Stocks and shares isas down in 2015

grey_gym_sock

Linton wrote: »

Retail managed funds are a pretty small % of the total market.

yup. but if retail managed funds are to do better than the average, somebody has to do worse than the average. who is the dumb money? institutional managed funds? private investors who buy individual shares?

i wouldn't expect institutional funds to do worse than retail funds.

PIs might well be the dumb money, but do they own a large enough % of the market for managed funds to make enough money (by gaining at the expense of PIs) to overcome the higher costs of actively managed funds?

on the original question: i'll measure it at the end of month. no need to be impatient ... and then, regardless of the result, i'll explain why i should make no major changes in my portfolio: basically, either it's working so i should keep doing what i'm doing (viz. as little as possible), or it's had a bad year but every investment strategy has good and bad periods so the main thing is to stick with it and not to "chase winners" - which is a classic way to underperform in the longer term.

gadgetmind

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

somebody has to do worse than the average. who is the dumb money?

As someone who previously used St James' Place, I can tell you that this is exactly where the dumb money is.

Linton

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

yup. but if retail managed funds are to do better than the average, somebody has to do worse than the average. who is the dumb money? institutional managed funds? private investors who buy individual shares?

i wouldn't expect institutional funds to do worse than retail funds.

PIs might well be the dumb money, but do they own a large enough % of the market for managed funds to make enough money (by gaining at the expense of PIs) to overcome the higher costs of ....

UK PIs are about the same % as retail funds.

Different investors invest for different reasons. Hedge funds and similar may like a company because they can make a quick buck. For such investors multi-year returns may be of little interest. People looking for dividends may not care about total returns. Employees may own employer's shares because they get them cheap. Small company shares may well be significantly owned by company directors and their families. In both cases the investors wont be chasing returns. Over 50% of UK shares are owned by foreigners - they may invest preferentially in companies they have heard of. Insurers and other corporate investors may be more interested in perceived safety than maximising returns.

redux

gadgetmind wrote: »

True, but seeing how well your low-fee portfolio has beaten the high fee multi-asset ones with their star managers is a buzz.

Actually, even before this thread started, though perhaps from a similar one earlier, I'd thought that this seems to be a year where some people are complaining things are flat or slightly down, and they seem to be mainly talking about trackers, while others are seeing new peaks throughout the year, including in the last couple of months.

george4064

Broken_Biscuits wrote: »

Have you used 31/10 for any particular reason? I mean if its because it is the best result you could post, but say you used just 2015 as per the thread title it would be considerably worse... Well its best not to try and kid yourself.

20% returns is a fantastic result if genuine. Is this a fairly high risk, turned good portfolio?

I have now managed to obtain my 31/12/2014 valuation, using the same calculation method as before my portfolio has returned +21.58% for 2015 up to 24/12/15.

Pretty much bang on what it was from October to October.

kangoora

george4064 wrote: »

I have now managed to obtain my 31/12/2014 valuation, using the same calculation method as before my portfolio has returned +21.58% for 2015 up to 24/12/15.

Pretty much bang on what it was from October to October.

I'd be very interested in what funds and allocations you have to get almost 22% return - if it's not a secret

george4064

kangoora wrote: »

I'd be very interested in what funds and allocations you have to get almost 22% return - if it's not a secret

I won't reveal my portfolio, but I know for sure that a lot the performance is from the individual stocks.

In general I much prefer the closed nature of investment trusts over the open-ended nature of OIECs, so I hold various investment trusts (some of which are quote small/non-mainstream).

For the future, I plan to gradually buy more individual shares and I also want to have a look at the new 'smart' ETFs.

TheTracker

george4064 wrote: »

I won't reveal my portfolio, but I know for sure that a lot the performance is from the individual stocks.

How odd. Just over two months ago in this thread you were happy to give detail, including ownership of

- Acorn Income Fund
- Edinburgh IT
- European Assets Trust
- Biotech Growth Trust
- Woodford Patient Capital Trust
- CF Woodford Equity Income
- rest is made up of a few ftse 100, more 250 stocks and some AIM stocks.

And in this post three months ago you explained your "portfolio consists of 10 stocks and 1 fund". I imagine you then bought the ITs above.

It's wonderful to get a return of 20%+ but as your portfolio is about £50k you may be able to afford a highly volatile portfolio of stocks.

george4064

TheTracker wrote: »

How odd. Just over two months ago in this thread you were happy to give detail, including ownership of

- Acorn Income Fund
- Edinburgh IT
- European Assets Trust
- Biotech Growth Trust
- Woodford Patient Capital Trust
- CF Woodford Equity Income
- rest is made up of a few ftse 100, more 250 stocks and some AIM stocks.

And in this post three months ago you explained your "portfolio consists of 10 stocks and 1 fund". I imagine you then bought the ITs above.

It's wonderful to get a return of 20%+ but as your portfolio is about £50k you may be able to afford a highly volatile portfolio of stocks.

Don't see how that could come across as odd, I still havent revealed my portfolio (I'd have to name each of my stocks in order to do that).

However, thanks for the summary. Well researched.

Broken_Biscuits

Broken_Biscuits wrote: »

Down 1.1% overall for 2015.

And now up 1.18% to finish the year.
Only started investing February and not calculated the true percentage return taking into account drip feeding.

Looks like I beat the safe bet, vanguard, by a measly amount.