Asset Allocation

Supernova

Trying to work out some funds to invest in for last year's mini ISA and this year's maxi via H-L.

What's the best online tool for Portfolio planning?

Several asset allocation sites I looked at were suggesting a 60% Equity 30% Bonds 5% Cash 5% Property for someone aged 48 with an Adventurous attitude to risk. Still over 10 years to invest in my case.

Howevever, my company pension is 90% Equity trackers in the UK, US, Europe, Asia and Japan with 10% Bonds. Somewhat more risky, huh?

I tried the Bestinvest planner but I can't see much correlation between what they are suggesting and the figures I actually put in.

Confused!

Also, would you include your own house as part of that portfolio along with existing cash and pension funds?

Ta

dunstonh

I leave the house out of it. I work on the principle that you live in your house and its not an investment. The house is a good fallback option if everything fails.

I dont know what freebie tools for asset or sector allocation exist. I use software which costs.

I would try to aim for sector allocation rather than asset allocation if you are using funds.

Supernova

OK thanks. I figured the house didn't really count. Any equity would probably be used to buy something else.

Ah well, I'll take a look at the funds again.

Sillychuckie

what software Dunstonh by the way?
I'm also going to have a hard time keeping track as my portfolio gets larger.

dunstonh

Financial Express Analytics. However, that wouldnt interest you. It costs over £5000 a year. I also use a few other tools which cost another £3000 a year.

Now you know what trail commission pays for, amongst other things!

Sillychuckie

If you just wanted a tool to be able to work out how things are weighted in your portfolio % wise across:
- sector allocation
- geographic allocation
what would you use?

I could knock something up in Excel pretty quick, but it gets complicated if you then delve into the fund and see that it has X% in this country, Y% in that one... and of course, these things change as the fund is managed, so the software would need to tie into something online.
Even when I only had 4k invested in 5 funds, it was really tricky to work out what % of the money was invested where (and impossible to know without the full info on the funds and where they have everything invested).

Do you have the name of anything simple like this that fits the bill?
Thx.

torridon_2

I am using the portfolio on Morningstar and finding it very useful.

http://www.morningstar.co.uk/UK/default.aspx?lang=en-GB&pgid=hetabhome

You need to register (for free) to use it.

It seems to be quite comprehensive and breaks down your holdings by sector, asset type and geographically.
It tells you what you have but not if it is right for you.
You can set up a number of portfolios so you could play around with different combinations of funds.

jamesd

I also use the Morningstar site for this.

Morningstar_Krista

Just wanted to say a quick thanks for suggesting the portfolio tools on http://www.Morningstar.co.uk. We hope everyone finds them helpful! (We saw a couple of referrals coming in from the forums here so wanted to drop by and say hi.)
Krista
Product Manager, Morningstar.co.uk

Supernova

Well, for the life of me I can't work out how to add funds to my portfolio on Morningstar whereas on Trustnet it's totally intuitive. Sigh.

Ian_W

Supernova wrote: »

Well, for the life of me I can't work out how to add funds to my portfolio on Morningstar whereas on Trustnet it's totally intuitive. Sigh.

Go to the Edit section of the particular portfolio you want to add funds to and start to type the name of the fund. This should trigger an auto complete menu with a range of offerings - sometimes takes quite a few goes to get the correct ones though! From experience it particularly doesn't like "M&G" but if you start with "Global" it offers both M&G global leaders and global basics.

Krista, thanks for the portfolio tool but feedback since the revamp - from me at least - is that it is a bit more difficult to use, slower and "clunkier" if you know what I mean! I use it for the x-ray facility but also prefer Trustnet for actually keeping track of the £s and pence as it allows cash accounts to be included too.