Property Funds & Investments

purch

There's no point in going to Hargreaves Lansdown if you want a managed service

Why ?

Their Managed Portfolio Service means that your money is managed by Investment Professionals, who actually have experience trading markets and have a wealth of Investment knowledge.

Of course you could choose an IFA who has passed the exams and has the theoretical training, but does'nt necessarily have 'real' hands-on knowledge or experience.

You can shop at Harrods or Aldi...........your choice

dunstonh

Their Managed Portfolio Service means that your money is managed by Investment Professionals, who actually have experience trading markets and have a wealth of Investment knowledge.

Of course you could choose an IFA who has passed the exams and has the theoretical training, but does'nt necessarily have 'real' hands-on knowledge or experience.

Thats extremely unfair. What about the IFAs that have higher qualifications and experience than the discretionary fund managers?

If you want to be stereotypical then why not accuse their managed portfolio service of far too frequent trades incurring a cost each and every time and charging an amount often 1-2% p.a. more than an IFA would cost before dealing costs. SOME of these discretionary management services are dire and are used as licences to print money. Most of them coming from the larger firms. And don't forget staff turnover. The reputation they have for seeing a person once is notorious. How about the larger firms who have a two tiered system where you never speak to the discretionary fund manager after initial sign up but deal with some low skilled trainee clerk.

It isn't fair to stereotype any service by comparing a bad example with a good one.

purch

Thats extremely unfair. What about the IFAs that have higher qualifications and experience than the discretionary fund managers?

Sorry.........that was not meant to 'diss' IFA's

There have been a lot of threads on here recently (how strange seeing the current state of the market :rolleyes: ) where posters are 'complaining' either about allegedly bad advice, or about their investments losing value and expecting their IFA to be 'doing something' about it !!!

I know there are plenty of I.F.A.'s in the business with huge knowledge and experience, but even they, unless they are being paid for it and it is part of the remit from the customer cannot be expected to manage the investments on a weekly basis for a 'tiddly' bit of trail commission. There are also plenty of I.F.A.'s with the knowledge and experience to advise clients on risk and sectors, but who probably wouldn't want to, even if they had the ability, to manage the portfolio as closely as some customers seem to expect from them

Discretionary Fund Management costs alot of money, and you gets what you pay for.

jamesd

audrey07, it's completely impossible for that mixture to meet the "investments to be in cash or guaranteed investments" constraint because many of the investments were not in cash or guaranteed investments. Risk profile or not, that constraint was not respected.

Start using the firm's complaints procedure and tell them that you intend to take the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) if they do not correct the situation expeditiously. The FOS will not be fooled by bogus claims that the mixture of investments met your specified criteria.

jamesd

purch, the low cost way to get advice from HL is to use one of their multi-manager funds that matches the target risk level. But other firm's multi-manager funds seem like better value than theirs so personally I'd look at one of those that HL sells from another firm.

Fergie73

There have been a lot of threads on here recently (how strange seeing the current state of the market :rolleyes: ) where posters are 'complaining' either about allegedly bad advice, or about their investments losing value and expecting their IFA to be 'doing something' about it !!!

That's perhaps because when IFAs are smoothly selling products that will make them high commission, to people they are well aware don't really understand investments, part of their slick selling techinique is to re-assure the person with talk that makes it sound like they have their best interests at heart and will be managing the portfolio.

If IFAs were more honest from the off, and actually sat down with people and listened to what they were saying, then explained the nature of investing and the funds they were investing in properly, they might not have people coming back at them later when investments failed.

I'm sure there are some IFAs who are genuninely very good and do have people's interests at heart, but that the moment, there also seem to be a lot of very bad ones who don't. Property funds appear to be bringing the worst ones out of the woodwork. 50% commercial property is not cautious. 10% perhaps, aspart of a balanced fund, not 50.

Retired_I.F.A.

Wasn't it Legal and General who first came up with a tracker fund having noted that 90% of fund managers could not outpeform the footsie?

sho_me_da_money

An interesting board.

So if your a newbie and know little about the stocks and shares - is it best to go with a managed portfolio with a HL rep over an IFA?

I think you can get the right IFA but you have to speak to like 10 and then handpick the top 3.

I was told to go with the "richest looking or the most wealthy IFA" as he is the one thats likely to know what he's doing.

So what do y'all thinks?

jem16

sho_me_da_money wrote: »

An interesting board.

So if your a newbie and know little about the stocks and shares - is it best to go with a managed portfolio with a HL rep over an IFA?

If you have a managed portfolio - i.e. actual advice - from HL it will be more expensive than going to an IFA.

HL have multi-manager funds and these are available at a lower cost. However you still get no advice on these and they are more expensive than choosing your own funds.

I was told to go with the "richest looking or the most wealthy IFA" as he is the one thats likely to know what he's doing.

Might be the one who charges more rather than knows more.