JPM Natural resources & Merriyll Lynch Gold & General

wombat42_2

egamar wrote: »

Just in case the OP's initial question got overlooked:

Check out the charts for the two funds you mention - they are both quite volatile and they are at 5 year highs (at least).

I have money in both (in fact I've been overweight in both since 02/03) and they perform well in times of turmoil.

As now is a 'time of turmoil' I wouldn't be buying. I'd be holding or selling depending on a host of other factors.

JPM NR plummeted badly during the original credit crunch turmoil earlier this year. It went down more than the wider market. It sank about 25% in 4 or 5 days. It was partly because mining companies were seem as hi risk for investment as they are already geared for the futire.

egamar

wombat42 wrote: »

JPM NR plummeted badly during the original credit crunch turmoil earlier this year. It went down more than the wider market. It sank about 25% in 4 or 5 days. It was partly because mining companies were seem as hi risk for investment as they are already geared for the futire.

I guess it must have been "the wrong type of turmoil" But you are right, of course. That's volatility for you!

hyposmurf

egamar wrote: »

Just in case the OP's initial question got overlooked:

Check out the charts for the two funds you mention - they are both quite volatile and they are at 5 year highs (at least).

I have money in both (in fact I've been overweight in both since 02/03) and they perform well in times of turmoil.

As now is a 'time of turmoil' I wouldn't be buying. I'd be holding or selling depending on a host of other factors.

Which sectors would you be looking at buying funds in at this time ?
The reason they have peaked so much recently both mentioned funds is putting me off a little.

egamar

hyposmurf wrote: »

Which sectors would you be looking at buying funds in at this time ?
The reason they have peaked so much recently both mentioned funds is putting me off a little.

Me? None*. I wouldn't know where to go. I'd be looking for something that's fallen a lot recently (so it has somewhere to go) rather than something that's risen a lot (and might not have anywhere to go). I can't find anything that floats my boat. Property hasn't fallen enough yet; although it's WAAAY down since May, I'm still up overall. In fact I'm not showing a loss in anything right now, although a) today is horrible, b) and the Japanese investment has been a dog ever since I bought it. I'm sitting tight at the moment, although looking to take some profits from my top funds before early next year.

*That's slightly disingenuous, as I don't have any new money to invest right now, but I do want to cash-out on some funds showing 300-400% gains since I bought them: I just don't know where to invest the proceeds (inside an ISA) so I'm holding on. What I'm minded to do is take about £14k cash out of my portfolio at some time before about March-ish, stick it in a decent deposit account and then look at putting it back into new ISAs maybe August-September next year. But things may change ....

wombat42_2

hyposmurf wrote: »

Which sectors would you be looking at buying funds in at this time ?
The reason they have peaked so much recently both mentioned funds is putting me off a little.

Different people have different views about what is the right sectors to invest in and in six months time they might have a completely different opinion. As a result you might be tempted to keep fund switching to keep up with current opinion.

Or you could just pick a global fund (like me) let the fund manager make the allocation adjustments and just forget it for 10 years.

Aegis

wombat42 wrote: »

Different people have different views about what is the right sectors to invest in and in six months time they might have a completely different opinion. As a result you might be tempted to keep fund switching to keep up with current opinion.

Or you could just pick a global fund (like me) let the fund manager make the allocation adjustments and just forget it for 10 years.

Remind me what your position was a month ago...?

I don't think you can really talk about forgetting your funds for 10 years. If nothing else you should review annually to ensure that your assets are still allocated in accordance with your risk profile. Otherwise you may find that after 10 years you have a huge shortfall compared to your expectations, which might have been readily avoidable by, for example, locking some capital gains into lower risk investments.

wombat42_2

Aegis wrote: »

Remind me what your position was a month ago...?

I don't think you can really talk about forgetting your funds for 10 years. If nothing else you should review annually to ensure that your assets are still allocated in accordance with your risk profile. Otherwise you may find that after 10 years you have a huge shortfall compared to your expectations, which might have been readily avoidable by, for example, locking some capital gains into lower risk investments.

Over the last year I did a helluva lot of fund switching and i an getting fed up with switching :
Schroder 250 Midcaps
then New Star Europe & Old Mutual Midcaps plus Henderson Smaller European Caps
then JPM NR and Gartmore China
then Gartmore China only
then Jupiter China
then 50% Threadneedle China
then Neptune Global and Artemis Global

I have come out of it quite well except JPM NR tanked for me.

Just forgetting a Global fund for 10 years is obviously a bit of an exageration but there is less need to consider a fund switch with a global fund.

cloud_dog

wombat42 wrote: »

I have come out of it quite well except JPM NR tanked for me.

The only time it has 'tanked' has been durign the correction, other than that JPMF NR is a stella fund and one worth investing in and holding on to (just my opinion).

cloud_dog

wombat42_2

cloud_dog wrote: »

The only time it has 'tanked' has been durign the correction, other than that JPMF NR is a stella fund and one worth investing in and holding on to (just my opinion).

cloud_dog

Yep thats when I pulled out. It has been stellar in the last few years but more volatile than most funds and considered higher risk than most. Likely to do well long term but could be volatile short term.

egamar

cloud_dog wrote: »

The only time it has 'tanked' has been durign the correction, other than that JPMF NR is a stella fund and one worth investing in and holding on to (just my opinion).

Well, I don't think that was the only time - it is pretty volatile

http://www.moneyextra.com/funds/UK/chart/SPCPN

But I certainly agree it's not a fund to trade short-term with it, and it's given me excellent returns (since I lucked in 'at the bottom' ). It's one not to panic about, especially on days like today.

More generally, about switching: For what it's worth I'm pretty much a buy-to-hold kinda guy, but make the odd change here or there. I don't try to 2nd guess everyone else by making a lot of switches. I think we've made only 12 switches on the 45 holdings of the 25 funds that make up our 8 ISAs (4 years' worth).

I haven't checked how the switches panned out since it doesn't really matter, the decisions were made on sound grounds and if the markets moved against me the day after, the grounds were still the same the day before!