Distribution Funds & Bonds

King_Weasel

Most of our savings/investments are in cash or equities (mainly unit trusts). We have nothing in property and our only corporate bonds are in two Distribution Funds (Jupiter Distn and New Star Managed Distn) and in Scottish Provident Distribution Bonds.

I'm not sure these are the best vehicles for our more cautious investments. Any views from qualified people would be welcome.

[Incidentally, if anyone suggests gold is a dead cert, IFAs needn't trouble to answer them here.]

King_Weasel

No takers, then?

I'd better try and make my next question more interesting ....

purch

Most of our savings/investments are in cash or equities

Gissa clue then .........

It's hard to make an assessment of the portfolio without a little more info on the spread of investments.

King_Weasel

Fair enough, purch, but I wasn't really asking for an overall assessment - just a view on the cautious element of the portfolio.

I've got about 20 different funds with about £5 in each.

Cash (net of credit card debt) 19.0%

Scottish Provident Distn Bond 4.7%
New Star Managed Distn 4.8%
Jupiter Distn 2.6%

JK Premier Growth Plan 5.9%

Friends Prov Capital Investment Bond (Stewardship)
6.2%

Shares directly held 10.9%
Equity funds 45.8%

Equity funds include F&C Stewardship, Jupiter Ecology & Emerging European, Std Life UK Ethical, Henderson Industries of the Future, Global Care Income & Global Technology, Aegon Ethical, AXA Framlington Health, Artemis European Growth, a couple of Far Eastern, ML New Energy Technology (Inv Trust).

I'm mostly in UK with a fair bit of US.

But it was those 3 at the top I was particularly interested in.

purch

The New Star and Jupiter Distribution Funds both have a lot of Equity holdings along with Gilts anbd Bonds

The Jupiter fund is by far the better of the two

Your portfolio is heavily weighted towards equities

There are far better Funds for Cautious Investing than these IMO, many of the Absolute Return Funds, such as the Blackrock Absolute Alpha which is heavily pushed in various posts on this forum, would do the job

earlgrey_3

purch wrote: »

There are far better Funds for Cautious Investing than these IMO, many of the Absolute Return Funds, such as the Blackrock Absolute Alpha which is heavily pushed in various posts on this forum, would do the job

Purch, I haven't really looked at the Blackrock AA fund but see it recommended absolutely everywhere I look - brokers, newspapers, message-boards. Seems to have been going only a very short time and there must be huge amounts of money now going into it. Does that look as if it might affect the performance or are all the signs that it's still doing very well?

(I think I'm a natural contrarian or maybe just plain awkward. )

RayWolfe

Strange how these new funds get pushed by the media ... it may be linked to advertising spend ... or is that being cynical?
Strange also how H-L have been pushing INV/PERP Monthly Income Plus (not a new fund) and now I see ads all over the place for the fund by INV/PERP. Has there been a relaunch? Why would H-L be party to that?
Strange.

earlgrey_3

We seem to think along the same cynical lines Ray. Terrible habit.

I'd suspect it's linked to some form of incentive or other on offer. Maybe someone else knows how it all works. A representative of the PR industry was on telly yesterday saying that 25% of stories in the papers are placed there by PR consultants. The newspaper hacks are more than happy to play along if they can be spoon-fed stories instead of finding them.

Another reason may be that it's difficult to sell straight equity investments in the present clime. Will be interesting to see how Blackrock AA does perform longer term.

purch

Will be interesting to see how Blackrock AA does perform longer term

Yes...I am still reserving judgment (not that my judgment counts for much)

I bought into the Fund at launch and so far it is doing what it say's on the 'tin'

As the Fund get's larger and larger it will become more difficult for the manager to use some of the hedging techniques at his disposal

Also if we get a sharp upward spike in prices it will take time to unwind some of the hedges and shorts, which must impact on performance.

Until that happens and we can see the results we can't tell quite how 'Absolute' this fund really is.

RayWolfe

earlgrey wrote:

A representative of the PR industry was on telly yesterday saying that 25% of stories in the papers are placed there by PR consultants.

My wife was once in the PR industry and I can confirm that. Only 25% though? Sounds a bit low!

earlgrey_3

purch wrote: »

Yes...I am still reserving judgment (not that my judgment counts for much)

I've just asked to have one of my wife's big holdings in a PEP moved into an ISA with the intention of splitting it up and will certainly be considering it. It's only her money after all.

I've always steered clear of unit trusts with all my own investments in direct holdings and ITs so don't know much about them. I do find the incredible TERs on UTs a bit off-putting though. Some of them grabbing close to half the historical returns after inflation for questionable performance is a bit hard to swallow. Nice work if you can get it.

RayWolfe wrote: »

My wife was once in the PR industry and I can confirm that. Only 25% though? Sounds a bit low!

That was a spokesman from the industry, so maybe he was being a bit modest.