Who is taking a punt on CF Woodford fund?

planteria

i'm not.
i tend to think i can make a half-decent attempt at selecting high-yielding large caps myself, and kind of enjoy it...perhaps wrongly:o
i'll be interested to see how the portfolio looks though:)

bowlhead99

planteria wrote: »

i'm not.
i tend to think i can make a half-decent attempt at selecting high-yielding large caps myself, and kind of enjoy it...perhaps wrongly:o
i'll be interested to see how the portfolio looks though:)

It can be difficult to tell how the portfolio looks though.

Typically when you look at the top ten holdings of equity income funds you get most of the 'usual suspects', names you recognise very well from everyone else's largecap income top tens ; the only thing appearing interesting is the ones left out entirely or the ones very underweight compared to their market cap. Generally it's only the top 10 that you can see, plus anything the manager has said in his monthly commentary or in press articles about other positions they've taken, or anything you can glean by reading RNSs from target companies (where a manager's position might be reportable, on small or medium sized companies, if his fund is big enough and he's bought a lot of it).

The more interesting stuff that differentiate managers over time is often below the line, outside the top ten. Merely spotting that he hasn't got a big supermarket in his top ten could be an indication that he doesn't like supermarkets, or it could mean he has shunned Tesco for Sainsburys and Morrisons, or maybe he an equal amount of all of them, but supermarkets are not generally going to be in the top 10 anyway when you've got the big banks and oilers and pharmas with the huge market caps.

You generally find that managers talk about big picture themes that interest them, it is all part of the marketing to capture the imagination of the public - but you don't see them saying what they are just about to buy or sell as it would be commercial suicide. So if you're running your own high yield portfolio you can compare what you used to hold last month with what Invesco or Woodford or Unicorn reported for last month, but you only really get snapshots of a few of their major holdings with a time delay so unfortunately you can't really follow them and tweak your portfolio to copy them effectively.

It is difficult to see what will happen next with equity income as a sector generally, as QE unwinds and interest rates increase. It is usually quite defensive but has had a very good run as returns on bonds dried up and people still want to invest somewhere. So there are people from individual shareholders to institutions with money in the sector that would not necessarily want to be there long term.

Obviously something like smallcap has had an even bigger run up in recent memory as people have got back into risky stuff, but I think it's possible that equity income is more fully valued than largecap equities generally. I'm not putting new money into equity income at all at the moment.

Woodford did well to avoid the worst of the last crash by not being in banks. But if there were another crash tomorrow, an equity income fund would not necessarily come through unscathed because the hot money has been building up in that sector and as markets have continued to rise, nobody has exited. So I think there's now still hot money in UK equity income to an extent that it had not been in 2006/7/8 when markets were booming before the last crash.

standinman2009

Im not the Guy is a spent force ,its 50/50 on any major gains , he wins as he gets his management fee regardless !

pip895

I may go for a small stake - not because I believe in his Midas touch so much - just that he is typically defensive and I'm feeling a little nervous.


I notice Fidelity have a big advert for his fund in the Telegraph - Advertised at a cost of 0.75%/an. - HL are offering it at 0.6% - I am surprised Fidelity didn't get a better rate from him, especialy as they are clearly spending a lot advertising his fund.

planteria

great post bowlhead.

pip895 wrote: »

I notice Fidelity have a big advert for his fund in the Telegraph - Advertised at a cost of 0.75%/an. - HL are offering it at 0.6% - I am surprised Fidelity didn't get a better rate from him, especialy as they are clearly spending a lot advertising his fund.

and yes, i noticed that too. Fidelity are playing into HL's hands i would have thought. people will be 'sold' on the idea of backing the fund, but will then look for the best value way to access it.

Deneb

planteria wrote: »

Fidelity are playing into HL's hands i would have thought. people will be 'sold' on the idea of backing the fund, but will then look for the best value way to access it.

HL 0.6% + 0.45% platform fee = 1.05% TCO

Fidelity 0.75% + 0.35% platform fee = 1.10% TCO

Fidelity (via Cavendish) 0.75% + 0.25% = 1.00% TCO

talexuser

or Fidelity with a large portfolio 0.75 + 0.2 = 0.95%

pip895

talexuser wrote: »

or Fidelity with a large portfolio 0.75 + 0.2 = 0.95%

HL With large portfolio 0.60 + 0.25 = 0.85%

dale_cotterill

pip895 wrote: »

HL With large portfolio 0.60 + 0.25 = 0.85%

With a Large Portfolio you probably wouldn't be using either.

robatwork

He will certainly be getting a very, very big house. Let's hope he keeps his eye on the ball. Or off the ball. Sorry, too much world cup "fever" aka bullshine.