Balanced risk portfolio assessment

EdInvestor

On the tax side, you'd be sensible to look at N&SI index linked certificates for cash, which are paid tax free.You really need all her ISAs for non cash investments ( cash ISAs can be converted into investment ISAs as of next year).

If I were you I would move all the ISAs to a self select provider where you can pick and choose the various investments (UTs, ITs, shares, bonds whatever) within the wrapper.

Either https://www.h-l.co.uk or https://www.selftrade.co.uk are well regarded.The procedure is to fill out the application form with the new provider, which will then goes and gets the ISAs from the old provider. If you do this you will have one single wrap of 18k at the new provider.On no account should you cash in any ISA, that will mean you lose the wrapper.

munk

EdInvestor wrote: »

On the tax side, you'd be sensible to look at N&SI index linked certificates for cash, which are paid tax free.You really need all her ISAs for non cash investments ( cash ISAs can be converted into investment ISAs as of next year).

If I were you I would move all the ISAs to a self select provider where you can pick and choose the various investments (UTs, ITs, shares, bonds whatever) within the wrapper.

Either https://www.h-l.co.uk or https://www.selftrade.co.uk are well regarded.The procedure is to fill out the application form with the new provider, which will then goes and gets the ISAs from the old provider. If you do this you will have one single wrap of 18k at the new provider.On no account should you cash in any ISA, that will mean you lose the wrapper.

At the moment I was thinking of going with Bestinvest, mainly because of their offer of free advice up to twice a year for investments over £50,000. Will have to see how good the initial advice is, still waiting a reply.

I'm torn between Bestinvest and H-L at the moment as I've said above, Bestinvest provide free advice but H-L are cheaper in terms of discounted/rebated AMC / annual management charges. I've not looked at selftrade as yet, will do that now.

I take your point about cash ISAs, will look into transferring the cash isas over to s&s perhaps once the new rules come in next april.

Thanks again.

dunstonh

Selftrade are more expensive on unit trusts.

HL are cheapest but you get no advice and no FOS protection.

Bestinvest are doing what a number of NMA IFAs would do and look to earn the money from the trail commission and not the initial.

EdInvestor

You can always spread it around 2 or 3 providers - less risky that way.

munk

dunstonh wrote: »

HL are cheapest but you get no advice and no FOS protection.

Are there any bad news stories relating to this? I'd liked the look of HL for their discounted rates, though as you say Bestinvest seem like a decent enough punt if they provide decent advice that they make pay through non rebated AMCs. Still torn between the two.

Anyway, at great expense to my sanity formatting all this for the forum, here's an updated portfolio to hopefully fulfill the criteria:

• 2-4% income pa
• 10% downside risk tolerance
• Roughly following a cautious-balanced asset model (Bestinvest's idea of it at least) (very roughly actually, quite overweight in equities - 47% instead of the recommended 34%)

EDIT: the above criteria will actually be out slightly now since I tweaked things.

Fund: Weight (%)
Artemis UK Special Situations Acc: 5.2
CF Midas Balanced Income Fund Inc: 10
First State Great China Gr B GBP Acc: 1
Invesco Perpetual Corporate Bond Inc: 11.9
INVESCO Perpetual High Income Inc: 13.2
Invesco Perpetual Monthly Income Plus: 7.5
JPM US Fund A Acc: 1.6
Jupiter Merlin Income Portfolio Inc: 12.4
Liontrust First Growth Inc: 5.6
M&G American A Inc: 1.5
New Star European Growth GBP Acc: 2.3
New Star Property A Inc: 5.4
New Star Sterling Bond: 14.4
Schroder European Alpha Plus Fd Inc: 4.3
SWIP Property Trust Inc: 3.7

which breaks down as:

Asset Allocation
Equities 47%
High Yield Bonds 6%
Quality Bonds 31%
Property 9%
Hedge & Other 2%
Cash 4%

Geographic Split of Equities
UK 72%
Europe 16%
Nth America 9%
Japan 1%
Pacific 3%
Other Equity 0%

Capitalisation Split Of Equities
Largecaps 57%
Midcaps 28%
Smallcaps 15%

Again this is using Bestinvest's Portfolio Building Tool which is excellent when it works (and presuming it's calculations are correct re weightings, which it seems to be cross-checking with morningstar's X-ray tool).

I tried to take into account all of the much appreciated info above - increased overseas/emerging exposure (us, euro and china), added property to the mix and generally increased the diversity of the portfolio not least by increasing the number of funds from the original paltry number I'd gotten originally

Perhaps 15 is too much now - I'd not gone all out to match your upper limit of 15 dunstonh, it just happened to end up at 15

No doubt this list will take some more tweaking - probably to find decent alternatives to those funds which still carry an initial charge at Bestinvest/HL to lower costs hopefully.

Any comments on this updated portfolio are very welcome although I'm aware of how much time I've leeched already... :rolleyes:

PS - Are there any other decent portfolio building tools other than Bestinvest's either on the web or in standalone application form that are 'free' to use? I had a search but didn't find much - does anyone have a Morningstar Advisor Workstation subscription, I got the impression something might be included in that for portfolio building (though I can't afford £1200pa!)

As always, thanks for reading