SIPP - My Current Portfolio - Variety of Investments - Opinions/Comments ?

Malthusian

Alexland wrote: »

Some frauds only take a few people in the right departments.

But as AlanP says, a fraud involving a few people would almost certainly not result in all funds being lost.

Even if they stole enough millions that the company couldn't make it good, or borrow enough money against future profits to repair the damage, and it went into administration, the cost of the fraud would be spread across all investors. The FSCS limits would only bite if an individual's share of the shortfall was above £85,000.

The closest thing we have as a parallel is the collapse of Beaufort, a deeply dodgy platform which was up to its neck in unregulated investments. In that case individual clients' losses were limited to £10,000, which means that after the increase in cover to £85,000, a platform collapse would have to be 8.5x worse than Beaufort for individual clients to lose money after the FSCS paid out.

It's still not a terrible idea to have assets on different platforms; the biggest risk is not financial loss but being locked out of your money until the administration is sorted out.

BigBlueSky

I'm not particularly good with decisions, but I have now decided to go with the Vanguard Lifestrategy fund for ease. My decision now is the 80% or 100% equity, but thinking I may go for the 80% - Again for ease. I could also put some into the 100% at some point to give an equivalent of 90%.

Is there any reason not to make a lump sum investment into VLS via the regular investment on 20th March rather than make the same investment manually on the same date ?? - Then I only pay £1.50 trading fee instead of £10.00 ?

MallyGirl

Just set up the regular one - it may be a bit short in time as they allow several days between taking your money in by DD and making the regular trade. Then you can change it before next month. Save £8.50

BigBlueSky

MallyGirl wrote: »

Just set up the regular one - it may be a bit short in time as they allow several days between taking your money in by DD and making the regular trade. Then you can change it before next month. Save £8.50

Thanks. I usually add funds by debit card and then use my balance to purchase so that won't be a problem.

Malthusian

BigBlueSky wrote: »

Is there any reason not to make a lump sum investment into VLS via the regular investment on 20th March rather than make the same investment manually on the same date ?? - Then I only pay £1.50 trading fee instead of £10.00 ?

The risk of you forgetting or somebody screwing something up, and the Direct Debit being collected a second time and draining your bank account?

Have to say this had never occurred to me before, but if enough people did it I guess platforms would put a mechanism in place where if a Direct Debit is cancelled after one payment, a further charge is applied so that the transactions are charged at the lump sum rate.

BigBlueSky

Further to my initial post, I've been thinning out my investments so now have a total of 13 funds instead of the previous of approx 25.

I'm still going to thin some of these out a little, due to some duplication.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

LEGAL & GENERAL(UNIT TRUST MNGRS) L&G US INDEX TRUST(I)ACC - £27,794.25
SCHRODER UNIT TRUSTS UK DYNM SMLR COS Z ACC - £25,760.00
LEGG MASON INVESTMENT FUNDS LTD IF ROYCE US SMLR COS X ACC - £20,694.58
AXA FRAMLINGTON UNIT MANAGEMENT BIOTECH Z ACC - £9,991.46
INVESCO FUND MANAGERS INVESCO HIGH INCOME UK Z ACC - £31,563.75
FIRST STATE INVESTMENTS(UK) STEWART GBL EMG MKT LDRS B GBP ACC - £12,552.31
BNY MELLON FUND MANAGERS LIMITED ASIAN INCOME INSTL W GBP DIS - £9,291.19
KAMES CAPITAL PLC HIGH YIELD BOND B INSTL ACC NAV - £11,416.04
FIL INVESTMENT SERVICES(UK)LIMITED INDEX UK P ACC NAV - £9,411.86
BLACKROCK FUND MANAGERS LTD GOLD & GENERAL D ACC - £13,728.93
ROYAL LONDON UNIT TRUST MANAGERS CORPORATE BOND M INC - £14,750.67
ROYAL LONDON ASSET MGMT(IRL) STERLING EXTRA YIELD BOND A GBP INC - £20,858.80
VANGUARD INVESTMENTS UK LTD LIFESTRATEGY 100 PERCENTAGE EQTY ACC NAV - 95,454.09

Thanks in advance