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Non-UK growth IT portfolio

Closed-end funds and OEICs
wanderer101
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Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380131

Postby wanderer101 » January 24th, 2021, 5:12 am

(Warning: extraordinarily long post)

Hi all

Over the last several months I have been researching and purchasing a portfolio of ITs to diversify away from my portfolio of UK-listed shares, both geographically and sectorally. The contributions on this board including replies to earlier posts of my have been extremely helpful in developing my thinking, and I'd like to thank you all.

Here are the results so far. I'm now at the stage where most of the funds I've allocated to this portfolio have been deployed, and I would welcome thoughts, suggestions and feedback (I've included brief comments on most of the ITs involved, and anyone who gets to the end of this probably deserves a prize).

First, the principles:

I) No UK funds. Diversification away from the UK is a major objective
II) No income required. Objective is long-term total return. Investment horizon is at least 10 years, probably longer
III) Equities only. No bond or commodity funds (I have sufficient commodity exposure through my share portfolio)
IV) I am looking for significant exposure to technology and healthcare as key continuing trends in the coming years
V) I place more importance on 3- and 5-year performance than 10 years – a good position on the 10-year ranking could be driven by outperformance between 5 and 10 years ago, which is a long time back and things may have changed since then
VI) I'm willing to invest in recently-established ITs with shorter performance records if they are in interesting sectors and have made promising starts
VII) I have no minimum IT size. It's the underlying holdings that count
VIII) I would prefer to avoid but can if necessary tolerate a small premium (say up to 2 percent or so), which I view as the somewhat inescapable price of buying into a rising market.
IX) To try to control the number of trusts held I'm adopting an arbitrary but useful minimum initial holding size of 3 percent of portfolio

Second, the practice:

I've primarily used Trustnet for my research (I like the inclusion of a 3-year performance figure in the main screen), with the-aic as a backup – both sites are superb resources - plus of course the ITs' own factsheets. All figures in this post are from Trustnet.

Returns this year have been so extraordinary that to some extent they distort many trusts' long-term performance figures positively (biotech ITs are clear examples of this). I've sought to address this by looking at discrete annual performance as much as cumulative.

A note on Baillie Gifford: the stunning outperformance of the BG stable in the last 12 months has been extremely impressive. I've tried to account for the risk of being overly swayed by recent performance but several of them demand to be included in this portfolio on long-term figures. So while I've tried to diversify between fund management firms, four of my 16 holdings are still BG, plus several of my 'contenders'.

A note on China:
At present my geographical holdings do not include any China-specific funds, or broader Asian ones (which tend to be mostly or largely China-oriented). This is due to personal circumstances: China is clearly a growth story that should be considered for inclusion in a portfolio like this, but I have Chinese exposure through other investments that are off-topic for this board. There are nonetheless some Asian/Chinese ITs on my 'contenders' list.

A note on the US:
At present my geographical holdings do not include any US-specific funds, as the global trusts tend to have mostly US holdings. Nonetheless, there are some US ITs on the contenders list.

Timing: The bulk of the funds for this portfolio only became available recently, which means I've had to overcome my instinctive aversion to buying at or near all-time highs and missed out on the growth of previous months. Such is life (a few holdings were bought in March 2020 and have done well – of course at that point so would a monkey with a pin).

Third, the portfolio as it will look after a few purchases planned in the next few days:



*Keystone is shortly to become Baillie Gifford Positive Change

Contenders: when I started this process I was more focussed on geographic than sectoral diversification. I've moved more to the latter over time, but still have a list of possible additional geographic ITs – esentially the JPMorgan and Baillie Gifford Asia, US, China, Japanese smaller companies ITs, plus the JPM and Templeton emerging markets funds and Schroder Asian (but note caveats above). Of those BG's Pacific Horizon (doubled in last 12 months, less than 40 percent China but a chunky premium over NAV) and JPM Japanese Smaller are probably my top choices.
In the global sector, I have considered but rejected Lindsell Train (I can buy shares in a fund manager if I wanted to), Manchester and London (bit of a mixed bag) and Herald (UK share too large).

Fourth, a few questions:

With around 16 percent of the total funds still available to deploy, what would you do in my position? Top up some existing holdings (if so, which?)? Add something new (if so, one of my contenders, or something else entirely?)? Keep it in cash in case of a buying opportunity in the coming months? Consolidate, on the grounds I have too many different holdings?

Fifth, some thoughts on the ITs themselves

Global:
SMT/Edinburgh Worldwide/Monks:
The Baillie Gifford flight of golden geese, up respectively 415%, 366% and 255% over five years. But no company overlaps across all three of their top 10 holdings, and only three shares are to be found doubling-up in two of the lists: Tesla, Amazon and Alibaba. I can live with that. I've long considered Tesla to be ludicrously overvalued but I was pleased to see 40 percent of the SMT holding sold during December (see my post on that thread viewtopic.php?f=54&t=23391&p=378839#p378839). Wish I'd bought all three years ago, or even 12 months ago.

Martin Currie Global, Mid Wynd:
Solid, steady perfomers that offer diversification from the BG funds. Between these two Microsoft is the only holding that appears in both top 10s.

Smithson
Recently-established global smaller companies IT from Terry Smith's Fundsmith stable. Up 24.6% over one year, putting it 5th in the combined global and global smaller companies sector. Happy to see how this one develops.

Sectoral/Thematic:
BB Healthcare/Worldwide Healthcare:
I'm happy to overweight both of these to increase healthcare exposure, with several of the global trusts leaning more to tech. WWH is an outstanding long-term performer, BBH is a newcomer (only launched in 2016) but has better recent figures and appears to have more small- and mid-sized companies in the portfolio. There's only one overlapping top 10 holding, Bristol Myers Squibb (number 1 for both). Incidentally I recommend the BBH monthly factsheets - exceptionally informative.
I decided against against International Biotech and Biotech Growth given the volatility of biotech-only firms and funds.

Allianz Tech/Polar Capital Tech:
ATT is an extraordinary performer in the most successful sector of recent years, up more than 400 percent in five years. Polar Capital suffers by comparison but is still up more than 300 percent in the same period, and is currently available on a discount of nearly 8 percent. Only 4 of their top 10 holdings overlap and I'm happy to hold both.

HG Capital:
Private equity fund focussed on tech and renewable energy with a solid record. NAV only updates every few months so the current premium is based on out-of-date figures.
Augmentum Fintech:
Recent private equity entrant with a currently-hot focus and a good start. I'm taking a punt on this at minimum holding size to see how it plays out.

Keystone:
Bought this as soon as the transformation into BG Positive Change was announced – it has been a successful strategy for BG (and having seen the way Witan Pacific raced to a ludicrous premium when it changed to BG). Again, likely to include Tesla once the mandate switches but I'll have to live with that.

Geographical:
BRGE, FJV and MTE are each among the best-performing trusts in their sectors. MTE is outstanding – in the top 15 of all ITs over three and five years according to Trustnet.

To anyone who makes it this far, congratulations and thank you.

Welcome your thoughts.

Cheers wand

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380140

Postby Urbandreamer » January 24th, 2021, 8:18 am

Have you got a copy of this years Investment Trusts Handbook?
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Investment-T ... 157&sr=1-1

At the end it has a table of top ten performing trusts in 10,20,30 year periods.

You may find of interest the fact that SMT is number 2 in each period. The trust in number 1 spot in any of the periods does not show up in the other periods.

I'm currently building a holding in PHI (another Baillie Gifford trust) which is in the 20 & 30 year tables and has been doing quite well of late. Sadly that means it's on a significant premium.

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380149

Postby Dod101 » January 24th, 2021, 9:05 am

I now discover that PHI is Pacific Horizon (just in case anyone else, like me, did not recognise the EPIC)

Frankly to revert to the OP, I think he has done a great job but with 16 trusts he has enough otherwise buying a world tracker would make sense and would show a great savings in costs. Personally I would keep clear of Baillie Gifford because however good they may be I think he has enough exposure to them and one day they are bound to go off the boil. With any additional funds I would just spread them across what he has already chose. No doubt folks will come along with their favourite IT which is missing, but it seems to me that the OP has done a great job and has a carefully selected list of some of the better growth trusts. Might even investigate a few of them for myself.

Dod

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380157

Postby TUK020 » January 24th, 2021, 9:21 am

A very well thought through investment thesis, that is geared to prospect of continued growth from technology stocks.

If there is anything I would worry about, it is how this portfolio would fare if global inflation takes off, interest rates rise, and future cash flows get much more heavily discounted. Not predicting this will happen, but it has to be a risk to consider.

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380193

Postby Dod101 » January 24th, 2021, 10:41 am

TUK020 wrote:A very well thought through investment thesis, that is geared to prospect of continued growth from technology stocks.

If there is anything I would worry about, it is how this portfolio would fare if global inflation takes off, interest rates rise, and future cash flows get much more heavily discounted. Not predicting this will happen, but it has to be a risk to consider.


One day that will happen or at least could happen but so could a lot of other things. The OP I think needs to take things as they are now and cross any other bridge when he reaches it.

BTW when I said 'keep clear of Baillie Gifford' I of course meant for any additional funds. I think very highly of them as an investment house but they seem almost to have become the 'go to' place for any IT that is underperforming. That places a huge burden on them.

Dod

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380212

Postby Wuffle » January 24th, 2021, 11:19 am

The increased costs notwithstanding, this looks quite like BMPG (BMO Managed Portfolio Growth).
Yes, yes double costs etc, etc but as a poor person (never going to have enough to make this many holdings sensible) you just have to suck this up sometimes and take the good parts for what they are. And I might.

W.

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380216

Postby Urbandreamer » January 24th, 2021, 11:32 am

Dod101 wrote:I now discover that PHI is Pacific Horizon (just in case anyone else, like me, did not recognise the EPIC)
...
Dod


Many apologies. I tend to think in terms of the EPIC and have no trouble researching IT's and shares by their EPIC. Either google or Yahoo will decode the epic with little effort. DuckDuckGo will also find a HL link if you just append the words share price.

Also names can be misleading. SMT doesn't really do mortgages and LWDB have little to do with either Law or Debentures now.

I understand that Trustnet doesn't make it easy to search by EPIC, but it is easier if you know the manager.

I agree that the portfolio is well thought out to meet the stated objectives. I mentioned PHI because of it's past performance and the OP's desire to diversify away from the UK, Though I note that Fevertree and Rightmove, both in Smithsons top holdings, are quite exposed to the UK.

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380225

Postby richfool » January 24th, 2021, 11:52 am

If I don't recognise an EPIC/ticker, I just put the code into HL's webpage and up it pops, with links to their factsheet.

Of the OP's non-UK growth holdings, I also hold: SMT, MNKS, EWI, BGEU, USA and PHI from the BG (Baillie Gifford) stable. Though I also hold other non-BG IT's from those particular sectors, e.g. MWY, (Mid Wynd), BRGE (Blackrock European Growth trust) and a number of Asian Pacific G&I trusts.

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380230

Postby Dod101 » January 24th, 2021, 12:02 pm

Urbandreamer wrote:
Dod101 wrote:I now discover that PHI is Pacific Horizon (just in case anyone else, like me, did not recognise the EPIC)
...
Dod


Many apologies. I tend to think in terms of the EPIC and have no trouble researching IT's and shares by their EPIC. Either google or Yahoo will decode the epic with little effort. DuckDuckGo will also find a HL link if you just append the words share price.

Also names can be misleading. SMT doesn't really do mortgages and LWDB have little to do with either Law or Debentures now.

I understand that Trustnet doesn't make it easy to search by EPIC, but it is easier if you know the manager.

I agree that the portfolio is well thought out to meet the stated objectives. I mentioned PHI because of it's past performance and the OP's desire to diversify away from the UK, Though I note that Fevertree and Rightmove, both in Smithsons top holdings, are quite exposed to the UK.


No need to apologise to a grumpy old man but thanks anyway. I thought we had agreed a sort of convention that we would spell out the names of the share for the first mention on a thread. I know very well that company/IT names are often not very descriptive but that is not the point. Many people will know the characteristics of a company called Pacific Horizons but not necessarily PHI which I immediately think of as permanent health insurance or maybe a corruption of PHP, Primary Health Properties.

Dod

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380273

Postby shawsdale » January 24th, 2021, 2:23 pm

An interesting and well-constructed portfolio.
Depending on other existing investments not mentioned in the first post, given this is a 'growth' strategy I'd suggest the following possible gaps for investigation:

- Non-China emerging markets.
Many EM vehicles are China-dominated, which may not be a bad thing, but given the increasingly China-focused SMT's presence in the list then looking to frontier markets (e.g. Blackrock Frontiers) or India (e.g. Ashoka India Equity) would broaden the coverage.

- Smaller companies
I'm not sure all the general growth trusts at the top of the OP's list would add as much in the longer-term as a greater exposure to smaller companies, either through a higher allocation to EWI, SSON, or adding one or two more regionally specific smaller company strategies, perhaps Japan: JSGI or Shin Nippon?

- 'Value'
As one of the other replies hints, it would be prudent to position at least some of any newly initiated investment strategy to benefit from a potential rotation to value, particularly if the inflation and interest rate backdrop changes in the medium term.
Fidelity Asian Values (FAS) is one possibility here, combining smaller companies and a value tilt. There are of course other 'value' trusts available, but any look at their 3-5 year performance data is unlikely to cast them in a favourable light.

That said, if I had a large amount of capital to deploy in the near term I'd apply at least some of it to areas of the global stock market left behind (relatively) over the last few years: ideally a credible global small cap value trust.
Does such an investment strategy exist (even within the world of ETFs)?.

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380547

Postby jimmyfromlargs » January 25th, 2021, 11:45 am

Wanderer,

I thought this was an excellent post and provided me with much food for thought. I’m always on the lookout for new ideas, many of which are never acted upon.

But there are some great thoughts in your portfolio suggestions.

I will add to this some of the things that have done well for me and that are NOT perhaps covered....

Finsbury Growth...FGT...I have been in this for years and although moving a little sideways at present it has done well for me over the timescale of 5 years.

Standard Life .....SLS... This holding has again done well, this is the only small companies trust I own, I’m sure there are better but over the 5 - 10 years I have more than doubled by money.

Of course its my duds that are perhaps more interesting, and I share some of them........Fundsmith Emerging Markets.....FEET .....did nothing for 3.5 years so I sold out. TMP I retain this holding as a reminder as to how badly one can choose despite research....its recovering sloooowly.

I’m also a holding of PNL, .....Fundsmith, BGCG, MYI........

So thanks for sharing your thoughts it was very helpful.....Jimmy

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380865

Postby Avantegarde » January 26th, 2021, 11:21 am

Far too complex for my taste. If I were you I'd put at least half my money into a world-wide ex-UK tracker. Then, perhaps, put a bit of money into trusts which have a good philosophy and are NOT index-huggers (Scottish Mortgage, Edinburgh Worldwide and Smithson spring to mind) plus one or two very large generalists such as Bankers and F&C. That is five trusts and one tracker. Simple, and easy to remember.

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#380949

Postby jackdaww » January 26th, 2021, 3:28 pm

Avantegarde wrote:Far too complex for my taste. If I were you I'd put at least half my money into a world-wide ex-UK tracker. Then, perhaps, put a bit of money into trusts which have a good philosophy and are NOT index-huggers (Scottish Mortgage, Edinburgh Worldwide and Smithson spring to mind) plus one or two very large generalists such as Bankers and F&C. That is five trusts and one tracker. Simple, and easy to remember.


================================

bear in mind many of these world wide global trackers mostly consist of the biggest american companies , so not really global .

its quite easy to pick IT's tracking japan , USA, europ , china, etc to get global exposure .

:)

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#381005

Postby Hariseldon58 » January 26th, 2021, 6:02 pm

Avantegarde wrote:Far too complex for my taste. If I were you I'd put at least half my money into a world-wide ex-UK tracker. Then, perhaps, put a bit of money into trusts which have a good philosophy and are NOT index-huggers (Scottish Mortgage, Edinburgh Worldwide and Smithson spring to mind) plus one or two very large generalists such as Bankers and F&C. That is five trusts and one tracker. Simple, and easy to remember.


This is an interesting point, I have previously had 50 + investment trusts and it was recently at a low of around 10 ( not dissimilar to your suggestion )... and I am heading to add more.
The upside of a simple portfolio is a lack of attention and admin, combined with focus and low trading costs, it has performed very well ( lots of US exposure, not every period rewards a world tracker, eg a world tracker in 1989 was poor idea, Japan went from 40% of the index to 8% over the years) however the popularity of trackers, groupthink and the concentration of the portfolio in large caps causes me concern.

I am looking to have a core passive portfolio ( around 30% ) plus a series of other portfolios to provide more diversity over the longer term, in a crash they all go down together but longer term, diversity really helps. Investment Trusts are a good way of specialising and holding a number of trusts in a category provides dispersion of management risks. The central point is that my strategy will run for a five year period without tinkering, each specialist portfolio will have a passive tracker as a benchmark which will be owned and at the end we see where we are...

Regarding the admin, in my case, almost all assets are in tax sheltered accounts, with automatic dividend reinvesting, I do the admin because I am interested but I don’t have to do anything...it could just be ignored and the portfolio is of a size that each sub portfolio and holding is sensible.

The OP has an interesting collection, many of which I hold or are actively looking at, I look forward to any updates.

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#381012

Postby Lootman » January 26th, 2021, 6:31 pm

Hariseldon58 wrote:not every period rewards a world tracker, eg a world tracker in 1989 was poor idea, Japan went from 40% of the index to 8% over the years)

I remember the 1989 market top in Japan very clearly. Purely by luck and coincidence I sold my only Japanese fund on that very day. The best piece of fortuitous market timing I ever did. And a pure fluke.

But did a global tracker really do that badly in the year that followed? After all if Japan went from 40% to 8% then the allocation to other countries by definition went up. The only reason a global tracker would have done badly is if the global index did badly. And as I recall this was specifically a Japanese event - their bubble bursting. Japan had largely avoided the 1987 drop that affected the rest of the world, which barely blinked as Japan crashed.

And in 1989 the performance stats for the US looked terrible. That was of course also the start of American out-performance which has continued to this day. Which has led to the US now being something like 55% of global market cap. Many think that makes a global index distorted again. But if it did falter perhaps China would take over the mantle?

The real value of a global tracker is that you do not have to worry about all these dislocations. The fund automatically adjusts to the rise and fall of different countries. And the ex-dividend annualised return of a global tracker is about 10% over the last decade. Not bad for a no-think portfolio.

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#381039

Postby Hariseldon58 » January 26th, 2021, 8:36 pm

Clearly there were very few trackers on the market in 1989 but if 40% of your fund was in an asset that fell by around 75% it didn’t do you any favours ...

The World tracker is presently very heavily biased to the US market and all is well as long as that continues...

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#381058

Postby kempiejon » January 26th, 2021, 10:32 pm

Hariseldon58 wrote:
The World tracker is presently very heavily biased to the US market and all is well as long as that continues...


Isn't it that of total global trade about 50% is US and the world tracker replicates that, and if that were to change the trackers would reflect same?

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#381064

Postby dspp » January 26th, 2021, 11:00 pm

kempiejon wrote:
Hariseldon58 wrote:
The World tracker is presently very heavily biased to the US market and all is well as long as that continues...


Isn't it that of total global trade about 50% is US and the world tracker replicates that, and if that were to change the trackers would reflect same?


I think you will find that 50% of global publically traded market cap is US, just look at VWRL for info. That is considerably different than an allocation of 'global' GDP either on par-value terms or (perhaps a truer measure) PPP terms. A lot of capital is not publically traded. And capital allocations are not the same as GDP (revenue) allocations. If one were to allocate in accordance with GDP one would end up with a very different tracker than if allocating by mkt cap. That is why I upweight non-US by adding in VAPX and VERX in my case, de-emphasising VUKE right now due to Brexit problems, and still not having a good solution in my case to give CN exposure.

The OP's portfolio is interesting inasmuch as it has thematic rationales. However it is a) extremely concentrated and b) lacks an anchor. If say 50% were in e.g. VWRL/VAPX/VERX/etc then the anchor would be provided which would simultaneously provide thousands of companies in diversification, and also reduce thematic poor-selection exposure. By stating the OP's investment thesis before using (say) VWRL as the benchmark they have put the cart before the horse. That is entirely up to them, but it risks them picking the wrong themes.

I see this as being positioned as a growth portfolio. I see no great explanation of why it is expected to be growth (hope perhaps?) nor of the commensurate amount of risk they are prepared to buckle in for. If the intent is to course-correct at 5-years is that in fact being prepared to sell at the nadir of the 10-year (not-so-long) term that they hope for.

This is not to say I am agin the OP's selections, but I do suspect that the starting point may contain problems in reaching their hoped for destination.

regards, dspp

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#381125

Postby tikunetih » January 27th, 2021, 9:18 am

wanderer101 wrote:First, the principles:

I) No UK funds. Diversification away from the UK is a major objective
II) No income required. Objective is long-term total return. Investment horizon is at least 10 years, probably longer
III) Equities only. No bond or commodity funds (I have sufficient commodity exposure through my share portfolio)
IV) I am looking for significant exposure to technology and healthcare as key continuing trends in the coming years
V) I place more importance on 3- and 5-year performance than 10 years – a good position on the 10-year ranking could be driven by outperformance between 5 and 10 years ago, which is a long time back and things may have changed since then
VI) I'm willing to invest in recently-established ITs with shorter performance records if they are in interesting sectors and have made promising starts
VII) I have no minimum IT size. It's the underlying holdings that count
VIII) I would prefer to avoid but can if necessary tolerate a small premium (say up to 2 percent or so), which I view as the somewhat inescapable price of buying into a rising market.
IX) To try to control the number of trusts held I'm adopting an arbitrary but useful minimum initial holding size of 3 percent of portfolio


I cannot see mention of how this portfolio will be managed going forward...

Are there any sell rules?
Or, once purchased, do you just hold this portfolio "for ever", with complete indifference to what the future brings?

Trusts are being selected largely based on intermediate term past performance it seems, but what happens when future performance of a trust disappoints, or conversely amazes? Do you just ignore it all, good and bad, or are there rules/principles to be applied for ongoing management (and risk management)?

If there are any sell rules, are they (i) all performance based, or (ii) also qualitative, ie. are you able to say: "this hasn't performed well, but the underlying strategy remains sound and well implemented, so I'll wait for better times"?

And if there are sell rules, then there also need to be buy rules, for replacing what's been sold.

Assembling portfolios is possibly the easier aspect of investing, with many of the difficulties that trip people up arising more from the ongoing management as fortune throws up events along the way. It usually pays to consider these aspects up-front IMO.

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Re: Non-UK growth IT portfolio

#386350

Postby wanderer101 » February 13th, 2021, 11:30 am

Many thanks to all for the kind comments and thought-provoking constructive criticism.

To address a few points that were raised in the discussion (and clarify my thinking for my own purposes):

I've added Pacific Horizon (PHI) to the portfolio. If and when new funds are added and existing holdings not topped up, I have JP Morgan US Small Cap (JUSC) and JPM Japan Small Cap (JSGI) top of my list for new holdings.

'Too many trusts': each to their own to be honest. I really enjoy the research process and having a wider selection of holdings allows me more choice over how I'm investing my funds.

'Wrong theme risk': certainly, I don't know what the most successful investment themes in the short, medium or long term are going to be. To a certain extent that's what I'm paying the managers of the global ITs to identify and invest in accordingly, and why I have several of those global trusts.
In terms of the 'sectoral' selections, I acknowledge it's a risk, but it's one I consider acceptable. If some other theme emerges in future and outperforms them, it will show up in the overall IT tables within a few years and I can re-assess.

'Intermediate past performance selection': yes, absolutely, guilty as charged. Past performance is of course no guarantee of future success but in the absence of a functioning crystal ball (which I don't have) it's one of the least unlikely potential indicators. I'd rather be invested in a strategy that is currently doing well than one that isn't and hoping for a turnaround - and if that turnaround does happen, I'm happy to jump on the bandwagon a couple of years down the line.

Future management: very good question. In general principle I see this as a LTBH portfolio, but not a never-seller: I'm not averse to selling a consistent underperformer (ie at least two and more likely 3 years) and switching to something else (see 'wrong theme risk' above). That said, as some of the selection process has been relatively subjective and circumstance-driven I'm not sure I can come up with a hard-and-fast set of sell rules.
I intend to assess on a yearly basis, both within the portfolio and more broadly, ie running a complete a 'start from scratch' reselection exercise to see how it compares and whether it throws up any new contenders (as mentioned, I enjoy the research process).
Certainly I don't intend to trim outperformers at any point: several years of investing in single-company shares have taught me that the single aspect of investment that I am undoubtedly worst at is timing when to sell a rising share. If the IT managers are doing well I'm happy to delegate that to them, and I can live with the risks of a lopsided IT portfolio if it's the result of investment success ('Let your winners run').

Thanks again for the feedback. I'll look to report back in a year's time.

cheers wand


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