Views please on £280k investment portfolio

aroominyork

bostonerimus wrote: »

Look at the underlying assets of these funds and the reasons for their relative returns will be apparent. It's often informative to look at the relative returns over longer times scales as well. What L&G funds are you looking at.....we need to make sure we are comparing like to like or we take account of different assets and amounts of risk.

I'd have to go deeper than I have the ability/understanding to make sense of the underlying assets: that's why your keep-it-simple advice appears to me, and why I ask you the question . Re L&G I picked two off HL's Wealth 150: Global inflation linked bond index (C) and International index trust (C). Also, where can I see information going back over five years?

bigadaj

aroominyork wrote: »

I'd have to go deeper than I have the ability/understanding to make sense of the underlying assets: that's why your keep-it-simple advice appears to me, and why I ask you the question . Re L&G I picked two off HL's Wealth 150: Global inflation linked bond index (C) and International index trust (C). Also, where can I see information going back over five years?

HLs lists have traditionally been a reflection of their commission rather than any outperformance of the selected fund.

Vls is a uk centric family of funds.

For individual funds you can go back ten years on trustnet and probably Morningstar.

However we are still in extraordinary times, and have had near zero interest rates for approaching a decade, the next decade will certainly be different. The process of weaning people off free money will be painful for many.

Thrugelmir

bigadaj wrote: »

However we are still in extraordinary times, and have had near zero interest rates for approaching a decade, the next decade will certainly be different. The process of weaning people off free money will be painful for many.

By coincidence it's the same length of time as the current bull market. 100 months to date. One wonders if complacency is creeping in. Many people know little differently. No experience of volatility. Watching ones investments moved up and down thousands in a day. Be some panic then.

bigadaj

Thrugelmir wrote: »

By coincidence it's the same length of time as the current bull market. 100 months to date. One wonders if complacency is creeping in. Many people know little differently. No experience of volatility. Watching ones investments moved up and down thousands in a day. Be some panic then.

Yes, I'd agree.

However when interests rates rise the issues around equity markets will be minor, certainly for the majority of people, comoared to the effect on property. How many will afford doubling their mortgage payments, which would probably require vase rates to hit the heady heights of 2% maybe.

bostonerimus

aroominyork wrote: »

I'd have to go deeper than I have the ability/understanding to make sense of the underlying assets: that's why your keep-it-simple advice appears to me, and why I ask you the question . Re L&G I picked two off HL's Wealth 150: Global inflation linked bond index (C) and International index trust (C). Also, where can I see information going back over five years?

Trustnet is ok. On there you can compare the components of each fund. the VLS funds have a UK bias and that might well be holding them back wrt L&G International Trust....so I would compare it to Vanguard Global Equity. If I was in the UK I'd probably start with a 2 fund portfolio of Vanguard Global Equity and Vanguard Global Bond.

Thrugelmir

bigadaj wrote: »

However when interests rates rise the issues around equity markets will be minor, certainly for the majority of people, comoared to the effect on property.

Companies are taking debt on board. That debt eventually needs to be repaid or refinanced. 20% of all trading on the main US markets last year was companies repurchasing their own stock. Cheaper to borrow on the markets and buy back. Offsetting interest charges in the process against Corporation Tax. Than repatriate the cash from offshore tax havens and get hit for punitive taxes. As was the case with Tesco's. There's a huge amount of financial engineering going on. Not least to support dividend pay outs and employees stock options. Once the music finally stops then we'll see where the problems lie one suspects.

aroominyork

bostonerimus wrote: »

If I was in the UK I'd probably start with a 2 fund portfolio of Vanguard Global Equity and Vanguard Global Bond.

… since you are used to investing in the US. I am less confident in the US or my own country - which isn’t a great starting point! So I’ve arrived at a 70% split between two multi-asset funds (Vanguard 80/20 and Baillie Gifford Managed), 10% in Europe (either a tracker, or split between Baring Europe Select and Man GLG European Growth), 10% in Jupiter India (the left-fielder we are comfortable with) and 10% in strategic bonds (either Jupiter Strategic Bond or Morgan Stanley Sterling Corporate Bond).

Our current investments (ex-IFA) are being liquidated as they move to our self-managed platform, so we will invest 40-45% now with the balance in 6 and 12 months.

For each decision my sense-check is whether, if the fund falls badly, I would think it was an irrational decision for which I kick myself, or a rational decision that didn't work out.

bostonerimus

aroominyork wrote: »

… since you are used to investing in the US. I am less confident in the US or my own country - which isn’t a great starting point! So I’ve arrived at a 70% split between two multi-asset funds (Vanguard 80/20 and Baillie Gifford Managed), 10% in Europe (either a tracker, or split between Baring Europe Select and Man GLG European Growth), 10% in Jupiter India (the left-fielder we are comfortable with) and 10% in strategic bonds (either Jupiter Strategic Bond or Morgan Stanley Sterling Corporate Bond).

Our current investments (ex-IFA) are being liquidated as they move to our self-managed platform, so we will invest 40-45% now with the balance in 6 and 12 months.

For each decision my sense-check is whether, if the fund falls badly, I would think it was an irrational decision for which I kick myself, or a rational decision that didn't work out.

I've always been overweighted towards US equities, but that's common for US investors, and it's habit and inertia that mostly keeps me there. If I was in the UK I'd probably be 70% Global Equity Index and 30% Global Bond Index. i would not overweight any regions.

Audaxer

aroominyork wrote: »

… since you are used to investing in the US. I am less confident in the US or my own country - which isn’t a great starting point! So I’ve arrived at a 70% split between two multi-asset funds (Vanguard 80/20 and Baillie Gifford Managed), 10% in Europe (either a tracker, or split between Baring Europe Select and Man GLG European Growth), 10% in Jupiter India (the left-fielder we are comfortable with) and 10% in strategic bonds (either Jupiter Strategic Bond or Morgan Stanley Sterling Corporate Bond).

Our current investments (ex-IFA) are being liquidated as they move to our self-managed platform, so we will invest 40-45% now with the balance in 6 and 12 months.

For each decision my sense-check is whether, if the fund falls badly, I would think it was an irrational decision for which I kick myself, or a rational decision that didn't work out.

Good luck with your investments. I've seen threads where experienced investors have indicated that when investing in large six figure portfolios, you should diversify more widely into assets classes like property and commodities. I presume that is to possibly lessen volatility in the event of a large equity crash, but I'm not sure if it would give you any better returns in the long run.

Type_45

Why would an amateur think they can beat the markets?

Either go with an IFA, or go with a fund such as Vanguard Life Strategy.


Don't waste your time and money trying to do it yourself.