Why so many funds?

Totton

darkpool's constant trolling of threads is a huge turnoff for this site, by all means post your opinion but it doesn't need to be on so many threads.

JoeCrystal

Well, not only that, there can be surprisingly few funds focusing on more risker areas like Africa for example. According to FE Trustnet, there is only three IMA Unit Trust and OEICs that focus solely on Africa. There are two that also include Middle East as well.

On more common area like Corporate Bonds, there are roughly 222 IMA Unit Trust and OEICs concerning it. Far more in Pension funds as well.

But then, if there are more demands for specific funds, then there will be more I guess? I do wonder if the number of Funds focusing on China are much smaller two decades ago?

Cheers

Joe

dunstonh

On more common area like Corporate Bonds, there are roughly 222 IMA Unit Trust and OEICs concerning it. Far more in Pension funds as well.

Just to give you a quick indication, one of the research software providers says that their database covers:
114,466 funds
958,159 fund links
668 investment trusts
7,655 unit trusts
10,236 life funds
17,185 pension funds
78,630 offshore funds

Now they would include inc and acc as two funds as well as share classes (e.g. institutional and retail as well as those now introducing clean share clases in readiness or RDR and platform review). Hence why UT is much higher than the 2500 odd that you would expect.

life and pension funds are much greater in number due to historical use of mirror funds and as charges came down over the years, the old contracts stayed on say S1 whilst the newer ones moved to S2, S3 etc etc. Plus, historically, life and pension companies were in far greater number and even though most have closed their doors and merged or are in run down, their funds still exist. That said life and pensions number appears to have dropped quite a lot in recent years.

darkpool

rpc wrote: »

I also notice that your sig doesn't point out which quintile (of 5) is top performing. It focusses on two. It may be factual, but is misleading.

cheapest quintile outperforms the most expensive quintile. it does indicate that paying higher fees does not give higher performance. virtually all research i've seen says fund management fees is not cost effective.

darkpool

Totton wrote: »

darkpool's constant trolling of threads is a huge turnoff for this site, by all means post your opinion but it doesn't need to be on so many threads.

you're entitled to your opinion, but in my opinion there are too many vested interests on this site.

brasso

darkpool wrote: »

you're entitled to your opinion, but in my opinion there are too many vested interests on this site.

As I've tried saying to you on other threads, I wish you would drop the negative obsession with IFAs and managed funds. Like you, I'm a Tim Hale enthusiast and have made several changes to my portfolio since reading the book. But I still have room for some actively managed funds for all sorts of reasons. I don't consult IFAs but I can see their value to many people.

I really don't understand your obsession. To be honest, my main problem is not that I disagree with all or even many of your opinions, it's just the way you express them. What's it all for? You must get some gratification from it, so I do think the label "troll" is merited, even though it is a much overused word.

If an IFA is on here claiming that people who don't use IFAs are fools, then by all means have a go at them. But from what I can see, the IFAs here are a helpful bunch who simply like to offer an opinion. If they read a discussion and see someone giving bad advice, I can well understand that they will want to jump in with a counter-opinion. I'd say they do far more good than bad here and I for one am quite sure that many people (including me) get some benefit from reading their take on things.

Come on darkpool, try to understand how dull your campaign is for others. You've made the point. Time to move on, surely.

bigfreddiel

darkpool wrote: »

i think the idea behind so many funds is that a few are likely to be doing well at any particular time. it means that when people go to an IFA the IFA can say "well this fund has done well in the past" and flog it.

is that why you see quotes like:

"Past performance is not a guide to future returns."

lifted from invesco perpetual site - so who falls for the "well this fund...." quote then?

fj

bigfreddiel

Linton wrote: »

You cannot divide funds simply into good ones and bad ones using a "quick screen" based on capital return....

i wasn't - i was just stating a fact - and anyway way no matter how you categorise funds there are always consistent winners and losers over different time periods - change some of the parameters and winners can become losers and vice versa

hope that clarifies it

fj

darkpool

brasso wrote: »

If an IFA is on here claiming that people who don't use IFAs are fools, then by all means have a go at them. But from what I can see, the IFAs here are a helpful bunch who simply like to offer an opinion. If they read a discussion and see someone giving bad advice, I can well understand that they will want to jump in with a counter-opinion. I'd say they do far more good than bad here and I for one am quite sure that many people (including me) get some benefit from reading their take on things.

Come on darkpool, try to understand how dull your campaign is for others. You've made the point. Time to move on, surely.

but i think the IFAs are here to drum up business for the IFA profession. We've all been to the supermarket when they have been handing out free food samples, are they being generous? Or are they trying to get people to buy that product in future?

If the advice IFAs gave was particularly good it wouldn't bother me. But it does seem that IFA suggest to customers to buy the highest costing products.

If the IFAs here admitted that active managed funds didn't deliver any alpha returns I wouldn't bother posting, but we've seen an IFA here that seemed to think funds delivering negative alpha returns was good. we've also seen the house IFA give the names of a few well performing (lucky) funds as "evidence" that active management works.

Some of us here have seen the academic evidence, it's overwhelming that paying for active management is not cost effective. The IFAs know that, but they'll never admit to it.

I don't mind if you put me on ignore.....

psychic_teabag

darkpool wrote: »

but i think the IFAs are here to drum up business for the IFA profession. We've all been to the supermarket when they have been handing out free food samples, are they being generous? Or are they trying to get people to buy that product in future?

I'd have thought that the supermarket is specifically trying to persuade you to buy the product from them, there and then. I don't suppose Tesco give free samples in order to persuade you to buy that product from Asda next week.

I don't see why any one IFA would have any reason to promote "the IFA profession" (ie some other IFA). Well, unless you believe in a conspiracy between the active funds and the IFAs to keep each other in business, so that promoting the IFA profession promotes the active fund profession which in supports the IFA profession. (Which I guess you do.)