Anybody with Investment Fund Experience Please?

Pincher

We who have achieved oneness with the financial universe simply use The Force. The Midichlorian in my left big toe tingles when something will go up, and gives me pain when it is about to fall.

Some people call it gout, but obviously they are not Jedis.

slowpoke_rodriguez

If you don't understand it, steer well clear.

bigadaj

sorcerer wrote: »

The answer to me is very simple, don't buy something that looks expensive. In practive this is hard to do, but if you find investments at a fair value, i don't think you will get much wrong.

I don't believe Gilts or certain bonds are fair value at the moment.

Let us know when you find something at fair value, everything is pretty much overpriced currently.

JohnRo

bigadaj wrote: »

Let us know when you find something at fair value, everything is pretty much overpriced currently.

That or priced appropriately as a natural consequence of massive money printing, currency wars, market manipulation and financial experimentation.
The new normal, with billions of people world wide who aren't riding on the coat tails of the omnipotent central bankers being left behind.

bottleandahalf

BT looking tempting?

expeditionist

This thread has gained some interesting comments now. Thanks to everybody for all your replies.

Pincher wrote: »

We who have achieved oneness with the financial universe simply use The Force. The Midichlorian in my left big toe tingles when something will go up, and gives me pain when it is about to fall.

Some people call it gout, but obviously they are not Jedis.

bottleandahalf wrote: »

BT looking tempting?

Don't joke, my friend still has all his savings in BT shares! I guess we'd all like a crystal ball wouldn't we. Personally, I steer clear of shares and focus on funds. It's less work and less research in my opinion and the wide spread is a bit safer for someone like me who might lose attention on my investments now and then.

bigadaj wrote: »

Let us know when you find something at fair value, everything is pretty much overpriced currently.

As said already, my bet over the foreseeable is for funds in gold/precious metals sector equities and emerging markets equities. They seem to have performed better than most since soon after Brexit when I started tracking them and there's not so many political uncertainties in the pipeline with those. Rightly or wrongly, I feel more confident looking at underlying trends than value, anyway, it’s hard to perceive value in UK/EU/US funds right now, most of them are up significantly since Brexit.

slowpoke_rodriguez wrote: »

If you don't understand it, steer well clear.

Pincher wrote: »

Another trigger:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37031793

Bank of England bond-buying programme hits trouble

The Bank had offered to buy government bonds, or gilts, as part of its new quantitative easing (QE) programme to stimulate the economy.

But the bank fell £52m short of its £1.17bn target when it failed to find enough sellers.


Even Kamikaze buying won't work, it seems.

So if they announce another QE, will it count as a "trigger"?

sorcerer wrote: »

The answer to me is very simple, don't buy something that looks expensive. In practive this is hard to do, but if you find investments at a fair value, i don't think you will get much wrong.

I don't believe Gilts or certain bonds are fair value at the moment.

ChesterDog wrote: »

I'm a bit uncomfortable with your focus on triggers.

The underlying trends - driven by many different factors, both short and long term - and the market sentiment to which they give rise often do not lead to readily-identifiable triggers but their effects can be great.

Also, as said before, I've always steered clear from anything I don't understand, but it was this fund in UK gilts (https://www.trustnet.com/Factsheets/Factsheet.aspx?fundCode=ESLDG1 ) which is usually quite stable and then it went up nearly 9% in a week, and that made me desirous to understand what had triggered it to rise so quickly from the 4th onwards (BOE base rate cut and QE) and then start to fall back again from the 15th. If I’d understood that trigger earlier and been paying attention then maybe possibly I’d have jumped on it quicker, as it was I only took about a 3% gain instead of more. So understanding potential triggers like that might have been useful maybe.

Thanks again for all your reples.

bigadaj

With specific reference to value and the points raised above I think there may well be value in emerging markets but not in metals.

I have more experience professionally in metals, and whilst the shares can leap on the basis of an increase in price, the whole sector is relatively depressed after the last boom, and there is a huge amount of spare capacity. It may work with good market timing but whole operation will fire back up once they start to look profitable given a rise in the commodity price.

expeditionist

bigadaj wrote: »

With specific reference to value and the points raised above I think there may well be value in emerging markets but not in metals.

I have more experience professionally in metals, and whilst the shares can leap on the basis of an increase in price, the whole sector is relatively depressed after the last boom, and there is a huge amount of spare capacity. It may work with good market timing but whole operation will fire back up once they start to look profitable given a rise in the commodity price.

Thankfully, I'm looking at the returns every day at the moment so I'll stick with the gold/precious metals sector equities fund until I perceive a definite slow down.

The last two days have been awful but that aside, and by my reckoning, since soon after Brexit when I started tracking them, the gold/precious metals fund I'm currently in has returned about 13% and the emerging markets fund about 20% so I'll heed your warning and watch them carefully.

Ultimately, I'm a novice individual making decisions on my own and looking for value seems like such a complicated endeavour compared to looking at past performance and forecasts, my biggest problem is usually knowing when to get out.

Plus the fact that I'm a coward and scared to put all my eggs in one basket!

redmalc

I have today took a lot of profit from my large portfolio and holding 65% in cash.
I am gambling the market is at the top and will fall shortly,who knows you have to go with your gut feel.
I am of the opinion it will fall to approx 6400 and then I go back in,who knows when to sell ?!

expeditionist

But who among us isn't greedy and doesn't occasionally hanker to get rich quick, perhaps at their own demise!