. For example Keith Bowman an 'analyst' at HL has over 300 recent mentions on Google news, not all are unique.

Seems like a great PR guy!

jimjames

jamesd wrote: »

HL is exemplary in many ways. Some good - customer service - others less so - costs for larger pots and potential consumer detriment if the payments they seek cause funds to increase charges or move charges from AMC to TER or out of TER as well.

When writing here I really like the confidence I can have that if I send a newcomer to HL they are going to get the help they need to get things set up and transferred or have their technical questions answered by a very capable organisation.

Having moved a number of ISAs and SIPPs to HL I was very impressed with the way that they handled the transfers and the communications during them. Compared to some other organisations they certainly were first rate but I guess these comments on their charges shows that you get what you pay for - good service & staff training to deliver it costs money.

masonic

jimjames wrote: »

Lindsell Train launch a new fund and it immediately goes into the 150 due to the managers experience. Yet the UK fund with the same managers AND track record isn't rated at all!

...and Hargreaves Lansdown is even listed in its top 10 holdings.

Reaper

masonic wrote: »

...and Hargreaves Lansdown is even listed in its top 10 holdings.

Actually they are busy reducing HL shares in their UK equity fund. Of the total fund investment HL made up these proportions of it:
31 March = 7.4%
31 April = 7.2%
31 May = 6.5%