evestor portfolio 2. Did I make a mistake?

leshaste

A year ago I put quite a lot of my savings into evestor portfolio 2. It has been down consistently, currently 4% down which assuming 10% inflation is really more like 13% down in real money terms. I notice I can't find a historical graph of its performance that is at all up to date.  Was this a foolish investment?

dunstonh

 It has been down consistently,

It will be down but it shouldnt be consistent.    Nov 2021 was the high point in the markets and the low point was October 2022.  It zig zagged downwards between those dates.     However, since October 2022 it has been wavy line upwards.

Was this a foolish investment?

No.  It was just a negative year.   An economic cycle is around 15 years and approx 5 of those will be negative years (with a bunch more negative periods that recover within the years) and 10 will be positive.    You just hit a negative year at the start.

Alexland

leshaste said:

A year ago I put quite a lot of my savings into evestor portfolio 2. It has been down consistently, currently 4% down which assuming 10% inflation is really more like 13% down in real money terms. I notice I can't find a historical graph of its performance that is at all up to date.  Was this a foolish investment?

I don't know about evestor portfolios (what asset allocation is 'portfolio 2' as it's not obviously on their public website?) but the general point I will make is that you shouldn't expect S&S returns to be synchronised with inflation. Markets tend to forward price future economic expectations and I remember a few years ago markets were rising in expectation of this inflation period and sadly we can't eat the same cake twice. Even if not synchronised over the long term a sensible low cost S&S investment should keep up with or exceed inflation if enough volatility is accepted.

leshaste said:

I notice I can't find a historical graph of its performance that is at all up to date.

The lack of transparency in such bespoke portfolios is one of the reasons I prefer to invest in funds that have a very wide distribution and publicly available long term performance data via Morningstar, Trustnet, etc.

leshaste

About a third is in Fidelity Index US Fund P  and the rest more or less evenly spread between 
Cash

Vanguard FTSE UK All Share Index Unit Trust GBP Acc

Blackrock Ishares Global Property Securities Equity Index (UK) D Acc

iShares Overseas Government Bond Index (UK) D Acc

iShares Emerging Markets Equity Index (UK) D Acc

Fidelity Index Japan Fund P Acc

Fidelity Index Europe (ex. UK) Fund P ACC

Fidelity Index Pacific (ex. Japan) P Acc

Fidelity Index US Fund P ACC

Vanguard UK Investment Grade Bond Index ACC

Vanguard UK Government Bond Acc

Vanguard Global Bond Index Hedged Acc

Albermarle

leshaste said:

A year ago I put quite a lot of my savings into evestor portfolio 2. It has been down consistently, currently 4% down which assuming 10% inflation is really more like 13% down in real money terms. I notice I can't find a historical graph of its performance that is at all up to date.  Was this a foolish investment?

It is all a question of timing and in which part of the up and down cycle you invest. Unfortunately you only know the result afterwards.
If you had invested at the start of 2022, rather than 12 months ago, you would have been down more than 4%, if that makes you feel better !

Alexland

leshaste said:

About a third is in Fidelity Index US Fund P  and the rest more or less evenly spread between 
Cash

Vanguard FTSE UK All Share Index Unit Trust GBP Acc

Blackrock Ishares Global Property Securities Equity Index (UK) D Acc

iShares Overseas Government Bond Index (UK) D Acc

iShares Emerging Markets Equity Index (UK) D Acc

Fidelity Index Japan Fund P Acc

Fidelity Index Europe (ex. UK) Fund P ACC

Fidelity Index Pacific (ex. Japan) P Acc

Fidelity Index US Fund P ACC

Vanguard UK Investment Grade Bond Index ACC

Vanguard UK Government Bond Acc

Vanguard Global Bond Index Hedged Acc

I had to put that into a spreadsheet to work it out - so aprox 66% in global equites, 22% bonds, 6% property and 6% cash. Basically a classic balanced multi asset portfolio whice even after evestor's fees should be expected to at least keep pace with inflation over the long term.

If you are worried about it being down 4% just be aware it has the potential to drop around 30% in a bad market crash which you should expect to happen every so often. Just make sure you don't need the money anytime soon so that you have enough years to ride any recovery.

Accumulation portfolios tend to recover faster than the overall market indexes as the dividend reinvestment is buying into more fund units when they are at lower prices.

When you learn enough you start wanting the market to drop in value, however uncomfortable that may feel, to help the compounding process for a better long term outcome. I remember during the covid crash there were days where my accounts were repeatedly going down by the price of a new car. It didn't feel great but I had the confidence in the underlying assets, and experience from previous crashes where I had less money at risk to stick it out for however long it would take to recover and was eventually rewarded.

Welcome to investing.