Woodford apologises for performance

grey_gym_sock

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Yes but how do you pick the winning active managers in advance - without the benefit of hindsight?

time travel.

jamesd

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Yes but how do you pick the winning active managers in advance - without the benefit of hindsight?

You could always wait for ten years of overall outperformance then buy and benefit from the twenty years that follow. That's roughly where we are today with Woodford, he first became a fund manager back in 1987.

ams25

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/10388817/How-Neil-Woodford-made-you-a-fortune.html

See the woodford dips in the chart...

Invested with him since 92... Not complaining!!

dividendhero

jamesd wrote: »

That's roughly where we are today with Woodford, he first became a fund manager back in 1987.

Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't the first manager of IP Income - the fund was launched in 1979 by Martyn Arbib. Some of us were fortunate enough to invest in the very early days

ffacoffipawb

Zola. wrote: »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/09/06/neil-woodford-right-criticised-sorry/

Another case for following the passive path and not chasing last year's fashionable star fund manager ?

Malthusian

bigadaj wrote: »

Tony Blair isn't apologising, maybe it would just take too long....

Blair did actually issue a classic politician's apology for the War on Iraq. He apologised for the fact that the "intelligence" was wrong; so he apologised not for his own actions but for the actions of intelligence officials. (In any case, the intelligence was correct; everyone on the ground agreed Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Bush, Blair and co however preferred to listen to one Iraqi conman who told them what they wanted to hear.) He also apologised for the fact that Iraq was overrun by sectarian violence and later by Isis; so he apologised for the actions of religious zealots and warlords, instead of for his own decision to allow the zealots and warlords to fill the power vacuum as he knew perfectly well would happen.

But he didn't apologise for removing Saddam even though he admitted he had no reason for doing so and the consequences were appalling. You might find it extremely weird that someone could admit they had neither a pre-hoc nor a post-hoc justification for their actions, actions which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and billions of pounds wasted, but still claim it was a good idea. But Blair is a politician.

ams25

Malthusian wrote: »

Blair did actually issue a classic politician's apology for the War on Iraq. He apologised for the fact that the "intelligence" was wrong; so he apologised not for his own actions but for the actions of intelligence officials. (In any case, the intelligence was correct; everyone on the ground agreed Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Bush, Blair and co however preferred to listen to one Iraqi conman who told them what they wanted to hear.) He also apologised for the fact that Iraq was overrun by sectarian violence and later by Isis; so he apologised for the actions of religious zealots and warlords, instead of for his own decision to allow the zealots and warlords to fill the power vacuum as he knew perfectly well would happen.

But he didn't apologise for removing Saddam even though he admitted he had no reason for doing so and the consequences were appalling. You might find it extremely weird that someone could admit they had neither a pre-hoc nor a post-hoc justification for their actions, actions which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and billions of pounds wasted, but still claim it was a good idea. But Blair is a politician.

from Woodford to Blair.....

Definately off topic!

atush

ams25 wrote: »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/10388817/How-Neil-Woodford-made-you-a-fortune.html

See the woodford dips in the chart...

Invested with him since 92... Not complaining!!

Havent been ith him as long, but I am happy enough.

But I wouldnt put all my money with him.

poppy10_2

I sold half my stake with the Woodford Equity Income fund.
I usually invest for the long-haul through any ups and downs but there have been far too many avoidable mis-steps recently and his investment decisions really do make you question his judgement.

• He bought more shares of to the doorstep seller Provident despite a profit warning, the government clamping down on shady lenders, their internal shakeup going horribly wrong and widespread shorting of the shares from hedge funds. Because he'd bought so much of the company he couldn't start selling any shares without collapsing the price even further, so he was stuck when the second profit warning hit
• Got scammed (allegedly, allegedly) by Northwest Bio despite having met with the board and accepted their explanations for the missing money. Shares are basically worthless
• Piling into various biotech firms with fancy sales pitches but no actual products or pipelines. Smells of chasing a fad. He doesn't seem to understand any of the technology when he discusses it in his blog articles
• Also piling into other trendy sectors/companies such as Brave Bison, a millenial video content company that nobody has heard of and that has produced basically nothing for the past year
• Purple Bricks has done well for him but has basically no business model and is set for a crash back down to earth real soon
• And now to cap it all he is jumping two feet in to the housebuilders (TW, BDEV, Countrywide) as well as British Land and brickbuilders, right when these are at the top of their cycle and people are starting to predict house prices stagnating if not crashing.

His portfolio is now mostly biotech, real estate and and dodgy lenders. Hardly a recipe for long term success, more like risky gambling with other people's money. I reckon this fund has a long way yet to fall.

poppy10_2

talexuser wrote: »

Obviously no one remembers what is was like sticking with him through the tech boom and credit crunch.

In the tech boom he was ignoring faddy tech companies that were skyrocketing, and stuck with reliable established big pharma and tobacco stocks which didn't rise by as much. That's why he underperformed, but then did so well after the crash.

Now it's the opposite. He's chasing the next big fad, whether that be biotech and nanotechnology that he clearly barely understands, online estate agents and video content companies (surely the millenials will make them the next big thing, huh?) and piling into housebuilders after everyone else has already ramped them up. This is nothing like 2000 or 2006. He's just making bad decisions.