Red Across the Board

Mistermeaner

loss was only 0.26% which is probably dealing fee's?

concept of average investor is always meaningless as the winners and the losers nett at zero

Thrugelmir

Glen_Clark wrote: »

People moan when you bring politics into it, but questions like that are inseparable from politics.

It's not just politics though. Banks were liberalised in the early 70's and allowed to leverage their balance sheets. More recently since the turn of the millennium. World trade has doubled but credit has grown 6 fold. So there's more at play than just the underlying performance of the asset itself.

Kendall80

TCA wrote: »

I get your point but we're not exactly talking just a few points here. No pun intended. Take JP Morgan Russian Securities (JRS) for example. It's down 31% in 5 days. 37.5% down over the last month. 46.5% over 6 months. 56% down over 1 year.

The Neptune Greater Russia fund is down a meagre 26% by comparison (in 3 weeks).

Ryan_Futuristics

TCA wrote: »

I get your point but we're not exactly talking just a few points here. No pun intended. Take JP Morgan Russian Securities (JRS) for example. It's down 31% in 5 days. 37.5% down over the last month. 46.5% over 6 months. 56% down over 1 year.

Looks like it'll keep dropping, but *if* levels revert back to even those of a year ago (after however many years of recovery), then you'd think someone investing a lump sum now would be considerably better off than someone who invested a year ago, no?

Drip feeding might be the way to go however, which is presumably what you're talking about with rebalancing.

Absolutely, but this kind of volatility does go with the territory - there's a saying along the lines of: How do you lose half your value in stocks? Wait for a 90% drop, then wait for it to drop another 5%

So you can always find an attractive buy-in point that still drops another 50% ... I prefer to try and buy on dips myself, and increase the allocation on further dips (and potentially lower it again when it breaks even, depending on how things look)

I opted for JPM New Europe, which is 45% Russian equities, and it's held up quite well, only down about 11% for me ... I felt investing directly in Russia was a little on the risky side, so picked a bit of an out-of-favour fund on allocation

Ryan_Futuristics

Glen_Clark wrote: »

If half are buying and selling at the wrong points the other half must be buying and selling at the right points. So as far as I can see the only way the average could lose 15.26% through dealing is if that huge amount was going in dealing costs?

Well not necessarily investors in that fund ...

The fund had 10 years of solid performance, but the average investor in that fund lost (according to Morningstar research)

The people making the money on those equities may have been hedge fund managers, shrewd private investors, etc, but the average investor buying that fund may not have had the stomach for EM investing

TCA

Ryan_Futuristics wrote: »

I opted for JPM New Europe, which is 45% Russian equities, and it's held up quite well, only down about 11% for me ... I felt investing directly in Russia was a little on the risky side, so picked a bit of an out-of-favour fund on allocation

I'm with you on that - Russia is pretty scary. As discussed in another thread, I'm looking at Baring Emerging Europe as I probably prefer an investment trust in this area. I haven't bought yet but it's about 50% Russia and is still tanking. It's lost about a third in 3 months and 40% over a year. 7.5% down today.

gadgetmind

We do quite a bit of business in Russia and this isn't making things easy!

Glen_Clark

ggb1979 wrote: »

loss was only 0.26% which is probably dealing fee's?

Well I took it to mean that the average lost 0.26% on a fund that made 15%, so 15.26% must have gone somewhere else

ggb1979 wrote: »

concept of average investor is always meaningless as the winners and the losers nett at zero

I think we are on the same wavelength there
And if the 15.26% hasn't gone to the investors, it must have gone somewhere else. (The only other place I can think of is dealing costs.)
Can you explain that to Ryan Futuristics Please

Glen_Clark

gadgetmind wrote: »

Well, my largest holding (by far!) has gone up 12% today!

I have only ever heard of your gains, never any losses. If you can beat the market why do you buy index funds?

gadgetmind

Glen_Clark wrote: »

I have only ever heard of your gains, never any losses. If you can beat the market why do you buy index funds?

I've had some 100% losses, but that's the nature of investing in early stage technology companies. I invest in these because I have specialist knowledge regarding technology, IP and patents, which I can use to (hopefully) get an edge.

However, I'm not by nature a risk taker, so I therefore use gains from my tech investing to feed into balanced portfolios, mostly within ISAs, as fast as CGT allowances permit.

If all of my tech shares turned into 100% losses tomorrow, it would really, really hurt, and push back my retirement plans by a few years. But only by a few years as they (now!) represent less than 10% of my total investments.

I also fully accept that I more than likely got lucky!