Whats your S&S ISA Portfolio? (Winners and Losers)

Gaffy

Interesting thread.

It seems I'm the complete opposite to everyone else, I guess many would say my strategy is extremely risky as I put all my ISA money into one company at a time then wait however long it takes until the share price has reached my sell limit. In the last couple of years the best performing share that I've done this with is Barclays, shown below.

Buy 19,519 shares @ 1.44 each, Sell at @ 2.58

and

Buy 33,786 shares @ 1.52 each, Sell at @ 2.32

At the moment I'm in cash and really just waiting for the market to drop although I'm keeping a keen eye on BG Group.

Linton

Colin297 wrote: »

14% over 3 years?

Isn't that less than, say, compound interest of 3.5% PA?

I just don't see the benefit, at this moment in time, of risking your funds in S&S unless you have very specific ITK knowledge.

I don't know alot about shares. I bought a book about them. I read it and quickly realised there isn't enough reward in it right now. Certainly, not when wagered against the risk attached.

Think about the amount of time OP etc has spent on assessing and researching the variables of their portfolios etc. If you count the time spent, risk etc, i don't see how anyone who isn't making 10%+ gains PA can justify this input...

How will you know when the right time has arrived? Perhaps its now, you wont be able to tell for many months but you cant invest in hindsight.

Over the past 3.5 years I and many other investors have averaged 10% or more annually. The first 1.5 years were wonderful. Over the past 2 years the return has been roughly zero. With investing you must take the long term view, a year or two is short term and will be subject to very great fluctuations.

Colin297

Linton wrote: »

How will you know when the right time has arrived? Perhaps its now, you wont be able to tell for many months but you cant invest in hindsight.

Over the past 3.5 years I and many other investors have averaged 10% or more annually. The first 1.5 years were wonderful. Over the past 2 years the return has been roughly zero. With investing you must take the long term view, a year or two is short term and will be subject to very great fluctuations.

Yes, but my overriding point is that all these %'s cited are pretty crappy. 10% a year is good, but -5% isn't.

I really think you need to be making 20%+ to justify the combination of risk, time and effort.

I take your point about it being long term. I guess it depends on the amount invested etc. If you don't have atleast 10k invested you're needlessly tying up your capital as the gains are that high. If you have significant funds invested then you might want to consider other options too. IMO the property market is such a terrific market for people who can afford to purchase now,. Ultimately, the opportunity cost of shares is high imo.

gadgetmind

MarcoM wrote: »

also do you think a passive portoflio would be suitable for someone who could invest 200k is is the usual IFA route the best.

There is no upper limit but a larger portfolio will allow you to add a few active satellites without affecting costs too much.

MarcoM

Colin297 wrote: »

Yes, but my overriding point is that all these %'s cited are pretty crappy. 10% a year is good, but -5% isn't.

I really think you need to be making 20%+ to justify the combination of risk, time and effort.

I take your point about it being long term. I guess it depends on the amount invested etc. If you don't have atleast 10k invested you're needlessly tying up your capital as the gains are that high. If you have significant funds invested then you might want to consider other options too. IMO the property market is such a terrific market for people who can afford to purchase now,. Ultimately, the opportunity cost of shares is high imo.

do you think that property is a better investment than shares?

gallygirl

Reassured to see at least some of mine are held by others . Those in italics I'm holding but not adding to. Held in FP (via work) & HL Sipp.

Fund % First State Asia Pacific Leaders 19
First State Global Emerging Market Leaders 17
JPM Natural Resources 17
AXA Framlington Global Technology Fund 10
Single Shares 8
Baring Europe 5
Neptune Russia & Greater Russia 4
Aberdeen Emerging Markets Accumulation 4
Baring ASEAN Frontiers (Class A GBP) Income 4
First State Global Resources 4
First State Latin America Accumulation 3
M&G Japan (Class X) Accumulation 3
Kames Inflation Linked Accumulation 2
JPM Global High Yield Bond Accumulation 2

grey_gym_sock

to decide whether the time and effort to find out about shares is worth it ... well, it depends how much capital you have, and how much your time is worth, and how fun or tedious you find investment ... 10 x the capital would give you 10 x the reward, for about the same effort.

however, if you learn about shares when you're younger and don't have much capital to invest, so you get little short-term reward for your time, it can really pay off later on when you have more capital.

if the alternative to shares is property - and it is, because those are the 2 most general assets classes with the highest long-term returns - then being a landlord is generally a lot more trouble than owning shares. with shares, once you have enough basic knowledge, and a plan, it can take very little time to carry it out; obsessing over shares prices every day is optional, though some ppl do it . as a landlord, you have legal obligations, and have to take action to find tenants, and so on.

Colin297

MarcoM wrote: »

do you think that property is a better investment than shares?

In the vast majority of cases, yes, most definitely.

Having a good spread of investments is the best of both worlds, no doubt.

But an investment which can gain substantial capital worth and also pay itself off (tenants) is pretty hard to beat.

bowlhead99

MarcoM wrote: »

did you use the services of an IFA or did you choose this portfolio by yourself

I didn't use an IFA; there is quite a lot of it which matches my individual convictions or where I've seen an attractive risk/reward on a case by case basis (like large chunks of individual company equities and prefs, and the private equity fund-of-funds) which an IFA would never advise on but I'm willing and capable to spend my own time to research.

By the time I take that out, and a core tracker fund for low cost access to developed large-cap stuff, the rest of it is not a huge amount of money making the cost of advice relatively expensive per pound invested unless I'd funded the advice through more expensive commission-paying funds.

I have recommended IFAs (not a specific one, just the concept in general) to people before, if you don't have a financial background and/or you have a decent amount of investable assets (or are trying to build something that will get you there) it can make a lot of sense. Even if you think you know what you're doing, chances are you know this because you have learned by your mistakes which in hindsight can be more expensive than taking advice in the first place.

But while I'm sure I could learn something from a sit-down with an IFA, I prefer the level of control that goes with making my own decisions and I have more industry knowledge than the average person who bought a couple of how-to books. Between ISA and SIPP and other investments I feel I have enough diversification and my risk tolerance is pretty high.

bowlhead99

Colin297 wrote: »

In the vast majority of cases, yes, most definitely.

Having a good spread of investments is the best of both worlds, no doubt.

But an investment which can gain substantial capital worth and also pay itself off (tenants) is pretty hard to beat.

From that logic, I'd contend that shares (or funds of them) can also gain substantial capital worth and also pay themselves off (dividends). Although property (outside London) is off its highs there are a lot of risk factors that mean that it isn't any more of a safe one-way street than shares, particularly if you only buy one of them.

The capital returns in property investing can be awesome because typically you don't put 100k into a house you put 25% down and the bank pays the rest. So when it goes up by 25% as it did some years back, you've doubled your money (simplistically). Clearly if it goes down by 30% you've lost all your money and then some.

If you wanted these risks you could invest in geared equity funds, but this is clearly too much risk for most amateurs. Somehow many more people decide it's fine to become a buy-to-let landlord because they fall into it through circumstance, or they are already comfortable with owning a 100k home and they have friends who did a buy-to-let which went very well, so they think it's do-able and their building society will lend them a load of cash even without them having any track record of running a property rental business. Rather fewer would have owned a 100k equities portfolio and find someone willing to lend them 75k for their next one. But the risks might be similar on the face of it.