Woodford Concerns

Thrugelmir

Midas wrote: »

It certainly looks like it was!

No investment style works indefinately. All are cyclical. Choosing the right one, as a private investor, is the art.

seacaitch

Thrugelmir wrote: »

No investment style works indefinately. All are cyclical. Choosing the right one, as a private investor, is the art.

"Key" is distinguishing between otherwise-sound strategies (that happen to be out of favour for a while) and unsound strategies.

This can be particularly difficult with active managers where the strategy is not obviously (or clearly) systematised, such that strategy drift (from sound towards unsound) may be slowly occurring but not obviously so when observing things from the outside in real-time, ie. it might take years before the strategy drift into unsound becomes obvious.

A difficulty compounded further because unsound strategies can often work for a long time due to good fortune/luck, before eventually being exposed by a change of market conditions such that the "tide goes out".

MarkCarnage

Holding unlisted/illiquid assets to any material extent in open ended retail funds rarely ends well......

fun4everyone

Woodford fund shrinks further as investors jump ship

https://www.ft.com/content/118a0800-822b-11e9-b592-5fe435b57a3b

Fund size now down roughly 67% from peak says the FT. Whole sorry affair being examined by regulators. Google the quote (perhaps in an incognito window) to try and bypass the paywall.

MarkCarnage

fun4everyone wrote: »

https://www.ft.com/content/118a0800-822b-11e9-b592-5fe435b57a3b

Fund size now down roughly 67% from peak says the FT. Whole sorry affair being examined by regulators. Google the quote (perhaps in an incognito window) to try and bypass the paywall.

Regulators make their own problem here by allowing illiquids in a daily dealt vehicle, or at the very least not taking a closer interest before now. We have already had it in real estate. This is where the closed end model scores.

The next problem will be when any problems arise in credit markets, which are a fair bit less liquid than listed equities. Particularly since the new rules on capital mean that the inventories held by the investment banks are much smaller.

HardCoreProgrammer

Thrugelmir wrote: »

No investment style works indefinately. All are cyclical. Choosing the right one, as a private investor, is the art.

People regularly get shouted down here for suggesting that it is not all "time in the market" and that timing the market has a role to play.
Now someone is openly advocating that investment style also has timing? I stand back and wait for the backlash ...


On a personal note, I switched out of Woodford completely (to tracker funds) after the disaster with Providential Financial and his continuing support for Purplebricks despite Jefferies finding that they were cooking their books about % of properties sold. (Seriously, if my local estate agent wants to charge me £2000 up front, would I touch them with a bargepole?)

But I have a friend who is still convinced by publicity from HL. They did lose a lot of money in bank shares in 2008. Well at least Woodford is not losing them money that quickly!

Robie

I am down 24% on Woodford. I can't decide if better to get rid and forget about the loss or wait if it *ever* recovers. Can't decide.

cogito

fun4everyone wrote: »

https://www.ft.com/content/118a0800-822b-11e9-b592-5fe435b57a3b

Fund size now down roughly 67% from peak says the FT. Whole sorry affair being examined by regulators. Google the quote (perhaps in an incognito window) to try and bypass the paywall.

Link is paywalled but for clarification, the fund size reduced by £560m in May of which £187m was in investor withdrawals and the rest was the weak trading performance. Down over 8% in the month.

This isn’t going to end well.

https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/investment-week/news/3076515/woodford-equity-income-aum-falls-by-gbp560m-in-one-month

harrys66

I'd love to know how much of his own monies woodford has invested into this fund.... me thinks limited

Jonah01

I've just got out. Have taken a loss and am keeping it in cash in my ISA and SIPP.

Would be happy to wait for a recovery but alarm bells are ringing in my head that the fund could fail completed.

I need to think about my next move carefully and not just chase the money I have lost.

Nothing worse than being a scared investor!

I'm the OP by the way