Funds vs individual Shares

sevenhills

wmb194 said:

Uh-huh. It takes two opinions to make a market but it's still a terrible company and Germany is Vodafone's most important market and it isn't doing very well there. Btw, Motley Fool says almost everything's worth a punt so I'd be careful listening to its suggestions.

Investors Chronicle only has it as a hold, so I will pick another when my cash from DWF comes through 

Richard1212

sevenhills said:

wmb194 said:

Uh-huh. It takes two opinions to make a market but it's still a terrible company and Germany is Vodafone's most important market and it isn't doing very well there. Btw, Motley Fool says almost everything's worth a punt so I'd be careful listening to its suggestions.

Investors Chronicle only has it as a hold, so I will pick another when my cash from DWF comes through 

The question we all ask is "what detailed expertise in Vodaphone" does its detractor have. I can only guess !!!  My Wealth Manager and Portfolio Manager have enormous knowledge in the company, including from their subsidiary teams in Germany. But, hey, they are merely amateurs compared to our forum expert ( I wonder what his portfolio amounts to ?). 

I don't need Investors Chronicle to tell me to hold ; I intend to do so and to continue receiving the company dividends. And Vodaphone is nowhere near to being one of my star companies ( although to call it a "terrible company" doesn't sound like the language of a someone too au fait with the language of finance).

Prism

Richard1212 said:

sevenhills said:

wmb194 said:

Uh-huh. It takes two opinions to make a market but it's still a terrible company and Germany is Vodafone's most important market and it isn't doing very well there. Btw, Motley Fool says almost everything's worth a punt so I'd be careful listening to its suggestions.

Investors Chronicle only has it as a hold, so I will pick another when my cash from DWF comes through 

The question we all ask is "what detailed expertise in Vodaphone" does its detractor have. I can only guess !!!  My Wealth Manager and Portfolio Manager have enormous knowledge in the company, including from their subsidiary teams in Germany. But, hey, they are merely amateurs compared to our forum expert ( I wonder what his portfolio amounts to ?). 

I don't need Investors Chronicle to tell me to hold ; I intend to do so and to continue receiving the company dividends. And Vodaphone is nowhere near to being one of my star companies ( although to call it a "terrible company" doesn't sound like the language of a someone too au fait with the language of finance).

They know what every other investor who can be bothered reading the company reports knows. There is no secret knowledge to be found on Vodaphone just because the wealth and portfolio managers are large or have a global team. So it just boils down to opinion - is Vodaphone a good investment, in this case for your situation. 

wmb194

Richard1212 said:

sevenhills said:

wmb194 said:

Uh-huh. It takes two opinions to make a market but it's still a terrible company and Germany is Vodafone's most important market and it isn't doing very well there. Btw, Motley Fool says almost everything's worth a punt so I'd be careful listening to its suggestions.

Investors Chronicle only has it as a hold, so I will pick another when my cash from DWF comes through 

The question we all ask is "what detailed expertise in Vodaphone" does its detractor have. I can only guess !!!  My Wealth Manager and Portfolio Manager have enormous knowledge in the company, including from their subsidiary teams in Germany. But, hey, they are merely amateurs compared to our forum expert ( I wonder what his portfolio amounts to ?). 

I don't need Investors Chronicle to tell me to hold ; I intend to do so and to continue receiving the company dividends. And Vodaphone is nowhere near to being one of my star companies ( although to call it a "terrible company" doesn't sound like the language of a someone too au fait with the language of finance).

*Vodafone. That Vodafone hasn't been a star performer must be an understatement but please, enlighten me on its merits. You realise the dividend is at risk?

I notice you ignored the other points I made.

jimjames

wmb194 said:

Richard1212 said:

wmb194 said:

Richard1212 said:

I am a great believer in buying individual company shares------rather than  using "Funds".

But, as everyone has already said, you have to do a lot of hard-slogging work and investigation to start off your portfolio. Assuming you gain more expertise , far more than Motley Fool ( !!! ), it is then best to hand over to a portfolio manager for day-to-day time-consuming detail. Of course, it all depends on how rich you are : you have to cut your cloth etc.

But now that I have a very large portfolio across 9 market sectors and it is managed expertly, I am even more sure that I was wholly correct in purchasing individual shares rather than trusting to Funds that I have no control over in terms of my or my advisors' own investigations and expertise.

It actually isn't that hard to build your own 'fund' e.g., find one or more you like and simply buy some or all of shares in the companies of which it's or they're comprised. With the zero commission brokers it's as cheap as it's ever been to do it.

It's a trifle more difficult than the way your simplistic post suggests, as you should know if you ever built up a portfolio of 50 or 60 companies and then tried to run them yourself on the cheap. But, hey, if you work full time on it and keep it very simple, I'm sure you're an expert on the workings, hierarchy and detailed minutiae of every company. Gosh, how I envy your skill.

In a recent post on another thread you mentioned owning, "Vodaphone." That's a terrible company.

Somewhat easier to own than buying shares in Waitrose and Asda though