BestInvest v IFA v DIY

Seen_the_light_4

Not having any stock market exposure I wanted to invest £4k in a Maxi ISA and heard about BestInvest. The site was good in that you could select your levels of return and risk and it produced a set of recommendations. Then they were purchased through CoFunds to save money on the charges.

Although I only have £1k in each of the four funds I will add in April to start building it up.

My view is that it offered a good value service to someone who didn't know a lot about all the funds and didn't have lots of time to research them all.

Searcher2

Thanks for all your replies. I am tempted to go the DIY route and possibly stick with BestInvest as a vehicle. Currently I have a mix of FundsNetwork and CoFunds with them. The IFA is coming tomorrow expecting a cheque so it's decision time.... and it's nearly (tax) year end.

I agree that it could me more fun doing it myself and to be honest I can afford to play about a bit with the money.

mroller

If you wanna go DIY then you should use HL. They are the cheapest.

Searcher2

I tried to look on BestInvest website to see if there were any transfer costs involved but couldn't see any reference to them - I then tried to log on and it just fell in a heap.

[Deleted User]

atpug wrote: »

Why do i do it myself - well back in 2000 an IFA told me to invest my money in some fidelity funds he recommended. I invested it all then which just happened to be the market peak. he gave me no suggestion to invest in any UK funds or to suggest drip feeding it over 12mth. As a result i lost loads afterwards with all the market crashes. Only since the last 2 years i am making money but managed to transfer my money into better performing funds.

Hi,

bet it was Fidelity International.

Same thing happened to me, in 2000, was wanting to switch from a Perpetual fund and BestInvest, recommended Fidelity International. Crash. Well I stuck with it, and I'm still about £2000 down, but getting closer.

Searcher2

[Deleted User] wrote:

Hi,

bet it was Fidelity International.

Same thing happened to me, in 2000, was wanting to switch from a Perpetual fund and BestInvest, recommended Fidelity International. Crash. Well I stuck with it, and I'm still about £2000 down, but getting closer.

Just looking back at what BestInvest recommended... and you had the same as me - they put the whole £7000 in Fidelity International in 99/00. Ouch.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

aye, well I had a lot more than £7000, as it was a Perpetual Fund (Income and Growth) that had been going for a few years and had done really well, and that's what they suggested, for a switch.

Seems Fidelity International was into Technology Stocks, and that was when the dotcom bubble burst.

Anyway, I stuck it out, and at this moment I'm still about £2000 down, suppose I should've got out years ago, but my fingers were still burning.

The daft thing is, if it does get back up, I'll probably stick with it, it's only taken it 7 years to break even. :rotfl:

carnet

shokadelika wrote: »

Carnet a guess |Dimensional UKValue ? xx

Nice try, but 'fraid not.

The Dimensional fund, whilst the returns have been excellent, has a somewhat limited remit, being, AFAIK, 100% UK Large Caps - which doesn't really give it anywhere to run if that particular market takes a hit.

The fund I'm referring to can invest in anything from GEM to bonds and also benefits from a very astute, able and experienced manager.

It has also comfortably outperformed the Dimensional fund over 1, 2 and 3 years .

[Deleted User]

Hi,

why is it a secret, do they not want new money, with the strart of the new financial year looming?

shokadelika

[Deleted User] wrote:

Hi,

aye, well I had a lot more than £7000, as it was a Perpetual Fund (Income and Growth) that had been going for a few years and had done really well, and that's what they suggested, for a switch.

Seems Fidelity International was into Technology Stocks, and that was when the dotcom bubble burst.

Anyway, I stuck it out, and at this moment I'm still about £2000 down, suppose I should've got out years ago, but my fingers were still burning.

The daft thing is, if it does get back up, I'll probably stick with it, it's only taken it 7 years to break even. :rotfl:

If you believed in the Fund you could have averaged your price down by saving say £50 a month this would have brought your break even price down I know its hard to do but sometimes we all have to do it (am doing it now wioth one of my funds) or sell at a loss.
You also have to measure up if you cashed in your loss and moved it to a better fund you might now be a lot better off.Ah! the benefit of Hindsight or a crystal ball !