F&C or Alliance Trust Global IT?

Sue58

I want to add to my global portfolio of funds in my S&S Isa and currently I am looking at F&C and Alliance Trust IT's. At the moment they both offer a similar discount and the performances and dividends history are also similar.

Does anybody hold either of these IT's in their portfolio's, and if so, why do you have a preference to one or the other. Any views on these two IT's would be really appreciated.

StellaN

Sue58 wrote: »

I want to add to my global portfolio of funds in my S&S Isa and currently I am looking at F&C and Alliance Trust IT's. At the moment they both offer a similar discount and the performances and dividends history are also similar.

Does anybody hold either of these IT's in their portfolio's, and if so, why do you have a preference to one or the other. Any views on these two IT's would be really appreciated.

I hold F&C, they are more tech based (similar to SMT and Monks) but spread over 500 holdings to lower the risk and volatility. Some of theit top 10 holdings include Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Priceline etc On the other hand Alliance Trust are more mainstream funds with only Microsoft out of the above.

ColdIron

Are you sure about that? Certainly the top ten holdings, all around ~1%, have some well known names but the Alliance factsheet and annual reports show that Information Technology accounts for 20% or more in the sector breakdown

StellaN

ColdIron wrote: »

Are you sure about that? Certainly the top ten holdings, all around ~1%, have some well known names but the Alliance factsheet and annual reports show that Information Technology accounts for 20% or more in the sector breakdown

Oops sorry, I only looked at the top 10 holdings which is quite bad. I retract what I said - I don't know the main differences between the two IT's. Maybe somebody more experienced with these two IT's can help the OP.

talexuser

I also hold FRCL and had to sell before April to rebase capital gains after the rise/sterling fall so held ATST for a month (rather than cash) before going back to FRCL for the new tax year. Since ATST have just torn up their investment approach to mirror Witan I would think FRCL has the more stable long term record?

atush

I hold both F&C and Witan (and add monthly), no holdings in alliance.

Linton

From what I can see the two trusts may focus to an extent on different sectors with different geographic allocations but they both invest broadly and arent very different in principle so I see no obvious reason for choosing one rather than the other. Their long term perfomance is very similar.

One comment I would make is that if you are already holding a global portfolio of funds adding eiher of these ITs is just adjusting the overall allocation a bit. I cant see them bringing anything new - you are probably holding most of the underlying companies anyway.

StellaN

atush wrote: »

I hold both F&C and Witan (and add monthly), no holdings in alliance.

I hold both of these as well but also hold Bankers, Brunner and Monks. Is this overkill or is it reasonable to hold different global IT's?

Sue58

talexuser wrote: »

I also hold FRCL and had to sell before April to rebase capital gains after the rise/sterling fall so held ATST for a month (rather than cash) before going back to FRCL for the new tax year. Since ATST have just torn up their investment approach to mirror Witan I would think FRCL has the more stable long term record?

Does this mean you don't approve of Witan's investment approach in appointing various managers for different regions?

Linton

StellaN wrote: »

I hold both of these as well but also hold Bankers, Brunner and Monks. Is this overkill or is it reasonable to hold different global IT's?

If these are all general global funds, yes a pointless overkill.

Why?.....

You could decide to hold one general vanilla global fund, tracker or otherwise. However you presumably believed that the manager of one of your ITs, fund A, had particular skills which would lead to a better return, or lower volatility or whatever characteristic you were wanting. Then you could choose a second IT, fund B, to hedge your bets.

But you decided to add funds C, D, and E. What have you got overall? Clearly something that looks nothing like any of your chosen funds. You have destroyed the benefits which you were hoping for from funds A and B. The chances are that your total portfolio may be no better than the vanilla global fund you didnt want in the first place.

If you want to invest in a large set of ITs it would be better to choose a broad range of niche sector funds so you are leaving the managers of the funds to do their job without stepping on each others toes.

StellaN

Linton wrote: »

If these are all general global funds, yes a pointless overkill.

Why?.....

You could decide to hold one general vanilla global fund, tracker or otherwise. However you presumably believed that the manager of one of your ITs, fund A, had particular skills which would lead to a better return, or lower volatility or whatever characteristic you were wanting. Then you could choose a second IT, fund B, to hedge your bets.

But you decided to add funds C, D, and E. What have you got overall? Clearly something that looks nothing like any of your chosen funds. You have destroyed the benefits which you were hoping for from funds A and B. The chances are that your total portfolio may be no better than the vanilla global fund you didnt want in the first place.

If you want to invest in a large set of ITs it would be better to choose a broad range of niche sector funds so you are leaving the managers of the funds to do their job without stepping on each others toes.

That's what I thought someone would say so thank you for confirming this. Sounds like I need to do a little pruning and just retain two from the five I hold!