Wonky Portfolio

Aged

Prism said:

Aged said:

AnotherJoe said:

Oh. My. God.  I doubt you could get a worse portfolio if you tried. How on earth did this car crash come about?

Sell everything.

Start again.

I'm shocked at the responses to be honest. So much for the 'professional advice' I've been paying for.

Well it looks to me like a very cautious allocation. Was that what you wanted? I think part of the problem is that it is difficult to draw much income from a portfolio that is on the low side for equities. I don't think anyone can really afford to be that cautious during retirement while trying to get some decent returns to last them for many years.

Cautious/balanced was the remit. 

[Deleted User]

A_T said:

Have a look at Vanguard's Target Retirement Funds

I have a problem with these funds, they are of the same ilk as Workplace pension lifestyle funds in the fact that they assume you will be buying an annuity at the start of retirement.
If you don't buy an annuity then you have another 30-35 years of drawdown and why would you not be actually investing at the same time?
There are some other factors that may make you want to Lifestyle/Target Retirement, maximising the tax free lump sum of avoiding tax if you move abroad etc.
To the OP there are numerous choices, as other have said you could choose one of the mixed asset funds according to your risk profile (MyMap, HSBC Global Strategy, L&G, Vanguard Lifestrategy), or buy two ETFs (Global Shares and Global Bonds eg VWRL/VAGS) and mix them to your profile, or if your risk profile is at the lower end buy one of the wealth preservation Investment Trusts who are in effect an active mixed asset fund (Personal Assets or Capital Gearing).
And maybe keep a cash buffer of maybe 3-4 years spending to avoid unnecessary forced selling of assets during a downturn.
With regards to taking an income, you take dividends and also draw from capital (well that's what I am doing), you either plan the withdrawal rate yourself or go and get a decent IFA to help you. (there are ones out there, honestly!)
As always do your own research, good luck.

Albermarle

Aged said:

Albermarle said:

Audaxer said:

I'm not sure how big in value your portfolio is, but to simplify things at least initially, would it be worth considering moving it all into a low cost, globally diversified multi asset fund? I think that you agreed on another thread that considering total return rather than just yield was a better option, so in my view a medium risk multi asset fund would make a better portfolio than your current one. 

I was going to say the same . Something like VLS 60 or HSBC global strategy balanced or Fidelity multi allocator growth or Blackrock mymap4 .
Or the next risk level down or a mixture of the two 

That sounds good, but would mixing and matching these funds not result in duplication/distortion of the balance?

Although all of these funds have a similar objective there are some differences , so it can make sense in my opinion to have two rather than one . The main differences are that some have a fixed equity/non equity % whilst others are 'risk targeted' with a variable % equity ( so more managed ) . Also some have a UK bias and some do not .
As mentioned already you could also have a so called Wealth Preservation investment trust. These are effectively actively managed multi asset investments with higher but not too high charges, normally at the lower risk end of the scale with typically around 40% equity.

IvanOpinion

I consider myself to be an amateur but even I can see that that is a very poor portfolio - you could probably have picked better using a pin and the Financial Times.  When I started reading I really hoped that you still had a few years to go before needing it.  Take the advice that others have suggested, move everything into a couple of good multi-asset funds (just keep an eye out for any exit fees etc.).

Aged

Deleted_User said:

A_T said:

Have a look at Vanguard's Target Retirement Funds

I have a problem with these funds, they are of the same ilk as Workplace pension lifestyle funds in the fact that they assume you will be buying an annuity at the start of retirement.
If you don't buy an annuity then you have another 30-35 years of drawdown and why would you not be actually investing at the same time?

I won't be going down the annuity rate (although it might be a good option at some stage in the future). 

Deleted_User said:

To the OP there are numerous choices, as other have said you could choose one of the mixed asset funds according to your risk profile (MyMap, HSBC Global Strategy, L&G, Vanguard Lifestrategy), or buy two ETFs (Global Shares and Global Bonds eg VWRL/VAGS) and mix them to your profile, or if your risk profile is at the lower end buy one of the wealth preservation Investment Trusts who are in effect an active mixed asset fund (Personal Assets or Capital Gearing).
And maybe keep a cash buffer of maybe 3-4 years spending to avoid unnecessary forced selling of assets during a downturn.
With regards to taking an income, you take dividends and also draw from capital (well that's what I am doing), you either plan the withdrawal rate yourself or go and get a decent IFA to help you. (there are ones out there, honestly!)
As always do your own research, good luck.

Thanks for the good advice and encouragement. I'm researching as much as I can and learning all the time. My book just arrived 'Beyond The 4% Rule' by Abraham Okusanya so I'll get stuck into that this weekend. It's really good to hear from someone that is in a drawdown situation and it's working well for them, there's hope for me yet!