How many funds do you hold?

Forever

takesyourchances wrote: »

I opened my Aberdeen Japanese Small Company fund a couple of months ago, with £500 and a drip of £50 so £550 invested so far, today it is showing a gain of 12.21% was around 5-6% for a bit then 10% and now hit this. Personally, I want to hold my funds for the long term rather than sell and jump in and out, £67 pound gain even at 12% is not enough to make me want to jump in and out of funds. I was thinking when I took this out Japan several years down the line, so accepted rises and falls on the way but keep to my drip feeding plan.

I think Japan is a very interesting investment, under priced quality companies and a lot of changes going on and small company growth potential. I will hold and keep investing, should it drop and rise etc I am thinking long term. But just shows the potential here with this short sharp rise that is what I am taking from it.

Thanks.

Even if small caps can be volatile, in the long term (and sometimes in the short term!) they do tend to do well so I can completely understand why you want to hold. I currently have a UK small companies fund myself and it is certainly for the long term.

However Any is currently attempting switching a small sum of money from one potential leading sector to another to see how profitable it will be. Any's first attempt has currently gotten a return.

And from a couple of other comments today, it looks like others have similar strategies.

The recommendation is usually to buy and hold so I am really interested in how things pan out for people.

takesyourchances

Forever wrote: »

Even if small caps can be volatile, in the long term (and sometimes in the short term!) they do tend to do well so I can completely understand why you want to hold. I currently have a UK small companies fund myself and it is certainly for the long term.

However Any is currently attempting switching a small sum of money from one potential leading sector to another to see how profitable it will be. Any's first attempt has currently gotten a return.

And from a couple of other comments today, it looks like others have similar strategies.

The recommendation is usually to buy and hold so I am really interested in how things pan out for people.

Yes my approach is to hold and to keep to a drip feeding plan, small caps are very interesting I have a Global Small Cap fund and another interesting Aberdeen Asian Small Cap fund, which is around 6% gain at the moment in 2 months. It has been pretty live from I opened it and then the Japanese one surged. But could surge the other way next week, who knows

I can see what Any is trying to do and it is not a big amount of money they are testing this with. Personally it would not be for me, as I think some may get lucky for a while and then land in a loss, a bit like gambling playing timing. I will have a look and see how they get on to.

I am looking at a UK Small Cap fund as well to round off my Asian Small Cap exposure, again long term holding and drip feeding.

Lets hope Japan keeps going well as even with this rise it could still well be under valued compared to a lot of markets and growth still to come in the years ahead.

Thanks.

Any

Forever wrote: »

Even if small caps can be volatile, in the long term (and sometimes in the short term!) they do tend to do well so I can completely understand why you want to hold. I currently have a UK small companies fund myself and it is certainly for the long term.

However Any is currently attempting switching a small sum of money from one potential leading sector to another to see how profitable it will be. Any's first attempt has currently gotten a return.

And from a couple of other comments today, it looks like others have similar strategies.

The recommendation is usually to buy and hold so I am really interested in how things pan out for people.

Yes, that is right, let's call it scientific research.
The idea is to jump to the next fastest riser in certain interval. I haven't worked out whether I want to do that every month or every 3 months... I think I will see how far down the table did this fund made it after a month and decide then.
So the next jump might not be Japan. It also might be Japan, but different fund provider.

I have 10 other funds which are long term and drip feeding strategy.
I have 2 UK small companies. One is doing well, one just o.k. But I only have them under a year so too soon to make judgements really.

Borrowedtune

I have 23 funds split across my ISA/ my wife's ISA and my SIPP.

The advice seems to be to have 10-12 funds, and I am trying to trim it down, but I think 18 or so is as low as I can get it.

Of the 23, 6 are small cap funds across 4 geographies. The UK gets extra attention because there's a micro-cap fund in there which provides some diversification.

I guess I could get to 18 funds in one fell swoop by jettisoning all those in favour of a single global smaller cos fund, but I am very happy with the performance of 5/6 of these funds - the only exception is the European one which is lagging slightly

I have am not in Japan except for a small holding in an income fund: I just think the demographics are against it. To exemplify the point, I read recently that more adult diapers are sold in Japan each year than baby sized ones...

Any

Glastoun wrote: »

Not really an exit strategy, although if the gains get stupidly high I'll probably sell some out and keep going with the remainder. The large percentages are simply due to the rise in Japan, although Any definitely picked a good fund to begin with. Not sure how this would have worked out if Japan had been off limits, nothing else really stands out consistently from the fund performance tables, at least not at high enough gains to risk money on them. I'll keep an eye on any sectors that seem to be picking up, but it's a lot easier to do that in retrospect.

I'm sure I read somewhere that most crashes happen in September, so if I can last until after the summer I'll probably gather up my marbles and go home.

I didn't exactly pick that fund. It was on top of performance tables so it did the trick. If Japan wasn't on the rise it would be different sector/fund that got bought.
Next quick riser will be sign of another sector rise. Or perhaps manager. Perhaps just short term, but that is the idea-just ride the good wave and jump ship regularly.
We'll see how it worked over long term... such a jump in a sector is probably rare!! And the whole experiment might fail...we'll see...

BarleyGB

I currently hold the following:

Fid UK Smaller Co's
Neptune Mid Cap
Aberdeen Emg Mkts
First State Global Emg Mkts
Liontrust UK Smaller Co's

Not much diversification but I choose them based on being high rated funds and good long term performance.

Japan funds have caught my attention in the last month due to their meteoric rise, particularly the Legg Mason Japan Equity. Does anyone think this is still worth an investment or has it already run its course and due a drop? I very nearly invested a week ago and its risen 6% since then.

grizzly1911

Jegersmart wrote: »

At the moment I am massively in breach of FSCS guarantees which is another concern for many and a reason why a larger number of holdings is both desirable and to a certain extent necessary.
J

What guarantees?

Aren't they really there to protect you from misappropriation, errors, fraud within the manager not the fund itself.

Is that likely within the bigger names like IP?

FatherAbraham

Any wrote: »

I hold 10 funds. Most of the advise I read over the year or so that I am in investing is that you shouldn't really hold more then 10.
What are your views on this?

Asset allocation has a greater impact on investment returns than stock pickings does.

Warmest regards,
FA

BarleyGB

Borrowedtune wrote: »

I have 23 funds split across my ISA/ my wife's ISA and my SIPP.

The advice seems to be to have 10-12 funds, and I am trying to trim it down, but I think 18 or so is as low as I can get it.

Of the 23, 6 are small cap funds across 4 geographies. The UK gets extra attention because there's a micro-cap fund in there which provides some diversification.

I guess I could get to 18 funds in one fell swoop by jettisoning all those in favour of a single global smaller cos fund, but I am very happy with the performance of 5/6 of these funds - the only exception is the European one which is lagging slightly

I have am not in Japan except for a small holding in an income fund: I just think the demographics are against it. To exemplify the point, I read recently that more adult diapers are sold in Japan each year than baby sized ones...

Well ive taken a small punt on Legg Mason Japan Equity this morning, may well live to regret it?

Glastoun

BarleyGB wrote: »

Japan funds have caught my attention in the last month due to their meteoric rise, particularly the Legg Mason Japan Equity. Does anyone think this is still worth an investment or has it already run its course and due a drop? I very nearly invested a week ago and its risen 6% since then.

This is where I wish we could see the activities within investment funds - there's been some huge daily increases in this fund over the past months, but I can't tell whether they're existing shares that keep rising, or whether they're selling shares at a target price and buying up more undervalued ones. I'd prefer the latter because it could be sustainable, rather than just getting lucky a few months ago and riding it out.

You can't argue with 6% in a week, and there's no reason that future weeks couldn't be similar, so I'm still in. But I'm viewing this fund as a trading punt rather than an investment.

I set up a Google Alert on Japan Equities, and while most of it is noise ('stocks stall as fear that sun may rise tomorrow morning', then the next day 'confidence in stocks continues as sun rises') this article caught my eye:

http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/pVxOsotTA6JlOxfSdOlDJP/Complexities-of-easy-money.html

Just be careful out there.