Can I swap some/all of my current pension to 1 where i can pick exact shares?

Prism

ZingPowZing said:

Interesting. I think a direct shares holding has a ~95% chance of outperforming a fund with no fees over the next ten years.

If only it was that easy, but history suggest that it is not unless you are lucky. Professional fund managers struggle to do it even if you discount their fee. There are not many studies of the results of individual retail investors, partly because many don't actually calculate their returns properly - I have seen some US examples like this one Why are Individual Investors so Bad at Investing? (innovativewealth.com)

[Deleted User]

The article reads like the author, being a wealth manager, started with an agenda. And he is quoting a company that itself serves the financial services industry over there. So no surprise that it finishes

"Work with a professional – Using a professional wealth manager is one of the easiest methods of improving investor performance. ..Having a professional help you with your investing is important if you want to improve your performance...At Innovative Advisory Group, we work with our clients...We can work with you to help add value to your investment strategy. If you want to consider how we might be able to help you improve your long-term performance, contact us to learn more."

Over in the UK, I would turn that question around and ask why the financial services industry is so bad at producing decent returns for its clients. The prevailing advice against owning shares makes no sense to me, like building without bricks.

Prism

ZingPowZing said:

The article reads like the author, being a wealth manager, started with an agenda. And he is quoting a company that itself serves the financial services industry over there. So no surprise that it finishes

"Work with a professional – Using a professional wealth manager is one of the easiest methods of improving investor performance. ..Having a professional help you with your investing is important if you want to improve your performance...At Innovative Advisory Group, we work with our clients...We can work with you to help add value to your investment strategy. If you want to consider how we might be able to help you improve your long-term performance, contact us to learn more."

Over in the UK, I would turn that question around and ask why the financial services industry is so bad at producing decent returns for its clients. The prevailing advice against owning shares makes no sense to me, like building without bricks.

Although the author of the article is a wealth manager the creators of the study, Dalbar are neutral and are just reporting the stats. That comment you quoted is by the author but to be fair to him that point about considering a professional is 4th in a list of bits of advice which starts with 'use index funds' as a top example, which itself is considered by most the best way of low fee investing.

The interesting stat to me is that over the time period of the study only 25% of the individual stocks made all of the gains and the large majority of them lost money. That means that an individual investor cannot randomly select stocks and expect to make any money - or they need to move in and out of different stocks at the right times which goes back to my first point about company valuations and research, something I am no good at myself and I doubt many others are either.

[Deleted User]

Prism said:

ZingPowZing said:

The article reads like the author, being a wealth manager, started with an agenda. And he is quoting a company that itself serves the financial services industry over there. So no surprise that it finishes

"Work with a professional – Using a professional wealth manager is one of the easiest methods of improving investor performance. ..Having a professional help you with your investing is important if you want to improve your performance...At Innovative Advisory Group, we work with our clients...We can work with you to help add value to your investment strategy. If you want to consider how we might be able to help you improve your long-term performance, contact us to learn more."

Over in the UK, I would turn that question around and ask why the financial services industry is so bad at producing decent returns for its clients. The prevailing advice against owning shares makes no sense to me, like building without bricks.

Although the author of the article is a wealth manager the creators of the study, Dalbar are neutral and are just reporting the stats
There may be neutral collating, but there is no neutral reporting of statistics, least of all in the realm of finance. 

That comment you quoted is by the author but to be fair to him that point about considering a professional is 4th in a list of bits of advice which starts with 'use index funds' as a top example, which itself is considered by most the best way of low fee investing.
Well, I'll trust you on that. I've always been near 100% invested in equities, on the principle that an index fund will underperform a pin-sticker by the margin of its fees. Am I missing something?
But a fund that has to conform to certain parameters - say Vanguard - should fare worse than a tracker. 

The interesting stat to me is that over the time period of the study only 25% of the individual stocks made all of the gains and the large majority of them lost money.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. The overall value of those markets rose, so the gains made by the minority outweigh the losses made by the majority:- provided you do not rebalance.

That means that an individual investor cannot randomly select stocks and expect to make any money -
Yes they can and do. Pick names you like - Disney, CocaCola, Apple, Google. Personally not keen on Tesla partly as the name ends on a weak stress.

In the USA, there is no culture of aversion to owning stocks. In part, it must be a substitute for traditional prohibitions against gambling. 
The difference being, owning stocks is a game in which you may expect to win. 
Luckily for investors in the UK, the American influence - transparency, lower transaction fees - has forced our own financial services industry to a place where the OP can be encouraged to pursue his plan. I'm pretty sure the value of any two of Aapl, Microsoft and Amazon equals the value of the FTSE100. If you missed the rise, hard luck, you can never get that time back. 
But do not confuse the value of these firms with a "bubble."  The last Q revenue of Aapl equalled the worth of the company eleven years ago. It's never going back to that valuation. The OP has a 30yr investment horizon.

Prism

ZingPowZing said:

Prism said:

ZingPowZing said:

The article reads like the author, being a wealth manager, started with an agenda. And he is quoting a company that itself serves the financial services industry over there. So no surprise that it finishes

"Work with a professional – Using a professional wealth manager is one of the easiest methods of improving investor performance. ..Having a professional help you with your investing is important if you want to improve your performance...At Innovative Advisory Group, we work with our clients...We can work with you to help add value to your investment strategy. If you want to consider how we might be able to help you improve your long-term performance, contact us to learn more."

Over in the UK, I would turn that question around and ask why the financial services industry is so bad at producing decent returns for its clients. The prevailing advice against owning shares makes no sense to me, like building without bricks.

Although the author of the article is a wealth manager the creators of the study, Dalbar are neutral and are just reporting the stats
There may be neutral collating, but there is no neutral reporting of statistics, least of all in the realm of finance. 

That comment you quoted is by the author but to be fair to him that point about considering a professional is 4th in a list of bits of advice which starts with 'use index funds' as a top example, which itself is considered by most the best way of low fee investing.
Well, I'll trust you on that. I've always been near 100% invested in equities, on the principle that an index fund will underperform a pin-sticker by the margin of its fees. Am I missing something?
But a fund that has to conform to certain parameters - say Vanguard - should fare worse than a tracker. 

The interesting stat to me is that over the time period of the study only 25% of the individual stocks made all of the gains and the large majority of them lost money.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. The overall value of those markets rose, so the gains made by the minority outweigh the losses made by the majority:- provided you do not rebalance.

That means that an individual investor cannot randomly select stocks and expect to make any money -
Yes they can and do. Pick names you like - Disney, CocaCola, Apple, Google. Personally not keen on Tesla partly as the name ends on a weak stress.

In the USA, there is no culture of aversion to owning stocks. In part, it must be a substitute for traditional prohibitions against gambling. 
The difference being, owning stocks is a game in which you may expect to win. 
Luckily for investors in the UK, the American influence - transparency, lower transaction fees - has forced our own financial services industry to a place where the OP can be encouraged to pursue his plan. I'm pretty sure the value of any two of Aapl, Microsoft and Amazon equals the value of the FTSE100. If you missed the rise, hard luck, you can never get that time back. 
But do not confuse the value of these firms with a "bubble."  The last Q revenue of Aapl equalled the worth of the company eleven years ago. It's never going back to that valuation. The OP has a 30yr investment horizon.

Ahah, you see you do have opinions. They are not companies chosen randomly from the world of companies. They are large well known already successful companies - the kind of companies I invest in through my active funds. 

Yes index funds will underperform the index by a tiny amount due to tiny fees. Active funds mostly underperform by a larger amount due to larger fees (and quite a few of them not being any good). Individual investors seems to underperform by an ev en larger amount, if you believe the study, not from fees but from poor choices and bad decisions. Investing in a bull market like we have been in for 12 years is easy - investing through a downturn is much more difficult. I am not against investors buying individual stocks but its worth pointing out that it isn't as easy as buying a few well known names and watching them go up.

Btw of course Apple will go back to that valuation at some point

[Deleted User]

Well, it's twelve years you will never get back if you sat it out.
Thinking a company will decline to a valuation of one Q's revenue...could be wishful, could be a long wait. 

gwebstech

Thanks for the replies guys, i didnt see i had any until now. I know any stocks investing can be "dangerous" but nothing ventured, nothing gained in my view, i know its not for swapping and changing every 5 minutes, im willing to HODL. I am only thinking of investing a % of my pension, not likely to throw it all in anywhere. I have it all in quite high risk groups now, and i dont think a 10% return last year is too shabby considering i dont know anything about this

redpete

gwebstech said:

Thanks for the replies guys, i didnt see i had any until now. I know any stocks investing can be "dangerous" but nothing ventured, nothing gained in my view, i know its not for swapping and changing every 5 minutes, im willing to HODL. I am only thinking of investing a % of my pension, not likely to throw it all in anywhere. I have it all in quite high risk groups now, and i dont think a 10% return last year is too shabby considering i dont know anything about this

My pension portfolio made up largely of index tracking funds chosen on a fixed distribution basis has returned 11.2% over the last year, so even less shabby.  (Although a year is too short a term to get a meaningful comparison.)
Finding a SIPP provider who offers individual shares seems a lot easier that the research I'd expect from someone considering risking their pension to individual share investments.