Fundsmith

masonic

Thrugelmir said:

If historic chart data was all that was required to invest successfully there'd be no fund management industry at all. One needs to understand why as well. There's no shortage of well informed research that provides a more rounded picture.

Historic data does have its uses, however. For example, showing that a given strategy hasn't worked well in the past demonstrates that it cannot be relied upon to work consistently. Screening out the funds and managers based on past performance can improve your chances of avoiding such funds/managers in the future. Looking at periods like the 2000s and 1970s can help us manage expectations.

Aged

jamei305 said:

Aged said:

Hi and thanks for your input. The background to my situation is that my portfolio was originally set up with 10 funds - two of these were equity income funds. This worked quite well initially, but one of the funds was the Woodford fund which obviously is no more. My aim is to plug that hole, and restore the balance of my portfolio to what I am happy with. I'm presently sitting at 36% in equities and I'd like to be at 50%. So, I need another equity fund to plug the hole that Woodford left. As my original post said, I've been looking at Fundsmith for a while as a suitable replacement, and I thought it would sit nicely alongside my existing managed equity income fund and my developed world ex-UK tracker. My worry is that I've missed the boat for a 'good' time to buy into this fund, and I can't help being overcautious after what happened with Woodford. I wondered what others' opinions were?

Why not just add more to the Developed World ex-UK tracker as Audaxer suggested on the previous page?

I'll be honest here and admit that my best performing fund of all has been my UK equity income fund, therefore I'm not yet convinced about whether investing globally is the right way forward for me.

talexuser

Aged said:

I'll be honest here and admit that my best performing fund of all has been my UK equity income fund, therefore I'm not yet convinced about whether investing globally is the right way forward for me.

That's interesting. Which fund and over which timescale?

Prism

Aged said:

jamei305 said:

Aged said:

Hi and thanks for your input. The background to my situation is that my portfolio was originally set up with 10 funds - two of these were equity income funds. This worked quite well initially, but one of the funds was the Woodford fund which obviously is no more. My aim is to plug that hole, and restore the balance of my portfolio to what I am happy with. I'm presently sitting at 36% in equities and I'd like to be at 50%. So, I need another equity fund to plug the hole that Woodford left. As my original post said, I've been looking at Fundsmith for a while as a suitable replacement, and I thought it would sit nicely alongside my existing managed equity income fund and my developed world ex-UK tracker. My worry is that I've missed the boat for a 'good' time to buy into this fund, and I can't help being overcautious after what happened with Woodford. I wondered what others' opinions were?

Why not just add more to the Developed World ex-UK tracker as Audaxer suggested on the previous page?

I'll be honest here and admit that my best performing fund of all has been my UK equity income fund, therefore I'm not yet convinced about whether investing globally is the right way forward for me.

Its usually about timeframe. Over the last 5+ years my best performing fund has been Fundsmith, over the last 2 years its been a private equity fund and over the last year an energy storage fund. UK equity income did pretty well in the first 10 years of this century.

Aged

talexuser said:

Aged said:

I'll be honest here and admit that my best performing fund of all has been my UK equity income fund, therefore I'm not yet convinced about whether investing globally is the right way forward for me.

That's interesting. Which fund and over which timescale?

Artemis Income. 6 years.

coyrls

Aged said:

talexuser said:

Aged said:

I'll be honest here and admit that my best performing fund of all has been my UK equity income fund, therefore I'm not yet convinced about whether investing globally is the right way forward for me.

That's interesting. Which fund and over which timescale?

Artemis Income. 6 years.

What are your other funds?  A world tracker would have outperformed:

 

Johnnyboy11

As previously mentioned, Fundsmith equity is highly concentrated in American Tech Companies. Five companies make up over 30% of the fund, and two cratered recently, Paypal and Meta (Facebook), making a big dent in recent fund performance. I'm looking to exit Fundsmith and move more to global passive trackers, as I did with LTGE last year.

aroominyork

coyrls said:

Aged said:

talexuser said:

Aged said:

I'll be honest here and admit that my best performing fund of all has been my UK equity income fund, therefore I'm not yet convinced about whether investing globally is the right way forward for me.

That's interesting. Which fund and over which timescale?

Artemis Income. 6 years.

What are your other funds?  A world tracker would have outperformed:

 

I think you're looking at the wrong fund. The OP said it was a UK equity income fund so that will be Artemis Income (not Artemis Global Income). Artemis Income has returned just under 32% over five years, which is pretty good by UK standards but still underperformed a global index fund.

Prism

Johnnyboy11 said:

As previously mentioned, Fundsmith equity is highly concentrated in American Tech Companies. Five companies make up over 30% of the fund, and two cratered recently, Paypal and Meta (Facebook), making a big dent in recent fund performance. I'm looking to exit Fundsmith and move more to global passive trackers, as I did with LTGE last year.

Both are a pretty good example of how a rerating of the share price by investors can have a big short term effect even if the long term effect is pretty negligible. The share price of PayPal is pretty much the same as it was three years ago and as it pays no dividend that is effectively zero return. Over that time the profits have more than doubled. Along the way the share price tripled and then dropped again. I'm more interested in the long term of companies like that than the noise along the way.

aroominyork

It seems clear we are in a new economic environment and the growth-led market of the last decade+ is unlikely to continue. How are fans of Fundsmith (of which I count myself one) reacting?
 

I think the fund's focus on high margin profitable companies in tech, health and consumer defensive means there is no need to panic. But given the uncertainties ahead I might trim a bit (15% of my equity holdings are Fundsmith Sustainable) and move it into my core index fund (Fidelity Index World).