Hargreaves Lansdown Success Stories

sho_me_da_money

Guys im thinking of slapping some money with a HL Stocks and Shares ISA.

With £4K i was thinking of letting the guys manage the funds and askin them to put £1K in like a super high risk american fund and then spreading the rest of the 3K between medium and low risk options they suggest under their managed service.

The plan is to double up in the high risk, and then send that profit into a lower risk option and then keep repeating that process. Maybe not double up and just wait for the £1000 in high risk to get to £1500 and then drop the 500.00 into a lower band.

Im wondering the success people have had with investing into a high risk managed service with HL. How much did you put in? How much did it go up? How long did it take to go up? What starategy worked for you? Any other suggestions?

Thanks guys!

robp

Why American? The papers are reporting that they are heading towards a recession.

Surely BRIC countries would be a better place for a Super High Risk guess?

Personally I choose/manage my own funds. My understanding is that HL charges are higher than some IFA's and I've not heard any amazing performance reports from anyone.

Good luck anyhow! Maybe you can report back on your experience with them and your picks?

Aegis

If you mean that you're going to get them to actively manage your portfolio for you, I imagine that you'd find yourself fairly broke fairly quickly. the advice side of Hargreaves Lansdown (which you would be using if you did what I think you're suggesting) is actually very expensive compared to the execution-only side of the business which most people on this site would be using.

With £4k and 4 funds any fees you pay would likely be a waste anyway, as they would have little opportunity to do any in-depth portfolio plan for you and would probably pick 4 funds from the Wealth 150 list that matched your requirements anyway (assuming that they put any faith in their own list, of course!). With this little money you would almost certainly be better off picking your own funds.

Your strategy is somewhat questionable given that some analysts are predicting a recession in America that could result in fairly huge losses in high-risk America funds,a nd with the FTSE not exactly looking too healthy in the short-medium term, you might well end up with a lot less than you started with for a long time.

Personally I have some exposure to America via my Invesco Perpetual funds (~20% of each of them was in the US last time I checked), and that's more than enough for me!

sho_me_da_money

Ok so how do i know whats hot and whats not?

I was thinking of telling these "experts" to place a portion of my cash into a fund they thought was good for high risk and then have them divide the rest up in lower categories.

I dont want to go with America but it was just an example.

Im just wondering where and how do i know which stocks are hot and not. Hence why i thought id leace it to the big boys - HL

Liz_the_Whizz

Sho

If you look at the HL website homepage, there is a orangey clickable box (top middle of the page) which links to their 2008 Research Report.

It offers thoughts (not advice) on where to invest and which funds you might wish to consider.

Worth a look, better than paying for advice if you are investing £4k as charges will eat deep into your profits.

dunstonh

I was thinking of telling these "experts" to place a portion of my cash into a fund they thought was good for high risk and then have them divide the rest up in lower categories.

That would be using either their IFA service or portfolio management service. Either way that would be expensive. Their execution only service is very cheap and that is why it gets mentioned a lot on here. However, if you want to use an advice service, like you suggest, then a local IFA would typically be cheaper.

I doubt with £4k HL would be interested in giving you advice and to be honest, I doubt most IFAs would either unless they dont have much on at the moment or you already have an exisitng relationship with them or they are the family IFA.

I dont want to go with America but it was just an example.

American funds are not typically high risk. Even the smaller company US funds arent. They are typically medium/high. You would have to have more focus on an area for the risk to be higher.

RayWolfe

If you don't want to do your own research, or pay H-L a fortune (and you would with your strategy) but you think H-L are the bee's knees, then you could put your 4K into one ore more of their managed funds.

Liz_the_Whizz

RayWolfe wrote: »

If you don't want to do your own research, or pay H-L a fortune (and you would with your strategy) but you think H-L are the bee's knees, then you could put your 4K into one ore more of their managed funds.

But ouch - watch the high annual management charges on these HL Multi Manager funds.

purch

watch the high annual management charges on these HL Multi Manager funds

..........and the fact that there are often better performing 'Fund of Funds' or 'Multimanager' funds within their sectors

dunstonh

HLs MM funds are not that great. Indeed, we have witnessed posters in the forum move from an insurance company balanced managed fund at half the cost into these thinking they would be better when they havent been.

Recently the FSA issued a warning to advisers saying that MM funds need to be used when appropriately and not an excuse for not researching and that the higher costs need to be considered. Whilst warnings like that mean nothing to those going direct, it is handy to know the thoughts of the regulator on these issues.

cloud_dog

sho_me_da_money wrote: »

Ok so how do i know whats hot and whats not?

Why don't you follow Wombat42 approach - I think they have found an investment style which they may stick with longer than 5 mins ;-) - and that it to pick one / two (or more) of the global funds and allow the fund manager to decide where and what.

cloud_dog