Woodford Concerns

Johnnyboy11

Another Telegraph article suggesting 40% illiquid content in the Woodford Equity Income Fund...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/funds/fca-fire-true-extent-woodfords-liquidity-crisis-exposed/

OldMusicGuy

Jonah01 wrote: »

Prevaricating? When was that? I'm not rushing in for the sake of missing out on a few months


My timing wasn't completely wrong as I'm not stuck in his fund.

That's my point - if you had invested in low cost, multi-asset funds over the past few months, you would have been making money. Instead, you've done nothing and are now dithering about "the right time". Sorry if that sounds critical, but it's typical of the sort of paralysis that inexperienced investors get into. I know because I suffered a lot from it myself.

Your choice was nothing to do with "timing" - you chose the wrong fund in the first place. If you had been in low cost, multi-asset funds you would be happy with how they have performed recently.

itwasntme001

OldMusicGuy wrote: »

That's my point - if you had invested in low cost, multi-asset funds over the past few months, you would have been making money. Instead, you've done nothing and are now dithering about "the right time". Sorry if that sounds critical, but it's typical of the sort of paralysis that inexperienced investors get into. I know because I suffered a lot from it myself.

Your choice was nothing to do with "timing" - you chose the wrong fund in the first place. If you had been in low cost, multi-asset funds you would be happy with how they have performed recently.

All of this in hindsight of course. We are all fooled by randomness, especially us here on MSE. How about accept that we have no idea what strategy will work out best and that people should do what they feel is best for them. Personally i think investing in the stock market is a mugs game - i prefer to invest in businesses.

bowlhead99

itwasntme001 wrote: »

Personally i think investing in the stock market is a mugs game - i prefer to invest in businesses.

It would be fair to say that investing in equities on the stock market to become a part owner of a business always either involves 'investing in businesses', or acquiring other people's investment in the businesses, from them.

If you use a fund to spread your exposure over lots of different businesses, you are reliant on someone else selecting the businesses for you, but you save yourself the trouble (research, cost of access and administrative hassle) of selecting the businesses yourself. This can generally diversify away some of the high risks (and potential rewards) of only being able to access a limited pool of businesses. That very limited pool of opportunities would be the default position for most people in the UK, who aren't serial entrepreneurs or high net worth individuals.

Pretty much all people with a workplace pension build funds for retirement using investments that participate in the stock market. Rather than being a mug's game, it's generally the way to put away a small portion of your annual salary for 40 years and be able to grow it enough to retire on a larger portion of your salary for the 40 after that.

Yes there will be a select few entrepreneurs who have always only run their own business or invested in those run by their friends. You can make very large returns by owning and growing a business in which you work, if lucky/ successful in doing it. So as you suggest, people should do what they think is best, but investing in collective investment schemes exposed to the stock market (whether actively managed or more passively managed) is the popular and lower risk way to do it (versus investing in/ backing one or two businesses and hoping they don't fail)

JohnRo

itwasntme001 wrote: »

Personally i think investing in the stock market is a mugs game - i prefer to invest in businesses.

Intruiged.. care to elaborate?

OldMusicGuy

itwasntme001 wrote: »

Personally i think investing in the stock market is a mugs game - i prefer to invest in businesses.

Like bowlhead says, investing in the stock market is investing in businesses. And as I use very widely diversified funds, I am investing in thousands of businesses. Far less risky in my book than investing in a single (or small number) of businesses.

Jonah01

OldMusicGuy wrote: »

That's my point - if you had invested in low cost, multi-asset funds over the past few months, you would have been making money. Instead, you've done nothing and are now dithering about "the right time". Sorry if that sounds critical, but it's typical of the sort of paralysis that inexperienced investors get into. I know because I suffered a lot from it myself.

Your choice was nothing to do with "timing" - you chose the wrong fund in the first place. If you had been in low cost, multi-asset funds you would be happy with how they have performed recently.

No problem happy to hear opinions.

Reeducating myself so I can choose the best way forward is hardly dithering and was actually advised on this forum.

I have another 20 years of investing so I don't mind losing out on a few months.

dividendhero

Johnnyboy11 wrote: »

Another Telegraph article suggesting 40% illiquid content in the Woodford Equity Income Fund...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/funds/fca-fire-true-extent-woodfords-liquidity-crisis-exposed/

I used to get the Torygraph, they did an excellent job of exposing the MP expenses scandal - but that was 10 years ago. The paper has gone downhill and is the inhouse paper for the right of the tories and is produced by a hollowed out crew of journos.

Back on topic..Woodford seems to be something of a ratchet. The news gets worse by the day and I've yet to hear single positive development since the fund was gated.

PS Still waiting for "Woodgate" to catch on

redux

dividendhero wrote: »

I used to get the Torygraph, they did an excellent job of exposing the MP expenses scandal - but that was 10 years ago. The paper has gone downhill and is the inhouse paper for the right of the tories and is produced by a hollowed out crew of journos.

I know it's the wrong forum section to say this, but at the moment their big project is make their part-time colleague Boris Johnson seem normal.

dividendhero

redux wrote: »

I know it's the wrong forum section to say this, but at the moment their big project is make their part-time colleague Boris Johnson seem normal.

I know it's the wrong forum section to say this, but the former Editor of the Torygraph Max Hastings has made it clear that Johnson is totally unfit to be PM