Beware of fund rankings

Glen_Clark

Fund managers quote the last 5 years performance.
Now that the badly managed funds that crashed in 2008 have passed the 5 year milestone, they are starting to look statistically better than the safely managed ones that did not crash in 2008.

talexuser

Another problem on sites is the bundled versions disappearing, and the clean version only having performance figures from recent start dates (with the same manager naturally). Past performance is no... etc etc etc, but it is useful to look at this data compared to the nearest indexes to see if the charges were worth it.

Better_Call_Saul

talexuser wrote: »

Another problem on sites is the bundled versions disappearing, and the clean version only having performance figures from recent start dates (with the same manager naturally). Past performance is no... etc etc etc, but it is useful to look at this data compared to the nearest indexes to see if the charges were worth it.

This is seriously misleading. Generally, you can find the historic version on sites such as Citywire.

talexuser

Sure, but it depends on the site and the fund.

masonic

talexuser wrote: »

Sure, but it depends on the site and the fund.

Which sites and funds no longer show full histories? I've yet to see an example on Citywire, Trustnet etc.

Better_Call_Saul

masonic wrote: »

Which sites and funds no longer show full histories? I've yet to see an example on Citywire, Trustnet etc.

I presume he's talking about the sites you actually buy the funds from.

masonic

Better_Call_Saul wrote: »

I presume he's talking about the sites you actually buy the funds from.

As far as I can tell, even they are giving the same amount of historic data as they did before. For example, when I click on a clean class fund at either HL or iii I get a history of 5 years. I was able to get a 10 year history from some funds by looking at the Key Investor Information Document linked on those sites.

Better_Call_Saul

masonic wrote: »

As far as I can tell, even they are giving the same amount of historic data as they did before. For example, when I click on a clean class fund at either HL or iii I get a history of 5 years. I was able to get a 10 year history from some funds by looking at the Key Investor Information Document linked on those sites.

Look up a few funds on Fidelity site for examples of what he means, Baring German Growth Trust Class I GBP Acc is one I noticed. Both the trailing returns and past performance data could easily fool a novice investor into thinking it had only been around for a year. MFM Slater Growth Fund P Acc is another example.

masonic

Better_Call_Saul wrote: »

Look up a few funds on Fidelity site for examples of what he means, Baring German Growth Trust Class I GBP Acc is one I noticed. Both the trailing returns and past performance data could easily fool a novice investor into thinking it had only been around for a year. MFM Slater Growth Fund P Acc is another example.

The income version of the Baring fund has a much longer history (link). This is a bit obscure - it wasn't available on HL, but it was on iii, where even the dirty class (Acc) had just a year of history.

For the Slater fund, this was the same across Fidelity, HL and iii, but the KIID available from all three sites showed the history for the class A units. However, Trustnet showed 5 years of data on this fund.

So it looks like at least that last example shows there are one or two fund houses that are not back-calculating performance on their clean classes and that's affecting some platform websites. That's useful to know, but it appears we still have several good sources of this information and most funds seem completely unaffected.

jimjames

masonic wrote: »

As far as I can tell, even they are giving the same amount of historic data as they did before. For example, when I click on a clean class fund at either HL or iii I get a history of 5 years. I was able to get a 10 year history from some funds by looking at the Key Investor Information Document linked on those sites.

The example I was going to give was Lindsell TRain UK equity fund on the HL platform but it appears they have fixed the problem. When I checked a month or so ago there was no history but it is now there for both funds.

Better_Call_Saul

masonic wrote: »

The income version of the Baring fund has a much longer history (link). This is a bit obscure - it wasn't available on HL, but it was on iii, where even the dirty class (Acc) had just a year of history, so I suspect for this one, the accumulation version has not been available for long.

For the Slater fund, this was the same across Fidelity, HL and iii, but the KIID available from all three sites showed the history for the class A units. However, Trustnet showed 5 years of data on this fund.

So it looks like at least that last example shows there are one or two fund houses that are not back-calculating performance on their clean classes and that's affecting some platform websites. That's useful to know, but it appears we still have several good sources of this information and most funds seem completely unaffected.

The concerning thing for me is that novice investors who do not do the necessary research take things at face value. Always check different sources of information and the KiiD is the key I suppose.

Edit: the Accumulation version of that Baring fund has been available for much more than 5 years.