Help me rebalance my failing S&S ISAs Portfolio - Sept 2011

gadgetmind

Ark_Welder wrote: »

If professional active managers are unable to beat an index, why should we believe that any amateur investors having their own direct holdings can either?

I don't aim to beat the yield that fund/IT managers can get, just to get the same and also get the 1%-2% they charge as fees as a bonus on top.

Ark_Welder

gadgetmind wrote: »

I don't aim to beat the yield that fund/IT managers can get, just to get the same and also get the 1%-2% they charge as fees as a bonus on top.

Exactly. Each to our own method of achieving our aims - which aren't always the same, either. Personally, I prefer using different personal shoppers for the majority of my purchases so that I can get on with doing other things (except when it comes to pickling shallots, in which case I might rather analyse company accounts. I think ).

jabbahut40

Many thanks to jedersmart, jamesd and bendix for sharing their portfolio holdings. Is anyone else (atush? arkwelder? gadgetmind? darkpool? kar999? etc) happy to share their portfolio UT/OEIC holdings so that I can see some other examples as help?

Thanks in advance.

Jabba

darkpool

DavidLaGuardia wrote: »

The weight of non-investment-industy academic evidence on the passive side is quite frankly overwhelming compared to the pro-actives

yeah, I 100% agree.

I just find it amazing the amount of people on this site that seem unable to understand academic evidence. Most of the pro AM arguments on this site seem to be mentioning a few Unit Trusts that have been top quartile for a few years running - an argument that is intellectualy feeble.

darkpool

jabbahut40 wrote: »

Many thanks to jedersmart, jamesd and bendix for sharing their portfolio holdings. Is anyone else (atush? arkwelder? gadgetmind? darkpool? kar999? etc) happy to share their portfolio UT/OEIC holdings so that I can see some other examples as help?

Thanks in advance.

Jabba

tbh i have too many holdings to mention.

i personally prefer companies with a low p/e ratio and a high dividend, the last shares i bought were: SSE, british land, centrica and smith news.

i think a good company for a first time investor would be SSE. if your happy giving a fund manager over 2% of your portfolio each year stick with unit trusts....

gadgetmind

jabbahut40 wrote: »

Is anyone else (atush? arkwelder? gadgetmind? darkpool? kar999? etc) happy to share their portfolio UT/OEIC holdings so that I can see some other examples as help?

My UT/OEIC holdings are small, historical, embarrassing and will shortly be switched to less trendy and expensive investment vehicles.

My IT holds are "conviction" ITs such as PNL, RIT and RICA, and I also have dividend equity holdings in 15+ FTSE blue chips, and a metric shed load of tech shares that I bought back in early 2009 when the world was collapsing (around our ears ...) and that have since done the wipe-out,5x/10x/15x boogie such that they are delivering CGT pain/decisions. I also hold a few bank ords and prefs just to prove that my sanity has bounds.

Alongside this, I have pensions in a mixture of balanced managed funds and EM/Pacific funds, and 3x take home money in cash and NS&I certs.

I currently hold no bonds and doubt I will for a few years yet. I sold mine too soon, but was happy to be in cash when I was.

gadgetmind

Ark_Welder wrote: »

Personally, I prefer using different personal shoppers for the majority of my purchases

Me too, as long as by "personal shopper" you mean "guy at the market stall" and by "majority of my purchases" you mean "fruit and veg".

Everything else comes from Oddbins or ebay, mostly the former.

Linton

DavidLaGuardia wrote: »

The idea that some markets like the Far East are less perfect than the US/UK and warrant active involvement is enticing, until the cost of being active in these markets in put under the microscope. The trading spreads are much larger and sufficient to wipe out most of the advantage.

You can believe that if you want to. My far east managed funds which I have held for around 10 years are showing an average return of about 10% annually (and that's after the recent falls). How's your FTSE tracker performing??

Until recently there were no far east trackers.

It all goes to demonstrate my key point: what is important in investing is chosing the right mix of sectors. What funds you use to invest in those sectors is a secondary concern, as long as you avoid the obvious dogs.

Linton

DavidLaGuardia wrote: »

The weight of non-investment-industy academic evidence on the passive side is quite frankly overwhelming compared to the pro-actives

Err no. The academic evidence is mainly from the US where different tax rules penalise managed funds . If you look at the paper you quote you see that it is based on an analysis of some 2000 US funds. That evidence shows that the managed funds do not statistically significantly outperform trackers in the long term. There is no evidence that trackers outperform managed funds.

Indeed, as the paper says...

"Most actively managed funds provide either positive or zero net-of-expense alphas, putting them at least on par with passive funds.” False Discoveries in Mutual Fund Performance - Measuring Luck in Estimated Alphas (2008)
Authors: Laurent Barras Swiss Finance Institute - Imperial College London – Tanaka Business School O. Scaillet University of Geneva – HEC Swiss Finance Institute Russ R. Wermers University of Maryland- Robert H. Smith School of Business.

So the academic evidence would seem to be that there is no good reason based on overall return for preferring either passive or active funds.

I would agree with that.

Note that overall return is not the only important factor. As you will see from reading this forum many investors are keen to sacrifice some potential total return in order reduce volatility, which they interpret as risk. Manged funds can do that for you.

Trackers will fluctuate with the index. This variability can be considerable: look at the graph of the FTSE100 over the past 15 years. To encourage novice investors to go for trackers when what they feel they want is to minimise the risk of losing significant value is unhelpful.

Ark_Welder

gadgetmind wrote: »

Me too, as long as by "personal shopper" you mean "guy at the market stall" and by "majority of my purchases" you mean "fruit and veg".

Everything else comes from Oddbins or ebay, mostly the former.

More like PNL, RIT and RICA...;)