Fundsmith Equity - Opinions

MPN

StellaN wrote: »

I used to hold three different global funds, Fundsmith, Newton Global Income & Artemis Global Income.

Recently, I decided I only wanted 2 funds and thought that the Fundsmith & Newton funds did not offer the right mix/variety especially as they both had a couple of the same companies in their top 10 holdings so I decided to sell Newton and go with an IT instead. I chose Scottish Mortgage IT because I thought SMT was more tech based and definitely invested in different companies so would therefore compliment the Fundsmith fund. I still have the Artemis fund at the moment, (although I said I only wanted 2 funds) mainly because it has done so well for me over the past 6 years, however eventually I will sell and split the money between Fundsmith & SMT.

I must say I do like Terry Smith and his philosophy. He currently only has 29 high quality companies in the fund and these are very well established, many of them over 100 years old! As ColdIron said, none of them have a market cap of less than £5BN and another big plus is that he invests his own money into the company!

Interesting thoughts on Terry Smith/Fundsmith. Do you know how I can check all of the 29 companies he has in his fund as opposed to only the top 10 holdings on his website?

Fund Managers like Neil Woodford publish a full list of their fund holdings on their website but others don't seem to want to share this information?

ColdIron

The Annual or Interim Report will give you a snapshot

Sue58

MPN wrote: »

So which Global funds would anyone suggest in preference to Fundsmith?

I myself hold Lindsell Train Global Equity and Old Mutual Global Equity. I did switch from Henderson Global Growth to Lindsell Train.

I now have Ardevora Global Equity and Fundsmith in my S&S ISA portfolio.

MPN

Sue58 wrote: »

I now have Ardevora Global Equity and Fundsmith in my S&S ISA portfolio.

I must admit I did consider Ardevora but in the end I went for Lindsell Train.

fairleads

Trinityx wrote: »

I have been doing some research into funds and see what various brokers recommend. I have looked at several rating websites and something has struck me: aside from maybe The Telegraph, I haven't seen anyone recommend the Fundsmith Equity fund. The comments I have seen were usually that there are better funds.

Yet go look a the most bought funds in the last couple of months on several brokers' websites (including Hargreaves Landsdown which does not include the fund in their Wealth 150), Fundsmith is one of the most bought funds.

Fundsmith returned a total of 165% in the last 5 years. I can't really see many other funds that do that.

So what's the problem? The 0.95% fee? The fact that people think it's at its peak?

Looking in the gift horse's mouth ?

fairleads

kidmugsy wrote: »

Swathes of research in the US and Uk reveal that past performance is a feeble guide to future performance of investment managers. Unless you have some revolutionary way of proving all the researchers wrong I'll stick to the belief that it's almost impossible to determine in advance which managers are going to be the stars of the next five or ten years.

fwiw, my experience is that past performance is better than biased research.

grey_gym_sock

fairleads wrote: »

fwiw, my experience is that past performance is better than biased research.

that's a bit like saying: it's snowing here, so global warming is a myth

anecdotal experience is useless without a proper test for statistical significance.

kidmugsy

fairleads wrote: »

fwiw, my experience is that past performance is better than biased research.

What's your evidence that it's biased?

BananaRepublic

kidmugsy wrote: »

Swathes of research in the US and Uk reveal that past performance is a feeble guide to future performance of investment managers. Unless you have some revolutionary way of proving all the researchers wrong I'll stick to the belief that it's almost impossible to determine in advance which managers are going to be the stars of the next five or ten years.

You make sweeping statements such as "Unless you have some revolutionary way of proving all the researchers wrong" as if they supported your statements which they don't. With research you have to be very careful to understand exactly what they did, and the conclusions they drew, which I don't think you have done. I am sure that on average, when you look at all active funds, what you say is true, and also that most funds do not outperform the market. However, research has also shown that there are many funds that do consistently outperform the market. My own experience over the past 20 years - albeit one investor so statistically it proves nothing - is that past performance is a good guide, relative to the given market and sector at least.

AnotherJoe

fairleads wrote: »

fwiw, my experience is that past performance is better than biased research.

That's begging the question. I could equally argue that unbiased research is better than anecdotal evidence.
Why do you think it's biased ?