Another punter looking for portfolio critique

Staggie

Appreciated a few of you will be fed up with these sorts of threads, especially from noobs like me, but I would appreciate any consturctive comments/ criticisms anyone is willing to give nonetheless.

Anyway, heres my portfolio:

Japan - Aberdeen Japan Growth Class A Accumulation - 1.58%
Flexible - Artemis Strategic Assets Retail Accumulation - 4.42%
Emerging Markets - First State Global Emerging Mkt Leaders Class A Accumulation - 4.84%
Europe ex UK - Jupiter European Income Units - 3.44%
Global - M&G Global Basics Class X Accumulation - 5.87%
Global Small Cap - INVESCO Perp Global Sm Cos - 6.59%
UK Large Cap - INVESCO Perp Income - 16.75%
EM Bond - Investec Emerging Lcl Cny D - 5.27%
Global Index Tracker ex UK - L&G International Idx Trust - 24.90%
Global Strategic Bond - Old Mutual Gbl Strategic Bd - 8.41%
UK Small Cap - Schroder UK Smaller Cos - 11.09%
US Small Cap - Schroder US Smaller Cos - 6.86%


Total value is approx £50k. I have a decent cash reserve too, enough to cover the mortgage if needs be.

Age mid 30's, higher tax payer (just), pension sorted.

I've tried to spread capitalisation and geography. The artemis and M&G funds are there as a diluted play on commodities. The tracker isnt the cheapest going and there but is in a life fund with limited other options (ie no Vanguard etc)

Looking for long term growth (~20yrs) for when the kids grow up - cars, uni, weddings etc

I'd say I'm med-high risk tollerance, given I have a cash reserve.

Anyway some questions I've been asking myself and was looking for your input:
Is the above overcomplicated, with too many funds and areas potentially diluting performance? Too many fee paying funds versus trackers?
Any views on any specific funds?
Any stand out sectors not covered?
Is the weighting ok in terms of geography, capitalisation, sector etc

As I said, any opinions most welcomed (within reason).

Cheers

Staggie

Linton

My immediate feeling is that though the portfolio is fairly diversified it looks a bit messy. In designing a portfolio my view is that one should adopt a top down approach identifying the sectors and %s one wants to invest in and then choosing a set of funds that do this. Then any particular fund is there to meet an objective and a judgement can be made as to whether it is in fact doing that. I find it difficult to do that looking at your portfolio. There is too much duplication. This assessment is demonstrated by your questions. If you had designed your portfolio in the way I suggest you would know the answers, because they would be in your specification.

My personal views on some specific points:
1) With a £50K portfolio any holding below say 2.5K or 5% isnt worth bothering about - its not going to make sufficient difference to justify the hassle of buying and monitoring it.

2) You mention holding some funds as a diluted play on commodities. The rest of your whole portfolio is the dilution - if you want commodities buy a commodity focused investment. The dilution just confuses matters.

3) Missing geography - Asia/Pacific excluding Japan.

4) there seems no point in holding a Global Fund and a US specific one in the same sector (in this case small companies) : the global fund is going to be 30%-50% US anyway.

Totton

That looks a decent enough portfolio with risk, it should serve you well for the future. It's not a portfolio for me though, my current world revolves around fewer holdings plus I don't see the point of a global tracker unless you are convinced by it and then I'd have 65% not 35% following my conviction. After all, isn't the point of a tracker to capture the market? If it is and you hold one then surely you make it worthwhile with a decent holding :-)

I agree with Linton that having less than 5% in a holding is generally not worth it, what is the point when you consider the impact that a 3% holding can have on a fund. It makes more sense for direct equities to be of low percentages but funds which hold several dozen stocks? I also agree that you might want to cover the Far East a little better.

I would probably ditch a few funds but with the amount of time you have there isn't necessarily a need to do so. The Artemis fund has offered more promise than it has delivered imho, perhaps the managers performance as a UK equity Income manager many years ago was never going to be repeated. I guess Strategic Assets must come good eventually but is the wait worth it at 4% of the portfolio, Japan may be worth it if it rockets as frequently promised but that Strategic Assets fund is unlikely to become a big hitter. Artemis are a strange beast, I have held/hold their funds but I always get the impression that performance could be better having regard to the volatility they appear to exhibit, I guess that I should do some math on that but in general I like Artemis if perhaps slightly less than I did several years back.

Best of luck,
Mickey

Staggie

Thanks for the advise guys, much appreciated. Plenty food for thought!

kidmugsy

Staggie wrote: »

Thanks for the advise guys, much appreciated. Plenty food for thought!

An old rule is "Don't trade", the point being that trading costs money. So you might like to think where to put new money while leaving (most of) the old money where it is.

There again, if you suspect that another leg of the Great Debt Crisis is just around the corner you might want to sell the lot and sit in cash, and maybe a bit of gold, until the plunge takes place.

grey_gym_sock

kidmugsy wrote: »

you might want to sell the lot and sit in cash, and maybe a bit of gold

like this?