Graphs, showing past performance

simonineaston

Does anyone know any way of viewing the performance of sundry financial products in the form of line graphs, value gainst time, for example. I have in mind investment isas. I imagine that this sort of data is regarded as being far too valuble to give away, but I thought I'd ask, anyway!

dunstonh

Trustnet does it for free. It is a cut-down version of the paid for version that IFAs use but should be good enough for what you need it for.

simonineaston

Ooooh, cool! Cheers dunstonh :-) (I'm a very visual learner - figures mean very little to me,I'm afraid!)

simonineaston

Found it! Even with my limited grasp of numbers, I can see straight way that there funds there that behave waaaaaay better than others - take the example of the Fidelity Gobal Technology fund that appears to have had over 180% growth over 5 years and has a four crown rating (whatever that is?!) - if its been so good for so long, why doesn't everyone buy into it, instead of choosing one of the other of thousands of products listed, that haven't done nearly as well? Or is it that I'm looking at the list with the benefit of hindsight and that past performance really is no indication of future performance?

dunstonh

with my limited grasp of numbers, I can see straight way that there funds there that behave waaaaaay better than others

There is a lot more to it than that.

A high risk fund will often go up by a lot more than a low risk fund in a growth period. However, it will go down a lot more in a negative period.

take the example of the Fidelity Gobal Technology fund that appears to have had over 180% growth over 5 years and has a four crown rating (whatever that is?!) - if its been so good for so long, why doesn't everyone buy into it, instead of choosing one of the other of thousands of products listed, that haven't done nearly as well?

Fidelity Global Tech fund is an extremely high risk fund with 90% loss potential in 12 months.

It is very niche and most investors would not be suitable to hold it. If they are particularly adventurous, they may go for upto 5% of their investible wealth.

Also, 5 years is not a long period. An economic cycle is usually a little over 10 years nowadays. Extend those graphs to 15 years and then look at the volatility during negative periods.

How would you react if your value went down 90%?

and has a four crown rating (whatever that is?!)

Dont get hooked up on Crown ratings. Too much of the measure is based on hindsight rather than due diligence and proper research.

Heedtheadvice

The latter of your comments, simon!


From what you have posted it seems that you have a learning process to go through - and that post might be the start of it?



Lots of info out there to learn about investing. Are you trying to just learn or invest?
If the former then there is a lot of unstructured info on this site (and some excellent posters such as the above) but perhaps you would be better off starting elsewhere. If the latter then hold off till you know a bit more as you seem to be putting the cart before the horse, when investing may not even be a wise choice for you, though it might be too!



Good that you already know about the risk of just looking at past performance!......and Dunstonh is happy to give you that excellent tuition for free.

Aegis

simonineaston wrote: »

Found it! Even with my limited grasp of numbers, I can see straight way that there funds there that behave waaaaaay better than others - take the example of the Fidelity Gobal Technology fund that appears to have had over 180% growth over 5 years and has a four crown rating (whatever that is?!) - if its been so good for so long, why doesn't everyone buy into it, instead of choosing one of the other of thousands of products listed, that haven't done nearly as well? Or is it that I'm looking at the list with the benefit of hindsight and that past performance really is no indication of future performance?

That's pretty much how I started investing back in 2007, and I ended up in about five funds, including Neptune's Russia and Greater Russia and JPM's Natural Resources funds. Check out what happened to them from 2007 to March 2009 and you'll get a feel for how uncomfortable those years became for me!

Mr.Saver

dunstonh wrote: »

Trustnet does it for free. It is a cut-down version of the paid for version that IFAs use but should be good enough for what you need it for.

Hi dunstonh, talk about tools, I'm currently looking for a Monte Carlo simulation tool and data for some indicies (namely, MSCI and FTSE All-World & Developed Markets), but I couldn't find any website or tool available. The closest one I've found is a website called "Portfolio Visualizer" but the historical return and standard deviations parameters are predefined, not visible and not tune-able. Do you know any tool or website would allow me to do the this?

Thanks.

dunstonh

Mr.Saver wrote: »

Hi dunstonh, talk about tools, I'm currently looking for a Monte Carlo simulation tool and data for some indicies (namely, MSCI and FTSE All-World & Developed Markets), but I couldn't find any website or tool available. The closest one I've found is a website called "Portfolio Visualizer" but the historical return and standard deviations parameters are predefined, not visible and not tune-able. Do you know any tool or website would allow me to do the this?

Thanks.

I don't i'm afraid. I pay for the one I use.

AlanP_2

simonineaston wrote: »

Ooooh, cool! Cheers dunstonh :-) (I'm a very visual learner - figures mean very little to me,I'm afraid!)

You might enjoy browsing https://portfoliocharts.com/

EdGasketTheSecond

simonineaston wrote: »

- if its been so good for so long, why doesn't everyone buy into it, instead of choosing one of the other of thousands of products listed, that haven't done nearly as well? Or is it that I'm looking at the list with the benefit of hindsight and that past performance really is no indication of future performance?

You answered your own question. Plus some people, myself included, prefer to buy shares/funds that appear better value but maybe have the potential to recover and be one of the better performers. These often don't have a great track record over the recent past.