Woodford Concerns

Aretnap

Moe_The_Bartender wrote: »

My money's on Benevolent AI.

Coincidentally (or not)

https://www.cityam.com/benevolent-ais-valuation-halves-to-1bn-in-further-blow-for-neil-woodford/

JohnRo

It really gets my goat when reading news reports stating 'Woodford loses this billion, Woodford loses that billion..'

He's coining it in, it's his unfortunate investors that are incurring losses, discounting his shredded reputation.

bowlhead99

JohnRo wrote: »

It really gets my goat when reading news reports stating 'Woodford loses this billion, Woodford loses that billion..'

He's coining it in, it's his unfortunate investors that are incurring losses, discounting his shredded reputation.

If he was making the billions they would be saying that 'his' investments were making them. If losing them, they are saying that 'he' is losing them.

I get that you're just being flippant but he is not literally losing billions here and billions there and everywhere. The billions of drop in assets under management that he experienced was mostly people pulling their money out, rather than the investments falling in value. He hasn't actually lost a billion on any one investment he made.

Sure, losing any million is not a good thing. But I could equally say it gets my goat when people trivialise serious issues to make their point.

Sailtheworld wrote: »

Woodford in a Council pension fund looks distinctly like flavour of the month investing

Given his long term track record (delivering against income and growth objectives since the late 1980s), flavour of the 'month' seems a little short. Money in his funds would have given excellent returns between 1988 and 2016.

So the idea that Kent pension fund looked at him launching a new fund in 2014 and thought 'hmm, his fund went up a lot last month, let's get it' seems like you are trivialising the thought process somewhat. At the least, it would have been 'hmm, his fund went up a lot across two generations of human life and three or four economic cycles, let's get it'.

JohnRo

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Sure, losing any million is not a good thing. But I could equally say it gets my goat when people trivialise serious issues to make their point.

There's nothing trivial about my comment or the money he's making or the money he's lost his investors.

bowlhead99

JohnRo wrote: »

There's nothing trivial about my comment or the money he's making or the money he's lost his investors.

Contrarian investment managers lose money for their investors all the time, except when they don't and the investors praise them.

JohnRo

The bone of contention is with the journalist not the manager.

Thrugelmir

Sailtheworld wrote: »

Last 10 years Berkshire Hathaway +224% / S&P +191%.

You appear to overlooking reinvested income for the S&P 500.

For the record. 25-02-2019

Buffett told the network that his two investing gurus, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, have each underperformed the S&P 500 during the past few years by a "tiny bit." Even so, he added that their stock picks have done better than his.

Best to keep your pistol in it's holster.

Moe_The_Bartender

bowlhead99 wrote: »

So the idea that Kent pension fund looked at him launching a new fund in 2014 and thought 'hmm, his fund went up a lot last month, let's get it' seems like you are trivialising the thought process somewhat. At the least, it would have been 'hmm, his fund went up a lot across two generations of human life and three or four economic cycles, let's get it'.

As an amateur investor who takes a close interest in my investments, I always make a point of looking under the bonnet to see what the people who are looking after my money are doing. I had a six figure sum in Invesco High Income up to 2014. When Woodford set up his own company, I left half with Invesco and put the rest into WEI.

By 2016, despite sitting on some nice gains, I became sufficiently concerned by what Woodford was doing and sold out. I looked at what Mark Barnett was doing at Invesco and sold that too because he simply seemed to be copying what his former boss was doing, albeit somewhat constrained by his own bosses. I put the lot into Lindsell Train UK which is up by over 70% since then.

It's what’s happening now that matters, not what happened in the past. Past performance is no guide etc......

If an amateur like me can spot simple things like that, why can’t the pension fund trustees for Kent do that too. They’re supposed to know a bit about these things unless they are time servers who were put where it was thought they could do no harm.

bowlhead99

Moe_The_Bartender wrote: »

By 2016, despite sitting on some nice gains, I became sufficiently concerned by what Woodford was doing and sold out.

If an amateur like me can spot simple things like that, why can’t the pension fund trustees for Kent do that too.

You decided you didn't like it; they decided they were ok with it. Investment is about opinion.

With hindsight, you made the right call to get off the ride at what turned out to be close to the top and go and jump onto a different fund manager's conviction-driven fund. Other advice firms joined you in ceasing to recommend WEIF. Kent later decided that Woodford's strategy had too much of stuff that they didn't like and was not easily-fixable due to being open ended, such that high redemptions would kill it. Unfortunately they came to this conclusion too late.

I see your point of view, but generalising, I don't pay too much heed to the clamours of [incredulous voice] 'how can someone in charge of large amounts of money make imperfect decisions sometimes, while I, a mere amateur, made the right call on this particular fund, at a fortuitous time??!'.

You're probably right that like many other areas of public sector, some people are in senior roles without having sufficient experience, independence of mind etc, and are put out to pasture in a job which they coast through, oblivious to how someone else should have done it better. Unfortunately if the pension fund had brought in someone better from the private sector it might have blown the budgets without actually guaranteeing the right results; if they outsource the fund selection advice to a separate group you will get people moaning about the layers of cost, and why don't they just stick it in an index etc.

AnotherJoe

bowlhead99 wrote: »

You decided you didn't like it; they decided they were ok with it. Investment is about opinion.

With hindsight, you made the right call to get off the ride at what turned out to be close to the top and go and jump onto a different fund manager's conviction-driven fund. Other advice firms joined you in ceasing to recommend WEIF. Kent later decided that Woodford's strategy had too much of stuff that they didn't like and was not easily-fixable due to being open ended, such that high redemptions would kill it. Unfortunately they came to this conclusion too late.

I see your point of view, but generalising, I don't pay too much heed to the clamours of [incredulous voice] 'how can someone in charge of large amounts of money make imperfect decisions sometimes, while I, a mere amateur, made the right call on this particular fund, at a fortuitous time??!'.
.

I think you give too much credit to those fund managers who didn't spot this, it's more than a difference of opinion over whether they should buy company a or b , or if they were a bit top heavy in unlisted funds

It's as if a bunch of art experts were looking at a "Van Gogh" I'd faked using acrylic paints that wee still drying when they inspected it, and half of them (including HL) signed it off as being the genuine article although they did privately express their worry to me about the iPhone I'd painted in.

The blame also applies to all those on the board who should at least have resigned assuming they really were no more than a rubber stamp for Woodfords decisions.