Portfolio Review

Linton

doings wrote: »

What is your view on my initial idea in my first post?

I am not enthusiastic. You already have 2 global fund of funds and are now thinking of a third. I cannot see how you can come to a rational decision as to the relative %'s. Why those 3. Why not a fourth? What are the specific objectives driving your choices?

What I advocate is a top down approach - decide what underlying assets with rough %s you want and then work out what funds will provide you with it. Every fund should have a clear identifiable unique purpose. Only then can you make a rational decision as to whether to keep/ditch/increase/decrease it.

On the other hand if you want an easy life just buy one multi-asset fund that approximately meets your requirements. Possibly get a few minor holdings to provide a bit of interest.

doings wrote: »

I have x-rayed my portfolio on the II site and it is telling me that there is no overlap at all. However I do realise that if I did buy the Balanced fund I would have a slight overlap.

I think that could be because as far as Xray is concerned the holdings in a fund of funds are the second level funds, not the bottom level equity shares.

ColdIron

doings wrote: »

I have x-rayed my portfolio on the II site and it is telling me that there is no overlap at all

On the equity front, the two global funds will have terrific overlap, how could they not? Just to compare the LifeStrategy fund with some of the others. The Woodford fund invests in primarily UK equities, the bulk of them will be in the FTSE All Share index that makes up 18 percent of the VLS. If you look at the top ten holdings in your Vanguard Emerging Markets fund and the EM tracker in VLS they both share Samsung, Tencent, Taiwan Semiconductor and Naspers. Your HSBC European Index tracks the FTSE Developed Europe ex-U.K index as does the Vanguard FTSE Developed Europe ex-U.K Equity Index in VLS so the overlap will be 100%. It also makes up 13% of the HSBC Global Strategy so you have three helpings of it. The only one with any real diversification or low overlap would be the Vanguard Global Small Cap as it contains companies not already covered by all the others. With these funds of funds that are designed to have very broad diversification the only effect of adding single sector funds is to skew the weightings. Was that your intention?

However I do realise that if I did buy the Balanced fund I would have a slight overlap.

Given the large existing overlap I doubt it will have much significant effect as far as the equity component is concerned. It will still be large

doings

Linton wrote: »

I think that could be because as far as Xray is concerned the holdings in a fund of funds are the second level funds, not the bottom level equity shares.

I think you are right about this. I have been blindly using this x-ray tool on Morningstar, when there used to be a free version, and more recently II, in the belief that I have no overlapping funds. I dare say I wont be alone in this. It do's seem at bit misleading when it tells you 'no overlaps exist'.
Are you aware of any better x-ray facility to find the said overlaps? If such a tool exists I will need to do some serious changes to the portfolio.
Feel like I'm banging my head against a wall here, going around in circles, but at the same time I feel fortunate that the portfolio has actually made money instead of losing it.
All I was looking for was to de-risk the higher risk funds and make safer, and hopefully, gain by just above inflation to pass on to the family. Now it seems a major revamp is needed to diversify what I thought was a quite well diversified portfolio. Problems, problems!
Really grateful for every-ones help on here.

Linton

doings wrote: »

I think you are right about this. I have been blindly using this x-ray tool on Morningstar, when there used to be a free version, and more recently II, in the belief that I have no overlapping funds. I dare say I wont be alone in this. It do's seem at bit misleading when it tells you 'no overlaps exist'.
Are you aware of any better x-ray facility to find the said overlaps? If such a tool exists I will need to do some serious changes to the portfolio.
Feel like I'm banging my head against a wall here, going around in circles, but at the same time I feel fortunate that the portfolio has actually made money instead of losing it.
All I was looking for was to de-risk the higher risk funds and make safer, and hopefully, gain by just above inflation to pass on to the family. Now it seems a major revamp is needed to diversify what I thought was a quite well diversified portfolio. Problems, problems!
Really grateful for every-ones help on here.

Dont worry about it - you would be highly diversified if you just held 1 multi-asset fund. It's just that by holding 2 or 3 you arent improving things much.

I dont know of any tool that will dig deeper into holdings of holdings. The fund management companies themselves dont issue data to that level.

JSMill

I have ISAs and a SIPP with Alliance Trust. The reporting is pretty much non-existent. I just enrolled for Morningstar Premium, and thought/hoped I could copy in my ATS data using the "transaction" rather than the "watchlist" portfolio when the markets are down - thereafter monitoring things in detail through Morningstar, and seeing their opinions on the different components. Yet I find it difficult to locate investments within MS, which seems quite clunky, and wonder whether it will actually do what I imagine/hope for. If not, what is the point of it?? Or do I just stick with my spreadsheets? Any thoughts appreciated. I think there must be something I'm just not getting here.

Linton

JSMill wrote: »

I have ISAs and a SIPP with Alliance Trust. The reporting is pretty much non-existent. I just enrolled for Morningstar Premium, and thought/hoped I could copy in my ATS data using the "transaction" rather than the "watchlist" portfolio when the markets are down - thereafter monitoring things in detail through Morningstar, and seeing their opinions on the different components. Yet I find it difficult to locate investments within MS, which seems quite clunky, and wonder whether it will actually do what I imagine/hope for. If not, what is the point of it?? Or do I just stick with my spreadsheets? Any thoughts appreciated. I think there must be something I'm just not getting here.

It is clunky but it can be done. You type exactly the right name into the holdings field and then set up the date and the number of units and then click ADD. Morningstar will work out the total value from the price at that date. ISIN numbers seem to work up to a point - GBnnnn.

You can find investments using the fund screener. Or once you have set up a fund in your portfolio you can click on the fund name.

Personally I dont try and track every buy and sell but just edit the holding.

Trustnet is easier to use for a dummy portfolio but its analysis isnt nearly as good.

bostonerimus

doings wrote: »

Are you aware of any better x-ray facility to find the said overlaps? If such a tool exists I will need to do some serious changes to the portfolio.
Feel like I'm banging my head against a wall here, going around in circles, but at the same time I feel fortunate that the portfolio has actually made money instead of losing it.

There are an almost infinite group of good portfolios and often people worry far too much about perfection and this leads to frustration. Get yourself a good cash emergency fund and then decide on the equity to bond ratio that you need.......you can go with more equities if you have something like a DB pension to rely on. 60/40 has historically been a reasonable split for many people, but realize that with interest rates on the way up bond funds will take some time to give much return.

Now just decide how you are going to construct the portfolio keeping overlap to a minimum; single multi-asset fund, a few broadly diversified funds, one global equity. maybe one UK equity, a corporate bond and a bond index; or those broad funds plus overweighting things like value, EM and small cap. I would avoid high cost ITs and active funds with a small number of stocks.