6 years tracking...change platform?

AnotherJoe

MrStanners wrote: »

Out of curiosity I had a look at its performance over the last 6 years, up over 50%, so better than savings accounts and regular savers after all.

2011 to just before Brexit, up 20% that includes dividends..that's very poor and would have been worse than regular savers. The other 30% is the Brexit bump, the OP got lucky and won't see that again so should get out now while the going is good.

dunstonh

Some here who mock your choice, fall in to a group that Warren Buffet castigates as those "who reap outsized profits, at the clients expense" He has no problem with a million dollar bet to prove his point with the Hedge Fund Industry either.
His chosen vehicle is an S&P500 Index Fund, not a million miles away from the FTSE 100 you are in. (Let's ignore that they are based on two sides of the same pond)
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/030916/buffetts-bet-hedge-funds-year-eight-brka-brkb.asp

The problem with gold diggers who know nothing about investing is that they dont understand what is being said.

1 - FTSE100 is a million miles away from the S&P500
2 - Warren Buffet was addressing a US audience. US taxation hits managed funds harder than trackers. Making it near impossible for heavily managed funds to beat trackers. The UK taxation system does not penalise managed funds. The UK has more successful managed funds than anywhere else. However, its not passive vs managed that is the issue here. It is a case of investing in a very narrow index with poor diversification that has been ranked bottom or near bottom for most of the last 25 years.
3 - Buffet's investment group does not invest how he tells Americans to invest.

AnotherJoe

DiggerUK wrote: »

Some here who mock your choice, fall in to a group that Warren Buffet castigates as those "who reap outsized profits, at the clients expense"

They fall into a group of "those who understand what a lousy choice for your first investment it is"

DiggerUK wrote: »

His chosen vehicle is an S&P500 Index Fund, not a million miles away from the FTSE 100 you are in.]

The only sense in which it's not a million miles away, is that it's closer to two million miles away.

BananaRepublic

AnotherJoe wrote: »

They fall into a group of "those who understand what a lousy choice for your first investment it is"

An alternative viewpoint is that whilst the choice of investment could have been better, it could also have been a lot worse e.g. a poorly performing active fund, or savings account, or a wodge of tenners stuffed under a mattress, which a young visitor slept on, and they now smell faintly of wee wee.

So perhaps the OP deserves a little bit of credit for some sense, but yes they could have chosen a better funds, or funds. In their defence, it is all rather obvious to most of us, but I suspect for most people it isn't. Most people I speak to say they do not invest in the stock market (yes, I know they have pensions, but they ignore the underlying investments) because they say it is risky. So, the OP is now on the righteous path:

Praise the Lord, hallelulah, let's welcome our new brother for he has seen the light, please join with me and sing our next hymn ....

AnotherJoe

fair enough BR you make some good points.

OP you've started off at least investing. Now improve that with a better investment choice.

Mikedz

Thanks for the response folks, for clarification here are some further details:

Yes, I certainly am a new/naive investor and this is the only investment I have.
I typo'd in my original post - I meant 0.82% OCF, not OCR and hence this is my measure of the charges incl. fund and platform fee.
I have a UK 100 Index (R) fund directly from L&G inside a S&S ISA wrapper.

I opened this is 2011 on the advice of a Motley fool book. I think it may have been "The Motley Fool UK Investment Workbook" but I don't have it anymore so I can't check. It's possible the guidance pointed towards a 'UK Index' rather than a 'UK 100 Index' but again I can't check. I was feeling rather brazen anyway so I was willing to take a punt on the UK 100. Whether good or not, that's how it happened.

Yes, it appears the value has increased most over the past year Brexit etc. I have struggled to find a calculator that will let me compare the same monthly investment on different funds, eg. the value of my investment had I put it into a different fund initially. Does this exist?

From my calculation my investment is now worth the equivalent of putting it in a regular savings account at around 8% APR. Should I be happy with this?
I guess the next logical question is what would it be worth had I chosen a different fund, or indeed the same fund on a cheaper platform?

bigadaj

It's free to register with trustnet or morning star websites and you can set up dummy accounts, track indices, funds and portfolios to compare performance.

Your peformance is probably about average for long term investments, but since 2011 it's actually comparatively poor as stock markets have performed very well, a typical diverse portfolio may well have returned 2-3% more than that annually.

Tim hales book 'smarter investing' is a good read for a novice investor, as is the monevator website. Both are passively biased and a little cost obsessed, which many would say is no bad thing, but many see value in active funds at additional cost in certain sectors at least.

After reading a little it may be worthwhile doing some surveys to analyse your risk tolerance, and then investing in a suitable all world tracker, or a mix of funds, diversification is a useful tool in steadying returns and reducing volatility.

BananaRepublic

Mikedz wrote: »

From my calculation my investment is now worth the equivalent of putting it in a regular savings account at around 8% APR. Should I be happy with this?
I guess the next logical question is what would it be worth had I chosen a different fund, or indeed the same fund on a cheaper platform?

In general 8% is excellent, you have got a good rate of return in historical terms. This is perhaps because you invested soon after the crash, when the UK markets were depressed, so you benefited from the recovery.

You can see how other funds perform by looking the You Invest fund data (other good sites are available). For example, an American mid-cap equity fund would have returned roughly 20% per year over the last 5 years. However, the 10 year average is much lower, no doubt due to the crash. So compared to many other sectors, you have not done so well.

Hindsight is marvellous.

badger09

Mikedz wrote: »

Thanks for the response folks, for clarification here are some further details:

Yes, I certainly am a new/naive investor and this is the only investment I have.
I typo'd in my original post - I meant 0.82% OCF, not OCR and hence this is my measure of the charges incl. fund and platform fee.
I have a UK 100 Index (R) fund directly from L&G inside a S&S ISA wrapper.

I opened this is 2011 on the advice of a Motley fool book. I think it may have been "The Motley Fool UK Investment Workbook" but I don't have it anymore so I can't check. It's possible the guidance pointed towards a 'UK Index' rather than a 'UK 100 Index' but again I can't check. I was feeling rather brazen anyway so I was willing to take a punt on the UK 100. Whether good or not, that's how it happened.

Yes, it appears the value has increased most over the past year Brexit etc. I have struggled to find a calculator that will let me compare the same monthly investment on different funds, eg. the value of my investment had I put it into a different fund initially. Does this exist?

From my calculation my investment is now worth the equivalent of putting it in a regular savings account at around 8% APR. Should I be happy with this?
I guess the next logical question is what would it be worth had I chosen a different fund, or indeed the same fund on a cheaper platform?

Does it really matter now? You can't turn the clock back:cool:.

I would echo bigadaj's comment about Tim Hales' book and the Monevator website as reasonable places to start learning so you can make better investment choices from now on.

First of all decide what you want to invest in, then look at various platforms and decide which offers your chosen investments and which is best suited to your investing style (drip feeding, lump sums etc).