How many Global Funds or IT's?

Sheriff_Fatmen

Do you include the allocation within your workplace pension as part of your overall portfolio stocks/low risk split? Or just your personally managed part?

Linton

Sheriff_Fatmen wrote: »

Do you include the allocation within your workplace pension as part of your overall portfolio stocks/low risk split? Or just your personally managed part?

It depends on whether your peronal investments have the same objective as your pension. If they are both intended for financiing retirement then it makes sense to regard them as a single portfolio. On the other hand if your personal investments are to be used in a much sorter term then you need different risk strategies.

Ciprico

Sally57 wrote: »

I'm interested in views on how many Global Funds or IT's one should hold in a portfolio?

I've had an interesting conversation with my brother who has been investing for over 30 years and mainly holds IT's in his portfolio. I was very surprised to hear that Global IT's/Funds account for about 55% of his overall portfolio - is this usual (is four too many)?

Bankers - 20%
Fundsmith - 15%
Monks - 10%
Edinburgh Worldwide - 10%

Interested to hear how many global funds or IT's other forum members hold in their portfolio's?

Would it not be true to say that 30 years ago the best (only?) way of diversifying was to hold IT's.

By holding those IT's over 30 years he would have done very well for himself, and quite possibly wasn't motivated to move into new frangled ETFs/trackers etc.

He would have enjoyed a concentrated focus of the FANGs without knowing a thing about them !

Interesting how these high tech funds have mostly dropped/reduced Facebook.

ANGs doesn't quite have the same ring...

Prism

Sheriff_Fatmen wrote: »

Do you include the allocation within your workplace pension as part of your overall portfolio stocks/low risk split? Or just your personally managed part?

Most workplace pensions can be managed - its just that a lot of people have no wish to do so.
So for me absolutely as thats where most of my wealth is. I have a different allocation in my ISAs though as that represents funds I may choose to access in a shorter time frame

StellaN

talexuser wrote: »

I have all of these across ISA and unwrapped, apart from the Edinburgh on watch/for rebalance as mentioned earlier.

In general, I mainly hold IT's as well. However, you may wish to consider the OEIC equivalent of EHI - Baillie Gifford Global Discovery which I hold. It has done well for me and with the benefits of not having to take into consideration the discount/premium and gearing.

bostonerimus

Sheriff_Fatmen wrote: »

Do you include the allocation within your workplace pension as part of your overall portfolio stocks/low risk split? Or just your personally managed part?

Yes!

All the money I have invested is for long term plans, whether it’s in a retirement or regular accounts so I look at my asset allocation across all accounts. I don’t think of it in terms of retirement, I like to think of it supporting my financial independence. I have a cash/savings account which is for cash flow and large cash expenditures that I replenish if necessary at the end of each year.

Tyrion_Lannister

If you have several global ITs or funds, each has to be there for a reason and have a specific job to do imo.

I have 6 global ITs:

EWI: Global Smaller Companies Growth
SSON: Global Medium Companies Growth
SMT: Global Growth including Start ups and Private Equity
SAIN: Global Income mainly developed countries
MYI: Global Income with Emerging Country exposure
HFEL: Far East Income

I also hold Fundsmith which is pure global growth investing in giant companies.

If you take this approach, you need to pay close attention to your portfolio ensuring that it doesn’t turn into an expensive global tracker.

MarkCarnage

MarkCarnage said he holds 7 Global IT's in total (SMT, Monks, Bankers, Brunner, Witan, Edinburgh Worldwide & Alliance Trust) so there must be some duplication (apart from EWI), however Bowlhead seemed to think this was not a problem. However, would the same be said if anybody claimed to hold 7 IA Global OEICS

Yes, there is some duplication at holdings level, but it's not huge. It's not something that lends itself to easy monitoring, but I look at it from time to time. The manager philosophies, processes and the aims of each trust mean that there are more differences than similarities.

I also hold different funds in my SIPP and my ISA, though with some overlap. Different aims and risk profiles for me. My wife's are different too, though again with some overlap. As noted above, each fund should be there for a reason and have a specific job to do within the portfolio. I look at the costs of each holding too, whilst accepting that some strategies will inevitably be higher than others. My estimated overall TER is around 0.75% including platform fees (which are only about 3bps).

Worth noting that quite a lot of the private equity in SMT is not at start up mode, and may not move to listed status any time soon as they believe they are better off remaining private.

One of the things I did when consolidating various platform holdings which had evolved ad hoc over 20+ years was to rationalise the holdings and sell all the individual stock holdings (excluding investment trusts clearly) as I haven't got the time or inclination to manage a directly held portfolio of stocks properly any more.

StellaN

Tyrion_Lannister wrote: »

If you have several global ITs or funds, each has to be there for a reason and have a specific job to do imo.

I have 6 global ITs:

EWI: Global Smaller Companies Growth
SSON: Global Medium Companies Growth
SMT: Global Growth including Start ups and Private Equity
SAIN: Global Income mainly developed countries
MYI: Global Income with Emerging Country exposure
HFEL: Far East Income

I also hold Fundsmith which is pure global growth investing in giant companies.

If you take this approach, you need to pay close attention to your portfolio ensuring that it doesn’t turn into an expensive global tracker.

I agree with these comments and I think Linton mentioned this on a previous post in this thread.

Although I'm not sure you can class HFEL as a global IT. It's classed purely in the Asia Pacific geographic region.

Sue58

I invest mainly in global IT’s, however I do sometimes think that geographical regions would be better. As an example I cashed in on JEO which now appears to be a mistake!