Investing newbie with questions...

coyrls

Not_Me_Officer wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback to all of you. As ever you've all been great with the responses.

Just a note though - when I listed 4 it was purely for an example only. I could listed every single different type of index tracker known to man, however many there are, 10, 15, 100, 1000 etc but at that time of night I didn't fancy typing out every single possibility and thought that listing only 4 would get the point of my question across.

That was all

Regardless of the number, the question is how would you decide which indexes to invest in and how much to invest in each of the indexes that you choose?

AnotherJoe

Not_Me_Officer wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback to all of you. As ever you've all been great with the responses.

Just a note though - when I listed 4 it was purely for an example only. I could listed every single different type of index tracker known to man, however many there are, 10, 15, 100, 1000 etc but at that time of night I didn't fancy typing out every single possibility and thought that listing only 4 would get the point of my question across.

That was all

I'm sure everyone realised that, I think the point is, on what basis would you choose those allocations of X out of those Y possibilities?

If you dont have a basis on which to do that, then buy a ready made one. If you do have a basis, fair enough.

Not_Me_Officer

How do any of you base your decisions on where to place your money?

TheShape

Not_Me_Officer wrote: »

How do any of you base your decisions on where to place your money?

As a novice investor myself I spend a decent amount of time looking at options, reading posts, asking questions here. At some point I thought I'd settled on fund X only for someone perhaps to say 'that's very high in UK equities, are you ok with that?' so I'd settle on fund Y and someone might say 'ah, so you want a certain percentage of your investments in bonds' and so on to fund Z.

At some point I needed to make a decision. I thought that some sort of mixed multi asset fund was probably right rather than lots of different funds that I'd need to manage and rebalance. VLS 100 probably fit the bill as did Blackrock Consensus 100 or HSBC Global Strategy Dynamic. I couldn't decided so what I've now got and am happy with is all three of the above with contributions split three ways. Their performance over the last few years and indeed the few months I've had them have actually been quite similar.

With approx £13k currently in my S&S ISA I won't be making any kind of sophisticated investment decisions anytime soon. I spend far more time currently managing my p2p investments.

Not_Me_Officer

TheShape wrote: »

As a novice investor myself I spend a decent amount of time looking at options, reading posts, asking questions here. At some point I thought I'd settled on fund X only for someone perhaps to say 'that's very high in UK equities, are you ok with that?' so I'd settle on fund Y and someone might say 'ah, so you want a certain percentage of your investments in bonds' and so on to fund Z.

At some point I needed to make a decision. I thought that some sort of mixed multi asset fund was probably right rather than lots of different funds that I'd need to manage and rebalance. VLS 100 probably fit the bill as did Blackrock Consensus 100 or HSBC Global Strategy Dynamic. I couldn't decided so what I've now got and am happy with is all three of the above with contributions split three ways. Their performance over the last few years and indeed the few months I've had them have actually been quite similar.

With approx £13k currently in my S&S ISA I won't be making any kind of sophisticated investment decisions anytime soon. I spend far more time currently managing my p2p investments.

Pretty much the same boat then really.

I've bought a few books, read a lot on here and asked a lot on here, been linked to other websites so on & so forth.

From this i learned more about index trackers & passive investing & more about a bit of diversity. From that i thought yeah that ticks the boxes i need ticking.

Then i read some more on here and Joe Bloggs will put up a portfolio or Plain Jane will ask about a fund and it seems every single time that people/someone will come and say that's a bit this way or that way, are you sure about that which to the unsure just casts doubt.

And i doubt myself a lot

But like you say there comes a time you need to just make a decision.

I also like the look of the VLS100 and i think it'd be fine at my age of 34 but i just wonder if that's a bit beyond my risk level. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I'm not sure i want to find out so on that note i was looking at the VLS80 as a more acceptable balance (for me).

Out of interest the 3 you mentioned, i haven't looked at them so don't know myself but are they not very similar? So if so then wouldn't people say what's the point in investing in all 3 if one is suitable to you? Or do they all offer you something different?

economic

im 34 and ive been investing since 2012. mainly started out with single stocks but have now built a portfolio to include tracker funds and managed funds/trusts.

my rough split is as follows:

tracker funds - 60%
single stocks - 20%
managed funds/trusts - 20%

i am also overweight US stocks by quite a bit - i think 60% of my total exposure is in US stocks and i like it this way for now.

AnotherJoe

Not_Me_Officer wrote: »

How do any of you base your decisions on where to place your money?

Great question.possibly like many mine is a mix of historical accident and a gradual attempt more recently to to tidy it up and get some order.

I built up over many years and only in the last two or three have I started to add structure, remove pointless smaller investments, and make my long term bets - decrease UK investments, add income producing investments as well as growth, add a few specialist areas I think will do better than the average, move from shares into funds.

And the risk level I feel I can take take is a factor of the buffer I feel I have to ride out long term down periods plus what I can tolerate naturally. Mrs AJ would have kittens if she saw how this lot have changed up and down over the years, I've made and lost substantial sums which if I was starting again I wouldn't do so much in individual shares.

TheShape

Not_Me_Officer wrote: »

Pretty much the same boat then really.

I've bought a few books, read a lot on here and asked a lot on here, been linked to other websites so on & so forth.

From this i learned more about index trackers & passive investing & more about a bit of diversity. From that i thought yeah that ticks the boxes i need ticking.

Then i read some more on here and Joe Bloggs will put up a portfolio or Plain Jane will ask about a fund and it seems every single time that people/someone will come and say that's a bit this way or that way, are you sure about that which to the unsure just casts doubt.

And i doubt myself a lot

But like you say there comes a time you need to just make a decision.

I also like the look of the VLS100 and i think it'd be fine at my age of 34 but i just wonder if that's a bit beyond my risk level. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I'm not sure i want to find out so on that note i was looking at the VLS80 as a more acceptable balance (for me).

Out of interest the 3 you mentioned, i haven't looked at them so don't know myself but are they not very similar? So if so then wouldn't people say what's the point in investing in all 3 if one is suitable to you? Or do they all offer you something different?

The funds do have similarities as well as differences. They all have high proportions of equities but at different levels and invested in geographical areas at differing levels. The VLS100, for example, has a much higher amount of UK Equities than both the other funds. Some people might be of the opinion that this is not what they want so will choose a fund with different levels of UK equities.

I could have kept things simply by choosing one fund (I have a SIPP with only VLS100 in it) but decided that as each of them seemed suitable on their own then there did not seem to be any real downside in having all three given that the platform I am using is not charging any more for holding three funds rather than one.

Not_Me_Officer

AnotherJoe wrote: »

add income producing investments

I've wondered this but haven't yet asked.

I don't know your personal situation. I don't know what stage you're at in your retirement journey - whether you're early 20s or 60s or beyond.

But the income/accumulation thing.

I read recently from Dunstonh he goes for income where possible as they are 'cleaner' (what that means i don't know).

When i googled a definition of the both then with my lack of understanding i don't know how an income fund could be better than an accumulation for someone who is trying to build their pot.
I want my pot to get as big as it can as quick as it can and come retirement day that's when i'll access it, so i can't see any benefit of having an income fund until that day.

But like i said i'm not an expert in this field so maybe there's a reason to have income rather than accumulation now?

Linton

Not_Me_Officer wrote: »

How do any of you base your decisions on where to place your money?

The primary factor is what the fund invests in, in terms of geography, company sizes and industry sectors, and the effect of buying the fund on my overall portfolio asset allocation.