It is a minefield

Wig

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-4078894/What-windfall-worth-100-000.html

1 year on, I wonder which one is doing the best?

It would take a lot of work to find out, so I am not asking anyone to tell me. And I guess 1 year is not long enough..5 - 10 years maybe?

One that caught my eye was vanguard in the last one.

Is this a good investment?

Is there anywhere one can see lots of historical performance figures on different fund managers in one place, preferably taking into account all the costs involved in each one?

bowlhead99

Wig wrote: »

And I guess 1 year is not long enough..5 - 10 years maybe?

You are right, 1 year is not enough. The people in the article said they were assuming the money was an additional windfall on top of their needs and assumed no requirement for income or access to the money for many years. Seeing 'what was best' after only 12 months would be relatively meaningless.

One that caught my eye was vanguard in the last one.

Is this a good investment?

The person putting together the portfolio in 'the last one' number 5, built a portfolio out of 15 low-cost specialist funds including 7 Vanguard ones. Each of them is a specialist fund designed to be used as part of a broad portfolio to contribute to the overall objective. Investing in only one of those specialist funds and omitting the other 10-15 sectors would be terrible investing. But overall the portfolio as a whole is probably a reasonable investment.

The problem is, you end up with lots of little buckets of money which will move up and down at different rates and so the proportions will drift over time and you would need to rebalance them. A new investor such as yourself receiving a £100k windfall as envisaged in the article would be better to invest in fewer funds, maybe even just one which covers the broad areas in one off-the-shelf product. Or take advice from an independent advisor. None of the wealth managers proposed this, because they have the requisite experience to research and monitor the various opportunities and don't mind the work of rebalancing the individual portfolio components over time - and they were being asked what they would personally do.

Is there anywhere one can see lots of historical performance figures on different fund managers in one place, preferably taking into account all the costs involved in each one?

Trustnet.com or Morningstar.co.uk will give you lists of performance tables for all kinds of funds and you can click into an information page or factsheet for any that take your fancy.

All reported performance is net of fees and charges from the fund manager and the running costs of the funds.

However, it will not include the costs of the stockbroker or fund platform through whom you buy the funds. Platform fees at the cheap providers would generally be no more than a quarter of a percent of your fund value per year, or lower if you have large amounts to invest and use fixed-fee providers who only charge when you buy more of a fund or sell some of it.

eskbanker

Wig wrote: »

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-4078894/What-windfall-worth-100-000.html

1 year on, I wonder which one is doing the best?

It would take a lot of work to find out, so I am not asking anyone to tell me. And I guess 1 year is not long enough..5 - 10 years maybe?

I don't know if they'll publish an update - it shouldn't be rocket science to see how each portfolio has performed over the year, but performance over one year (during a sustained bull run) is unlikely to be particularly useful as a guide for the likely long-term performance.

Wig wrote: »

One that caught my eye was vanguard in the last one.

Is this a good investment?

How do you measure 'good'? Vanguard is a fund manager with a large portfolio of funds, and finding which one(s) fit your investing objectives, and appetite/tolerance for risk, etc, is a somewhat more sophisticated activity than classifying an entire fund house as 'good', although they do have a generally positive reputation for offering low-cost products.

Wig wrote: »

Is there anywhere one can see lots of historical performance figures on different fund managers in one place, preferably taking into account all the costs involved in each one?

Try the likes of https://www.trustnet.com and https://www.morningstar.co.uk (edit: beaten to this recommendation by bowlhead99!)

Linton

Wig wrote: »

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-4078894/What-windfall-worth-100-000.html

1 year on, I wonder which one is doing the best?

It would take a lot of work to find out, so I am not asking anyone to tell me. And I guess 1 year is not long enough..5 - 10 years maybe?

One that caught my eye was vanguard in the last one.

Is this a good investment?

Is there anywhere one can see lots of historical performance figures on different fund managers in one place, preferably taking into account all the costs involved in each one?

- "Doing the best" depends on what you wanted it to do. eg maximum return with no regard to risk, steady income, minimal volatility etc etc

- for investments 1 year isnt enough, 5 years is barely enough, 10 years is meaning something

- the Vanguard funds are sensible compared with many others that could have been chosen at random. In terms of performance they will never be the best, neither will they be the worst.

- historical fund performance figures always take account of charges made by the fund manager - if you had invested at times indicated by the performance figures the published return is what you would have received. They dont take account of platform charges, advisor charges, taxes etc etc that are largely independent of which funds you choose. The easiest way of looking at fund performance is www.trustnet.com.