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Woodford Concerns
Comments
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Yeah he is hiding the other funds from people so they don't find them. Classic marketing trick that one.Sailtheworld wrote: »The 'usual' way of doing this is that if someone wanted to buy, say, a Scottish Widows fund they'd head to Scottish Widows in the first instance. Smith doesn't do that - he has separate domain names. I know why.
No I expect the opposite. Investing isn't a numbers averaging game.Or, without the drama, invest by all means but expect, over the longer term, under-performance against the indices but with higher charges.
I must be one of those people.. it feels good. For your specific question about Woodford \I lost nothing because I didn't invest. The fund didn't look very good at any point.If someone can anticipate future out or under performance of a fund against an index then good on them (although I'd question why they don't use this skill to pick stocks themselves). They'll know just when to jump.
Those with this skill should ask themselves how much they lost on Woodford and reflect.0 -
Malthusian wrote: »The really bad ones you couldn't short because they're unlisted. To short a company you have to find someone willing to lend you the shares for a given time period, sell them immediately on the open market, then buy them back again to repay the loan. All those steps are difficult or impossible with unlisted or otherwise illiquid shares.
If you shorted all his liquid investments, I suspect you might have done pretty badly as not all of Woodford's holdings have gone bust or tanked. (If they had his performance would be much worse.) The money you made on shorting the likes of Provident Financial could easily be cancelled out by the average or good performance of shares that reflected the performance of the bull market.
Shorting shares isn't just holding them upside-down.
Well yes I should have said "shorted the listed ones".
Not so sure he had enough good performance to outweigh the bad just among the listed.
Its a long list of sorry financial results.
Provident Financial, Kier, Purplebricks, The AA, Eddy Stobart, Allied Minds, Imperial Brands. All down 60-80% or more. Probably more, thats what i can recall.
I'm not counting Prothena because that was dependent upon a drug trial and could have gone either way. The ones I've listed had bad structural issues and management problems, these are the sort of things a top financial guru with a team of analysts should be able to spot. If not, what value do they bring to the table?0 -
Yeah he is hiding the other funds from people so they don't find them. Classic marketing trick that one.
Not so they don't find them but so that one doesn't contaminate the other if/ when things go t**ts up. Very important when you're selling a brand that has your name in it. It's a long road back.No I expect the opposite. Investing isn't a numbers averaging game.
I must be one of those people.. it feels good. For your specific question about Woodford \I lost nothing because I didn't invest. The fund didn't look very good at any point.
If you expect the opposite and can pick outperforming funds ahead of time and dump them before they under-perform then you should feel good as you have a valuable skill. You're in a very small minority but congratulations.
It's a pity people didn't listen to you before investing in Woodford in the first place.0 -
Sailtheworld wrote: »If you expect the opposite and can pick outperforming funds ahead of time and dump them before they under-perform then you should feel good as you have a valuable skill. You're in a very small minority but congratulations.
It's a pity people didn't listen to you before investing in Woodford in the first place.
Its not really a case of dumping funds before they under-perform. Its more choosing ones that don't actually under-perform for long or by much. I rarely sell a fund unless it changes style or I find one I think is a better fit.
How do you know I am in a minority? There are no obvious stats on how successful individuals are with their fund selection.0 -
Moe_The_Bartender wrote: »Smith didn’t have to apologise for only making 23% over three years. The fact that he did says much about him and that he sets the bar very high. He then went on to put more of his own money in.
2% per year ahead of cash since launch with quite a lot more risk being taken. High bar?
He's done the sensible thing and 'taken a step back' from managing it though to get the stink off his hands.
Always a good idea for a star investor to put their own money in (good PR). As he was charging 1.25% per year on £350m invested he probably had a bit spare.0 -
Its not really a case of dumping funds before they under-perform. Its more choosing ones that don't actually under-perform for long or by much. I rarely sell a fund unless it changes style or I find one I think is a better fit.
Quite a skill. Only around 8% of funds beat their index over 15 years.How do you know I am in a minority? There are no obvious stats on how successful individuals are with their fund selection.
It's fairly basic maths. The market is the average. You outperform it so therefore someone else must under-perform. Then you need to take off fees which puts the out performers in the minority.0 -
Sailtheworld wrote: »Quite a skill. Only around 8% of funds beat their index over 15 years.
Not really, most people don't even try. To be fair I haven't been doing it 15 years (myself) but I am happy so farIt's fairly basic maths. The market is the average. You outperform it so therefore someone else must under-perform. Then you need to take off fees which puts the out performers in the minority.
What you say is only true if everyone invests the same amount. 1 person can underperform for every 1000 that outperform if that 1 person invests 1000x more. Nobody has stats on that. There is a lot of lazy money in underperforming pension funds dragging down the averages.0 -
You are quite the conspiracy theorist.Sailtheworld wrote: »
Yeah he is hiding the other funds from people so they don't find them. Classic marketing trick that one.Sailtheworld wrote: »The 'usual' way of doing this is that if someone wanted to buy, say, a Scottish Widows fund they'd head to Scottish Widows in the first instance. Smith doesn't do that - he has separate domain names. I know why.
Not so they don't find them but so that one doesn't contaminate the other if/ when things go t**ts up. Very important when you're selling a brand that has your name in it. It's a long road back.
However, the majority of investment trusts have their own dedicated websites, - or partitioned-off, self-contained sub-sections of a management company's website. As they are independently listed on the public stock exchange, they need to have all the relevant disclosure and investor relations documentation available on a standalone basis to make it clear what you're investing in and with whom, meeting the regulatory disclosure rules.
So, no surprise that there is a dedicated site for the Smithson Investment Trust at https://www.smithson.co.uk/ and for Fundsmith Emerging Equities Trust at http://www.feetplc.co.uk/, meanwhile if you want info about the main Fundsmith equity fund you find it at https://www.fundsmith.co.uk/
If you don't know which one you want, you can go to their international corporate site at https://fundsmith.com/ which is a basic landing page showing the links to the individual products.
You might find that (e.g ) Scottish Widows presents their information differently because they are in the business of managing and distributing a very broad suite of open ended investment funds which (unlike Smithson and FEET) are not independently listed on the stock exchange.
It's not clear quite where your scepticism and distaste for Fundsmith's practices are rooted, perhaps you wish you had picked it over your preferred tracker when he launched it as we emerged from recession /global financial crisis. Politics of envy?
As an aside, He bought into Purplebricks pre IPO, i.e. for less than the current price. He will have had his views on whether the management team and structure / international expansion was wise or not, but after its initial successes may have not had a clear practical exit route at higher headline market prices - or simply not seen the need for it at that stage in the company's lifecycle - given he was a major backer and any disclosure of partial sale by him would move the price downwards.AnotherJoe wrote: »Its a long list of sorry financial results.
Provident Financial, Kier, Purplebricks, The AA, Eddy Stobart, Allied Minds, Imperial Brands. All down 60-80% or more. Probably more, thats what i can recall.
I'm not counting Prothena because that was dependent upon a drug trial and could have gone either way. The ones I've listed had bad structural issues and management problems, these are the sort of things a top financial guru with a team of analysts should be able to spot. If not, what value do they bring to the table?
Clearly not selling when the market was more favourable had negative consequences for the fund, but it's not like he bought in at the very top and lost a huge percentage of his stake. It was arguably the correct call to buy in and support the then management team when he did, and there would have been some analysis of the potential. If it didn't fail, it would have been a massive return; as it is, it's just a moderate return, because it just didn't work out the way it could have.0 -
I would bet against Purplebricks still being around in a couple of years.The fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists.0
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What you say is only true if everyone invests the same amount. 1 person can underperform for every 1000 that outperform if that 1 person invests 1000x more. Nobody has stats on that. There is a lot of lazy money in underperforming pension funds dragging down the averages.
No, if 92% of funds under-perform the markets over 15 years but you can consistently pick those in the 8% then you're very special - stop being so modest.0
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