Where to get Shares ISA Providers Performance

JBH

I already have a Santander Shares ISA and it is doing okay and very easy to use and control. However, I cannot find a site that will give me historical performance of say Santander versus Nutmeg for  a managed shares ISA account. The reason is, do I put more money into Santander which has cheap management fees and familiar with or open another Shares ISA account with eg Nutmeg which has higher fees but performance could outstrip the cost implications? Is there a website that gives you the relative performances of all the major providers?  

jimjames

An ISA is just a tax free wrapper. It doesn't have performance one way or another. The important thing to compare is the investments that you put inside the ISA. So check what you are invested in with Santander and compare that but Nutmeg may not have much data as it's a fairly new product.

There are sites that show investment performance but I'm not sure if Nutmeg are included if their products are not available elsewhere.

However if you've already put money into your ISA for this tax year then you can't pay into another one until after April next year.

Alexland

The problem is that robo etc products aimed at the simple retail market usually run their own proprietary portfolios that are unique for each customer so performance data is not easily comparable to standard OEIC fund, ETF, etc data found on Trustnet, Morningstar, etc.
Holly at Boring Money has some data but it's no more scientific than investing the same amount of money in similar risk level portfolios with various providers and reporting how her accounts are doing.
If JBH is starting to develop an interest in performance it might be time to start using more industry standard investment products.

dunstonh

Where to get Shares ISA Providers Performance

If you put the same investments in the S&S ISAs of 10 different ISA providers, you get identical performance.  It has nothing to do with the ISA provider but the ivnestments held within it.

Most decent ISAs are whole of market nowadays.  Only the restricted providers limt choice.  

As mentioned above, the robo-providers are using assets you can buy yourself directly.  The robo is just deciding how much they should be weighted and charging you more for it (which is fair enough - Although for what is a largely computerised process, many are charging similar or more than an IFA would for doing a personlised service.

Because of the nature of robo portfolios, you wont find their data on the fund data providers.

grumiofoundation

You can find some data for the past performance (looks like 5 years) of nutmegs portfolios (various risk ratings) on their website but as has been said the difficulty is finding something to compare to.

I suppose you could compare to similar multi assets funds* from vanguard, HSBC, legal and general etc that you would otherwise invest in.


But the issue with that is because the last 5 year shave been good for equities the equity % will drive the performance and you may find you aren’t directly comparing like to like in terms of equity %. 

JBH

Thank you for your replies. Paraphrasing the above there is no easy answer. I suppose an approach would be to invest similar amounts in a new provider be it Nutmeg or a.n.other and see how the performance compares over time with my Santander and my risk profile etc then swap if there is a definite winner. 

dunstonh

JBH said:

Thank you for your replies. Paraphrasing the above there is no easy answer. I suppose an approach would be to invest similar amounts in a new provider be it Nutmeg or a.n.other and see how the performance compares over time with my Santander and my risk profile etc then swap if there is a definite winner. 

To be honest, you don't invest with Santandar or Nutmeg or any robo-adviser or restricted distribution method with the aim of getting the best performance.   They are simple options aimed at inexperienced investors who dont know what they are doing.  They are about ease of investing and simplicity.  Not about chasing the best return.

In reality, aiming to get best performance is next to impossible anyway.  However, there are ways to improve the chances but you would need to use an investment platform and they are more complicated than the robo options.     Those investment platforms can have over 30,000 different investment options.  Some of which are highly unsuitable to most consumers.  You need to know what you are doing.  Or at least enough to know what to avoid and what to select.

grumiofoundation

JBH said:

Thank you for your replies. Paraphrasing the above there is no easy answer. I suppose an approach would be to invest similar amounts in a new provider be it Nutmeg or a.n.other and see how the performance compares over time with my Santander and my risk profile etc then swap if there is a definite winner. 

Then you will be switching based on past performance. In this case you will probably end up switching to the portfolio with the higher equity % (in a rising market) or lower equity % (in falling market). Having higher (or lower) equity % in certain markets will also skew past performance (cf. recent performance of UK equities) but not necessarily future performance. 

I had a friend who proposed the same idea, that he would invest in various funds and then just switch to the best performing after a year or so. We had to explain to him this would lead to him very quickly drifting away from his original risk level and concentrating in certain high performing markets (that may not be the best performing moving forward).

You can compare the past performance of santander vs nutmeg if you want.

For example comparing santander multi-asset 3 and nutmeg fully managed 7.10 both currently ~67% equities.

Santander - 5 years 37%
Nutmeg - 5 years 40%


https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/savings-and-investments/investments/digital-investment-adviser
https://www.nutmeg.com/fully-managed-portfolios

For comparison some commonly mentioned multi assets funds of similar equity %. As you can see all pretty similar and not hugely different to the ones above. As said if you invest with Nutmeg, santander managed you aren't going to get the best returns but are getting simplicity and ease of use and guidance towards suitable risk funds. 
https://monevator.com/passive-fund-of-funds-the-rivals/

VLS 60 (fixed at 60% equities) - 44%
HSBC GLOBAL STRATEGY BALANCED (currently 57% equites not fixed) - 47%
L and G mutli-asset 6 (currently 70% equity) - 48%

https://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/v/vanguard-lifestrategy-60-equity-accumulation/charts
https://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/h/hsbc-global-strategy-balanced-portfolio-c-accumulation/charts
https://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/l/legal-and-general-multi-index-6-class-i-accumulation/charts

For comparison 100% equities (HSBC all-world) - 80%. So basing on past performance you would switch to this 'winner'. But then you would have dramatically increased your risk level. 

https://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/h/hsbc-ftse-all-world-index-class-c-accumulation/charts

Alexland

To be fair those references to higher returning Vanguard, HSBC and L&G funds at similar risk levels (or the higher risk HSBC All World fund) would be before adding the annual platform fees which in the case of a (near) whole market platform like HL would be 0.45% or slightly less Fidelity would be 0.35% or if going directly with Vanguard or HSBC would be an extra 0.15% or 0.25% respectively.

grumiofoundation

Alexland said:

To be fair those references to higher returning Vanguard, HSBC and L&G funds at similar risk levels (or the higher risk HSBC All World fund) would be before adding the annual platform fees which in the case of a (near) whole market platform like HL would be 0.45% or slightly less Fidelity would be 0.35% or if going directly with Vanguard or HSBC would be an extra 0.15% or 0.25% respectively.

Tis very fair. 
Shockingly forgot to factor in/mention these (Hopefully haven't been reported for this blasphemy).

Alexland

grumiofoundation said:

Shockingly forgot to factor in/mention these (Hopefully haven't been reported for this blasphemy).

I don't think anyone around here is uncharitable enough to hit the report button. Your conclusions on robos are similar to mine - the returns are OK for not a lot of effort but for those of us who find it interesting it's likely to be possible to get a compounding edge by doing a bit more work to keep costs ultra low.