End of Year Review and possible rethink?

[zharrt]

I hope your umbrella company is contributing to your SIPP by salary sacrifice? Some do, but some don't. Salary sacrifice is the most efficient way of getting money into your pension as an umbrella company employee.

Yes its via salary sacrifice, I am limited by the umbrellas allowed, limited by the allowed umbrellas that allow paying into your own SIPP rather than their workplace pension, and again limited by providers the umbrella will work with, but that is another story!

[BullDog]

I hope your umbrella company is contributing to your SIPP by salary sacrifice? Some do, but some don't. Salary sacrifice is the most efficient way of getting money into your pension as an umbrella company employee.

Yes its via salary sacrifice, I am limited by the umbrellas allowed, limited by the allowed umbrellas that allow paying into your own SIPP rather than their workplace pension, and again limited by providers the umbrella will work with, but that is another story!

OK. Then that's as good as you can hope for. I fully understand how it works.

[BullDog]

You have to give yourself time to get your plan straight. It seems there is a vast amount for you to learn here***. Luckily time is on your side.

I would just point out though that in focusing on income stocks and income ITs you have fallen into the trap of owning stocks that are more or less returning your capital to you as dividends. This is not what you want. You need to primarily grow your wealth and monitor it, say annually, through total return which is growth plus dividends. Adjust your plan as circumstances develop and you under or over perform against your objectives.

Take your time to understand how everything works and put together a plan. Knee jerk response is most definitely not what you need at the time.

*** Like not knowing the difference between open and closed end collective investments and apparently not fully understanding the charges made by a retail investment platform and the investments held there.

Good luck, but do your research and when you get further fown the line pist again to rap into the knowledge here.

Thanks, you are right there is still much I don't know, I have been looking at overall return and been tracking annually, pure raw numbers on holdings value has generally higher than the last (2016 +12.27%, 2017 +12.79%, 2018 -7.29%, 2019 +16.98, 2020 -1.93%, 2021 +12.55) but I suspect this is more dumb luck that skill.

I know HL is one of the more expensive platforms (and one that I am stuck with for the time being). I have "tried" to keep under the £200 a year fees cap, which I have managed to do so far, but again I think this is more going on basic assumptions (shares good, funds bad) but not realising there are a myriad of types of funds which have different costs.

OK, so you now know where to start the learning and where to start setting out objectives and formulating a plan. HL are OK as long as you don't hold open end investment vehicles. HL have some very well disguised ways of maximising their income from account holders. Unfortunately for you at HL, if you are wanting to minimise platform charges (and you should be), that rules out some very fine growth vehicles that are structured as OEICs. But right now, that's not your main problem. Good luck with the plans.

[doug2500]

Allianz Technology Trust - GoodUS tech focused which is an area I want to be in
Oryx International Growth Fund - Still very much UK focused but on the small and mid-size companies
Pacific Horizon Investment Trst - Good coverage in the Asia-Pacific region and the Indian Sub-continent
Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust - US leaning but not tech focused which I have covered with ATT

Others I have considered were

ASI UK Smaller Companies rather than Oryx as I like the look of their holdings, but the fact its a Open Ended Fund dissuaded me for the fees, but would be happy to have a single fund with higher fees if it makes better long term sense

Take your time, but I don't think there's anything wrong with these FWIW. I don't know much about Pacific Horizon.

There is the almost identical Aberdeen UK Smaller Companies Investment trust which should tick your boxes. Been a solid performer for a good while.

[Wuffle]

It does not appear to have been explicitly stated that the HL analysis tool does not 'look through' to the constituent parts of Investment Trusts, simply categorising them as UK financial services products.
Which the OP thought he had to excess, when he/she probably didn't.
Costs and growth vs income questions are separate.

W.

[77ss]

.....
I know HL is one of the more expensive platforms (and one that I am stuck with for the time being). I have "tried" to keep under the £200 a year fees cap, which I have managed to do so far, but again I think this is more going on basic assumptions (shares good, funds bad) but not realising there are a myriad of types of funds which have different costs.

The language people use influences the way they think.

I suggest that you stop using the word 'fund' - so vague as to be positively confusing. Investment Trusts, Unit Trusts, OIECs, ETFs... If you read some media article about 'funds', chances are that it is about UTs, but is is often undefined. Unhelpful - and often just UT advertising spoonfed to 'journalists' in my view.

All these come with annual charges which you can do nothing about. Some brokers charge extra - this you have more control over. I don't think that it is sensible to be too concerned about the non-broker charges. If an investment is delivering the goods for you, why should you care? As the good book says 'The labourer is worthy of his hire'.

Personally, of all these, I only use ITs. I have had UTs and OIECs in the past, but I find that there are plenty of ITs that do what I want so I no longer bother. I much prefer the simplicity of ITs - and the fact that you can deal with them exactly as you would with individual equities. ETFs I am thinking about.

As others have advised, the AIC website is a splendid resource. Both for finding ITs in sectors that interest you and for checking out geography, discounts and (e.g.) 5 year total return. Many other factors too.

You mention leaning towards a number of ITS. Many on these boards have done well with SMT. I have done well with ATT & PHI. As for the future - well, that is always another matter.

Good luck!

[Urbandreamer]

I much prefer the simplicity of ITs - and the fact that you can deal with them exactly as you would with individual equities.

While I share your opinion, I have a friend (by no means new to investment) who has never bought an individual equity and can't get his head around Investment trusts.

For him the facts that the price to buy is different from the price to sell and that neither price reflects the fundimental value and may be at a premium or discount, makes Investment trusts far more complicated than Unit trusts.

There is of course another board for discussing the relative merrits.

Regarding HL's analysis tool, I'm not a customer and can't comment. A J Bell use MorningStar's X-Ray tool, which does a fairly decent job of drilling down into what investment trusts hold. Of course using it through an ISA or SIPP account with a broker is very limited. You get a report on that account and not your portfolio. I'm glad the subject came up though because I shall now investigate using the tool directly.

[77ss]

.... the price to buy is different from the price to sell and that neither price reflects the fundimental value....

Sounds rather like a house to me