ISA Fund advice

djbfp

I am wanting to invest in 3 or 4 funds for my ISA and would like people's opinion on the following:

Trojan O Inc fund
First State Latin America
JPM Emerging Markets A Acc

Do you think it is also worth adding in Allianz PIMCO Gilt Yield?

I am planning on investing approx £1000 of each, and then doing a few more reliable (as they can ever be) shares in my ISA.

Any help or advice much appreciated.

Thanks

qpop

What's the investment strategy? What's the timeline? How much risk are you wanting to take?

Trojan is FE rated 28 (where 100 ~ FTSE)
FS Latin America - 103
JPM EM - 130

The Trojan fund is also managed, and therefore will change the asset weightings, where-as the other are geographical.

If investing in EM I would (and am) utilise FS Emerging Market Leaders / Aberdeen Emerging Markets - both have brilliant management teams and astrong long-term track records. I also like Fidelity emerging EMEA
FS Latin America is a good fun but it depends on your views about South American economies in the near future

Also, is this going to be your whole portfolio or are there other funds?

djbfp

Thanks.

I am thinking long term and just want to invest in something as it's doing nothing in the bank. I am happy to have a mix of medium and slightly higher risk, so that's why I was thinking of having a mix of emerging markets with slightly more balanced-ones. For the beginning this will be the stocks part of my portfolio, but I'm also going to have some shares of a couple of relatively stable companies to balance the risk out. Am happy to invest in Latin America so think FS Latin America is the best for that.

I did see the Aberdeen Emerging Market fund and was tossing between that one and the JPM one, but as I'm only planning on doing approx £1000 for each fund I won't get very much as the price is way higher.

It's all new to me though so not sure I've understood it all correctly!

qpop

I'd recommend doing some reading before plunging in then, as what you've just said indicates a lack of overall understanding.

Stocks traditionally refers to gilt / corporate bonds and shares to equities,

You almost categorically won't reduce risks by also investing in individual FTSE shares, due to the significantly increased non-systematic (that is, geographical, sector etc.) risk.
The Troy fund invests across multiple asset classes and therefore your asset weightings will vary depending on the managers decisions - this is fine if you're delegating all of the asset allocation to them (i.e. just investing in the one fund) but makes things awkward if you're also including equity-only funds.

Where are you purchasing these funds from? http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/a/aberdeen-emerging-markets-accumulation
Hargreaves Lansdown don't charge any initial fee for purchasing Aberdeen EM, for example (neither will other discount broker platforms).

I'd reckon you should probably put the money in a high interest easy-access account (read: 2.75%+ AER) and invest £30 of it in some reading material.

Standard recommendations:
Tim Hale - Smarter Investing (I've not read but its on the xmas list)
Benjamin Graham - Intelligent Investor

There are many others, and websites such as https://www.fool.co.uk have some very informative guides (they also have some pretty decent personal investment books out too)

competitionscafe

djbfp wrote: »

I am thinking long term and just want to invest in something as it's doing nothing in the bank. I am happy to have a mix of medium and slightly higher risk, so that's why I was thinking of having a mix of emerging markets with slightly more balanced-ones.

Having half to two thirds of your fund money in emerging markets is high risk (and unbalanced) as is additionally investing in just 2 or 3 individual shares. Your money may be doing nothing in the bank but investing in shares/OEICS and having money in the bank are two very different things. What is your definition of long term? Will you need access to the money in the next 10 years or so? You need to have a strategy and construct a balanced portfolio not just pick a handful of funds and shares because they sound good or you think they will do well.

djbfp wrote: »

I did see the Aberdeen Emerging Market fund and was tossing between that one and the JPM one, but as I'm only planning on doing approx £1000 for each fund I won't get very much as the price is way higher.

The price (as in pence per unit) is irrelevant - if one fund is 50p and another is £1.50 per unit it doesn't make the 50p one better. The price of an OEIC will match the underlying investments it holds (more or less) so the price per unit does not really matter.

djbfp

Ok, thanks for the advice. I'll have a look at the books and other reading before making final options. And, yes, I was going to do all of this on Hargreaves in a Vantage Stocks and Shares ISA.

Thanks again.

Ark_Welder

Although Trojan is a managed fund it is unlikely to hold investments in EM shares because the manager has stated that that is not where his expertise lies. All that the fund holds in that region at the moment is around 7% in Singaporean short-dated sovereign bonds for liquidity and diversification purposes. So holding this and and EM fund would be a valid approach. The fund does also currently have holdings in index-linked gilts, so this should also be factored in to bond allocation calculations.

djbfp

Ark_Welder wrote: »

So holding this and and EM fund would be a valid approach.

Thank you - I thought that was the case with Trojan and that was why I picked that one as it covered gold, oil and other companies like Tesco, Nestle, Microsoft etc. I was trying to get a mix in my small start-up portfolio, and that's why I had an emerging market fund that covered a lot of china, india and asia, and then another emerging market that did Latin America and then the Trojan one. That was my thinking anyway and you've got to start somewhere!!