Portfolio Administration

colinjd

Morning,

Could someone enlighten me please regarding fund charges and the best way to include them in the spreadsheet I've created to keep track of my portfolio?

Let me just say, I'm not a complete novice with spreadsheets but I'm not very good so it needs to be simple!

If I understand fund charges correctly they are taken from my holding and so its diluted, but when/how does that happen and is there a way for me to actually see what has been taken?

The platform fee is simple - 0.45% from HL on a fixed date- but for administration purposes, how do I include the OCF charges into my spreadsheet so that I get a net portfolio value?

Hope that makes sense, thanks

Drp8713

Why arnt you using HL's own free service? As soon as you log in online it tells you what your holdings are worth, whether you are in profit or loss, and you can use the analysis tool to keep track of your asset allocation.

The only downsides are the analysis can xray ITs or ETFs yet.

you can export the figures to excel or the analysis as a pdf of you want.

colinjd

I do that, though I wasn't aware I could export to excel so I'll check that out when I get home later. I also think you can include ETF's now as well?

I was just looking for a way to administer the fund charges and be able to evaluate costs on a regular basis. I think it's the OCF that's confusing me, as to when it's charged and how often.

masonic

colinjd wrote: »

I was just looking for a way to administer the fund charges and be able to evaluate costs on a regular basis. I think it's the OCF that's confusing me, as to when it's charged and how often.

The OCF is taken at each valuation point (i.e. daily in most cases) by reducing the unit price of the fund accordingly. It is therefore already reflected in the fund performance, whereas the platform fee must be subtracted separately.

On the subject of tracking the performance of your portfolio, you might find this method useful: http://news.fool.co.uk/news/investing/2010/09/20/stockpicking-are-you-as-good-as-you-think.aspx
Essentially, by keeping track of money added and removed from your portfolio, you can track performance net of all charges and transaction costs.

Totton

I find the best thing to concentrate on is performance rather than charges. As mentioned earlier, charges are taken out of the performance so you have an overall figure which should be the one to concentrate on.