Anything better than BlackRock Consensus 100 available at the moment

dunstonh

MK62 said:

Is using "multi-asset" to describe Blackrock Consensus 100 and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100 not a  bit of a stretch?.....😉.

It is. Indeed, I normally refer to the 100% versions with their technically correct name of global managed funds.  I initially made reference to the rest of the range as multi-asset funds but then removed that. Hence that bit of "multi-asset" being left in place without context.

Yes thanks for the reply. I was convinced 6 months ago that the market was going to crash and nothing happened. I learned my lesson there. 

It is worth noting that a number of global markets did crash in 2022.  However, they had already crashed by the time you thought they were going to crash [again]

Alexland

JusinScot said:

I currently have funds in BlackRock Consensus 100

Out of interest are you holding it on Hargreaves Lansdown where I know this fund series is popular as they have negotiated a 0.13% discount down to 0.08% pa as if so then that's a favourable ongoing cost compared to a global tracker however you might be wasting much more than that saving on the high HL platform charges (unless it's a free Junior ISA or a now reasonably priced Lifetime ISA).

I don't see why you would want to hold this fund if you didn't get a discount.

MK62

Albermarle said:

MK62 said:

JohnWinder said:

And for the record, since you wrote ‘crash’ the biggest equity market is up 8% in six months and your fund up 4%.
The experts can’t beat the market with timing, you and I should learn from that.

......however for a UK investor, over the last 6 months since the OP wrote that post, Sterling's rise v USD has meant that the 8% rise in the biggest equity market, would have been more than wiped out (unless you were in a hedged fund)......you'd be looking at being about 5-6% down in GBP terms, so in that respect, being up 4% probably isn't a bad result all things considered (with the major caveat being that equity investments shouldn't really be judged over just 6 months)

PS.....global trackers, such as Fidelity Index World, are about flat over the same period.

My own opinion is that funds such as VLS100 and BRCS100 probably trim US equity allocations and boost UK allocations as much to curtail exposure to foreign currencies a little, esp USD, as any judgement of the pros and cons of investing in US companies or the relative size of the US equity market. That has worked against them for many years as Sterling fell overall v USD, but has had the opposite effect over the last 6 months as Sterling has risen.

It is a good point, and I guess the same issue will affect many traditional/workplace pension providers, where the default funds ( which often 95% of the clients are in ) tend to have quite a UK bias.
On the other hand they will have a % of bonds that will have had a negative effect.

Yep.....many of the "default" pension funds I've seen have been managed multi-asset funds.......usually meaning a good slug of bonds and property, often UK....and both have had a rough time recently. Sterling's recent rise vs USD is just another factor to throw in the mix......but one has to keep in mind when investing in funds with a strong overseas bias, that you are also investing those overseas currencies, which can sometimes be as volatile as the assets themselves......it can work in your favour of course, but it can sometimes give a nasty surprise to some.

adindas

It will depend on you definition of better. There are a lot of funds, individual stocks are currently performing better than Blackrock Consensus 100 and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100.

GeoffTF

adindas said:

It will depend on you definition of better. There are a lot of funds, individual stocks are currently performing better than Blackrock Consensus 100 and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100.

That is the past. For "currently performing better" read "have recently performed better". They would have done so at much greater risk than a broadly based tracker fund.

adindas

GeoffTF said:

adindas said:

It will depend on you definition of better. There are a lot of funds, individual stocks are currently performing better than Blackrock Consensus 100 and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100.

That is the past. For "currently performing better" read "have recently performed better". They would have done so at much greater risk than a broadly based tracker fund.

That is why I said it will depend on his definition of better. Not the past, but the current within one year period (say) and to this date there are number of  assets performing better than Black-rock Consensus 100 and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100 if you look for it.

GeoffTF

adindas said:

GeoffTF said:

adindas said:

It will depend on you definition of better. There are a lot of funds, individual stocks are currently performing better than Blackrock Consensus 100 and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100.

That is the past. For "currently performing better" read "have recently performed better". They would have done so at much greater risk than a broadly based tracker fund.

That is why I said it will depend on his definition of better. Not the past, but the current within one year period (say) and to this date there are number of  assets performing better than Black-rock Consensus 100 and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100 if you look for it.

We know what the performance of LifeStrategy 100 was yesterday. We cannot say what the performance of LifeStrategy 100 will be today until their prices are published. We do not know what it will be tomorrow or the day after. The past is in the past. The future is in the future. Even in retrospect, we cannot say what the performance was in a particular second interval for a fund that is priced only once a day. There is no such thing as performance at a single point in time for LifeStrategy 100.

The performance in the last year tells us nothing about what the performance will be in the next year. Funds that did well in the last year are no more likely to do well (in risk adjusted terms before costs) in the next year than those that did badly. We cannot say that a fund is better because it performed better in the last year (assuming that our objective is the make money, or avoid losing it, in the future).

adindas

GeoffTF said:

adindas said:

GeoffTF said:

adindas said:

It will depend on you definition of better. There are a lot of funds, individual stocks are currently performing better than Blackrock Consensus 100 and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100.

That is the past. For "currently performing better" read "have recently performed better". They would have done so at much greater risk than a broadly based tracker fund.

That is why I said it will depend on his definition of better. Not the past, but the current within one year period (say) and to this date there are number of  assets performing better than Black-rock Consensus 100 and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100 if you look for it.

We know what the performance of LifeStrategy 100 was yesterday. We cannot say what the performance of LifeStrategy 100 will be today until their prices are published. We do not know what it will be tomorrow or the day after. The past is in the past. The future is in the future. Even in retrospect, we cannot say what the performance was in a particular second interval for a fund that is priced only once a day. There is no such thing as performance at a single point in time for LifeStrategy 100.

The performance in the last year tells us nothing about what the performance will be in the next year. Funds that did well in the last year are no more likely to do well (in risk adjusted terms before costs) in the next year than those that did badly. We cannot say that a fund is better because it performed better in the last year (assuming that our objective is the make money, or avoid losing it, in the future).

Does anyone know that for sure? Does anyone ever say that ?? Well, I wish someone has a crystal ball.

That is why there are fundamental analysis, technical analysis, why there are analysts/strategists, there is prediction.

There are a lot of thing in the future could be predicted based on historical data with meaningful probability to be right. Do not you watch the weather forecast ? That is predicting what will happen in the future. Economist predicting recession looking into the inverted yield curve. Mathematicians are using regression modelling and extrapolate it to predict the future outcome based on the historical data. If probability, statistics, stochastic are useless why would the people ever want to learn it.

Keep in mind in the stock market people say you do not need to get 100% right, if you could get 60% right is more than enough.

msallen

adindas said:

It will depend on you definition of better. There are a lot of funds, individual stocks are currently performing better than Blackrock Consensus 100 and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100.

And ...?  As those funds are very diversified they will achieve a form of "average" return. That being the case there are bound to be lots of things that have recently performed better, and a roughly similar amount that have performed worse.

adindas

msallen said:

adindas said:

It will depend on you definition of better. There are a lot of funds, individual stocks are currently performing better than Blackrock Consensus 100 and Vanguard LifeStrategy 100.

And ...?  As those funds are very diversified they will achieve a form of "average" return. That being the case there are bound to be lots of things that have recently performed better, and a roughly similar amount that have performed worse.

Correct if it is randomly chosen, not with strategic and methodical ways. And I do not need to repeat about diversification again and again. Excessive diversifications are not a good investment strategy. This is not me saying that it is strategy from billionaires proven investors such as Warren Buffett Charlie, Munger, Peter Lynch, Bill Ackman, Howard Marks, Jim Simons, John Templeton, etc. Most of these proven billionaires investors are contrarians and contrarian do not do excessive diversification.

That is the strategy they have been applying for years. Search it, there are already a lot of links about this in this saving and investment forum.

Some same group of people in this MSE do not like if there is reminder again what these proven billionaires investors have been saying so I suggest you search from previous posts.